The University of Evansville men’s basketball team moved in, and the Purple Aces home games sold out. Fandom was rampant. Coach Arad McCutchan was in the middle of his NCAA Hall of Fame career. He led players with star power, including NBA Hall of Famer and current Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan. McCutchan’s teams won five national titles in the NCAA college division, the precursor to Division II.

When McCutchan retired, a young and promising Coach Bobby Watson began a new era in Division I in 1977. The passionate UE fans who had been selling out Hank’s Tank for two decades found a renewed spirit. Shortly into the season on a cold December night, the team boarded a plane headed to Nashville, Tenn., for the fifth game of the year in Murfreesboro. A combination of airplane complications led to a tragic crash. The entire team died in the accident. The season was canceled, and the UE athletic department was left to rebuild.

Successful junior college coach Dick Walters took over, and under his tenure, the team earned its first NCAA Division I tournament bid. Then, Jim Crews became the new head coach in 1985. After four trips to the NCAA tournament, Crews left to coach at the Army. (His contract with the Army was terminated in September.) The program was dwindling, and there were a few tough seasons with Steve Merfeld, Crews’ successor. Seven losing seasons later, UE fandom sputtered and nearly stalled until Marty Simmons, a dominant UE forward from the 1980s, returned to coach. His first two seasons have shown turnaround, improvement, and hope fans need. Despite the hardships and setbacks, UE still has fans who watch every bounce of the ball, hold their collective breaths with every shot attempt, and cheer like it’s the 1950s. Here’s why they remain so passionate — and positive.

Tim Otte was in elementary school when he attended his first UE basketball game. When it was over, he marched into the locker room and talked with the players. “It wasn’t like now — with all the security,” remembers the 51-year-old Otte. “You could just walk right in there and talk to them.”

The experience stuck with Otte, who was a UE sophomore when the plane carrying the basketball team crashed. When the news reached his dorm, it “was gut wrenching,” he says. The players were his classmates. “That was probably the most painful thing I remember,” Otte says. “It was like a part of me was being taken with them.”

The good memories carry Otte through the years, though. To this day, he rattles off player names and stats like they’re the Pledge of Allegiance: “The first (memory I have is from) ’71 when Don Buse threw the ball up and hit the scoreboard. (Scott) Haffner scored 65 points in ’89. That was unbelievable. We were trying to figure out how many he had in our heads. Parrish Casebier against Notre Dame, when he had 30 at halftime. Then going back to ’99 with Marcus Wilson. That was a fun team to watch. I was at Marty’s last game. He hit 9 of 10 3-pointers.”

Simmons is the man Otte believes can restore some of the winning luster to the program. “You only have to spend five minutes with him to tell what direction the program is going,” Otte says. “It’s like an aura he’s got.” Of course, last year marked UE’s first winning season since 2000, and Otte still feels Simmons’ aura when he attends home games with his wife, Elizabeth. “Every game is like the most important game ever,” Otte says.

The Ottes aren’t the only husband and wife duo who make attending games a regularity. For five decades, Jim and Glenda Ralph have been regulars at UE games. Jim’s spark ignited when he was a young Owensboro, Ky., resident rooting for the hometown’s Kentucky Wesleyan College. Their great play was contagious, and Jim looked to support other regional teams. UE was an obvious choice. He’d gather friends and drive 40 miles to watch the Aces play in the Armory, the predecessor of Roberts Stadium.