Hey guys, I grew up in Evansville in the mid 80s and early 90s when the Aces were an absolute power. I still remember my father taking me to the elite 8 game in 1990 when they beat IU 1-0 and advanced to the College Cup( they lost to Alexi Lalas and Rutgers).
As for what happened to them, Snowling’s explination is pretty accurate. I did hear from another soccer guy in the area that Fred Smaltz actually got black listed among St Louis high school coaches in the mid 90s. Seems he promised a bunch of things to recruits and never followed through. That killed his recruiting pipeline. They also had success recruiting In the UK: Mick Lyon, who later coached IU women, David Weir, etc... Well that pipeline dried up too and UE never recovered. UE soccer is about as bad as UE basketball now.