INDIANAPOLIS - IUPUI exploded for 57 second half points on its way to a convincing 89-77 win over UMass in front of a raucous home crowd on Saturday night. Junior George Hill narrowly missed a triple-double with 30 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists. Sophomore Jon Avery added 25 points and eight rebounds off the bench.
The win was IUPUI's fourth-in-a-row and the first-ever over an Atlantic-10 opponent.
"We only wrote one word on the board before the game, and that was validation," a jubilant Ron Hunter said following the game. "This win continues to give our program validation.
"I'm so proud of George Hill and really all of our guys. We scrapped and played our hearts out tonight - this was a great win for our team and our university."
Hill helped the Jaguars (5-2) erase an 11-point halftime deficit with a 16-5 run before the first media timeout of the second half. UMass (5-2) guard Ricky Harris stalled the run with a dunk in transition, but the Jags continued to make plays and take advantage of fresher legs.
Hill, who scored 26 of his 30 in the second half, tied the game at 62 with 8:06 to play at the foul line. After Gary Forbes missed a long trey at the other end, Hill swished a high arcing three from the left wing to give the Jags the lead for good.
The Minutemen came within one on a Luke Bonner layup at the other end, but Hill set up Avery with a thunderous ally-oop at the other end to send The Jungle into a frenzy. Senior Austin Montgomery pushed the lead to five with a line drive three from the right corner before Hill made it 75-67 with his fourth three of the night with just over four minutes left.
"George just took over this basketball game. They had no answer for him, and it showed," Hunter said. "When he gets going like that, he can be unstoppable."
The 6-foot-2 Summit League Preseason Player of the Year hit 4-of-5 from beyond the arc and 10-of-11 at the foul line, finishing just two points shy of his career-best night. He added three steals in a full 40-minute effort. Avery did his damage with a collection of dunks and putbacks, hitting 12-of-17 from the floor in 33 minutes.
Montgomery finished with 12 points on 4-of-8 shooting while sophomore Billy Pettiford contributed nine points, five rebounds and two assists.
The Jaguars shot 54.5 percent in the second half to balance out the field goal shooting. UMass torched the nets at better than a 56 percent clip in the first half to take a 43-32 lead to the locker room.
Hill opened the game with a putback of his own miss, but UMass scored the next 11 in just over two minutes. The Jaguars pulled even at 17, but were never able to regain the lead in the first half.
Out of a late 30-second timeout, UMass head coach Travis Ford opted to go two-for-one, getting a three from Max Groebe and another from Forbes as time expired. Harris led UMass with 23 while Forbes, the A-10's leading scorer coming into Saturday, was held to 12 points and seven rebounds.
After hitting 14 treys in a 107-100 win at Syracuse on Wednesday, UMass hit just 9-of-25 (36.0 percent) on Saturday. Meanwhile, IUPUI hit 9-of-18 (50.0 percent).
"We knew they'd have to start missing at some point," Hunter said. "We wanted to treat their misses like turnovers. We had to get the ball off the glass and get out and go. As the game went longer, they started missing a little more and more. We knew if we could stay in it, we'd be fine."
IUPUI will ride its four-game winning streak into Summit League play next Saturday when it travels to Macomb, Ill. to take on Western Illinois. Tip time is slated for 7:00 p.m CST from Western Hall. That game can be heard locally on Freedom 95.9 FM as Greg Rakestraw calls the action. It can also be heard via the web at IUPUIJags.com.
