The good news was Miami-Ohio improving to 13-0 after Monday’s 135-81 win over Milligan University, but there was a sadder story.
Junior point guard Evan Ipsaro is gone for the season after tearing an anterior cruciate knee ligament during Saturday’s Mid-American Conference opener, an 86-77 win at Ball State. Ipsaro’s injury was the first subject RedHawks head coach Travis Steele addressed in the postgame press conference.
“Very, very, very unfortunate,” Steele said. “Obviously you hate seeing a young man, especially of his character, go through an injury. He gives his heart and soul, and he has, to our program every single day since he’s been here. He’s the best teammate, he’s an extremely hard worker – that’s why he’s gotten so much better.”
Ipsaro finishes with 13.9 points and 2.4 rebounds a game. Before the injury, he was on on CollegeInsider.com’s Early Season Watch List for the 2025-26 Lou Henson Award, which is presented annually to the top player in mid-major Division I college basketball.
No intention on leaving
Steele asked one very important question last March: would Ipsaro (a Covington Catholic graduate) enter the transfer portal?
“I just told him ‘no’ from the get-go,” Ipsaro said. “I never really had any intention on leaving, never planned on leaving at all.”
Ipsaro was maybe of the last to know he was on the CollegeInsider.com list.
“I mean, I feel honored, but clearly it’s not a personal goal of mine,” Ipsaro said. “My personal goal would be to win a MAC championship and play in the NCAA tournament.”
Any doubt Ipsaro was worthy of Henson consideration might have been erased after an early-December two-game stretch. He scored a career-high 24 points in a 93-61 win over Maine on Dec. 6, a record that lasted just four days after his 27helped give the RedHawks a 90-87 win at North Carolina-Asheville.
“He constantly has the ball in his hands, being the point guard and all,” Miami redshirt sophomore Brant Byers said. And then, we get put in the right spots, and he usually finds us, and if he doesn’t find us, that means he’s probably scoring it himself.”
First offer
Steele was Xavier’s head coach when he first heard of Ipsaro’s performance at team camps, and he likely knew about the 32 points Ipsaro put on Great Crossing in CovCath’s 75-60 win on Dec. 1, 2022.
“You put the ball in his hands and he makes us look good as coaches,” former CovCath coach Scott Ruthsatz told LINK nky.
When Steele moved to Oxford, his first task was to recruit a point guard.
“(Ipsaro) was my first offer when I got here to Miami,” Steele said. “And I knew I had to get the PG – the point guard position – right. And I think anytime you have a great point guard … it’s essentially the extension of the coach on the floor, right?
One of the first things you notice about Ipsaro is his creativity – at 6-feet, he’s the shortest RedHawk, but he’s unafraid to drive to the basket.
A four-point spurt in overtime against UNC-Asheville was illustrative.
With 2:06 to go, when the Bulldogs’ 6-8 Daniel Thomas appears to overplay to Ipsaro’s right, Ipsaro cut left and ultimately on the way to a layup. Less than a minute later, he was on the left wing when he stopped, let Asheville’s 6-6 DJ Patrick go by and knocked down an 18-footer.
“You know, he’s a fearless kid,” Steele said. “He thinks he’s the best player on the floor.”
‘Look for your shot’
As a freshman in 2023-24, Ipsaro started in 11 of 29 games; he came off the bench in 34 games last year, averaging 6.5 and 6.9 points a game, respectively.
“Even when he was in high school, I would tell him, ‘man, you gotta look for your shot more, you shoot the ball so well’,” Steele said. “Now he’s got the speed, and he’s always had that. He’s a jet, but he can really, really shoot the ball.”
Ipsaro’s percentages have ticked upward, from 42.4% to 52.3% to this year’s 57.3%. Ipsaro has been working on threethings – being more aggressive, his 3-point shot (he averages 40.6%) and being more poised in the paint – what he calls “playing on two feet.”
“When you drive in the lane, a lot of high school players, they jump off one foot, try to make a layup or something like that, instead of coming to a stop off two feet, which is much more productive,” Ipsaro said.
Miami continues MAC play Dec. 30 at Bowling Green.
