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INDIANAPOLIS - On the south wall of The Jungle, larger than life images of George Hill and Austin Montgomery are depicted. On Saturday night, the duo came up with all the big plays as IUPUI outlasted Oral Roberts 69-66 in front of a capacity crowd. Montgomery hit 6-of-7 shots to finish with a team-high 18 and Hill, the league' preseason Player of the Year, added 16 points, eight rebounds and four assists.

"This team finds ways to win games," IUPUI head coach Ron Hunter said. "We never panic, even when they went up by one, we never panic. We like to rely on our defense to win games."

ORU (18-6, 13-1 Summit) gave IUPUI reasons to panic, including leading 66-65 with 44 seconds left when Robert Jarvis drained a three from the right wing. Coming out of a timeout, Montgomery answered the call in unconventional fashion.

The reigning conference Newcomer of the Year passed on a wide open three-point attempt before driving down the right side of the lane. The 6-foot-5 swingman absorbed contact from Yemi Ogunoye before dropping a layup, setting up an old fashioned three-point play. 

After a 30-second timeout, ORU's Adam Liberty misfired on a hotly contested three and sophomore Billy Pettiford came up with the rebound. Trailing 68-66, ORU intentionally fouled Hill with 8.5 seconds left. 

Hill missed the first before swishing the second, giving the Golden Eagles one last chance. Fortunately for IUPUI (21-5, 13-2), Jarvis missed badly from 35-feet, sealing the Jags' eighth straight win and 15th-in-a-row at home. The loss snapped ORU's 11-game winning streak. 

"This is the first time in the two years I’ve been here that I’ve beaten ORU," Montgomery said. "I thought we had a chance to beat them at their place, but I wasn’t able to play. So I wanted to come out here and prove a point tonight."

Montgomery missed the first meeting due to an NCAA delivered suspension, but played a key role on Saturday night. He and Hill combined to score IUPUI's final 13 points over the last four minutes. Montgomery also came up with an important steal with 3:11 left as IUPUI clung to a one-point advantage. 

Each time ORU took a one-point lead down the stretch, either he or Hill answered at the other end. Trailing 59-58 with 2:24 to play, Hill came down and beat Ogunoye right en route to a traditional three-point play. Even after a Jarvis four-point play with 4:26 left, Montgomery responded with a soft fadeaway 14-footer to make it 58-57.

IUPUI ended the night shooting 43.1 percent from the floor and an efficient 8-of-16 from three-point land. The Jags also hit 11-of-12 from the charity stripe. ORU shot 48 percent to help offset 19 turnovers.

After ORU opened the game with a Moses Ehambe 17-footer, IUPUI reeled off a 9-0 run to make it 9-2 less than four minutes in. ORU got within four at the 14:42 mark, but the Jaguars used their patented three-point shooting to stretch the lead back out.

Patterson hit back-to-back threes and Montgomery matched an Ehambe triple to make it 27-16 at the 4:55 mark. IUPUI took a 32-23 lead to halftime, after hitting 6-of-10 first half threes. ORU made just one first half trifecta and committed 12 turnovers.  

Ehambe, coming off a 40-point night at Western Illinois, finished with a game-high 19 on 5-of-8 shooting from beyond the arc. Shawn King added 18 points and seven rebounds before fouling out with 1:40 left. Jarvis warmed up in the second half to close with 14 points. 

Gary Patterson also hit 5-of-8 from three for his 15 points and Pettiford tossed in 10 points and four steals in 31 minutes. Senior Drew Conner hit 4-of-6 from the floor for a season-high eight points before fouling out. After getting 48 bench points on Thursday, the Jags got just two points from Jon Avery to account for the bench scoring on Saturday.

IUPUI will continue Summit League action next week with a two-game trip to Oakland and IPFW. The Jags will take on the Golden Grizzlies in the Athletics Center O'Rena in Rochester on Thursday night, tipping off at 7:30 p.m. EST. That game will be televised on Fox Sports Indiana as Mario Impemba (pbp) and Rick Mahorn (color) are on the call.