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MEMPHIS - For the opening eight minutes, the IUPUI basketball team was trading national powerhouse Memphis blow for blow inside the FedEx Forum on Monday afternoon until the Tigers dealt the Jaguars a dose of reality. A 29-8 run turned a two-point IUPUI lead into a 40-21 deficit, essentially ending IUPUI's thoughts of an upset.

Memphis coasted from there in the 87-67 victory, led by Elliot Williams' 27 points and a career-high 15 from Pierre Henderson-Niles. Junior Leroy Nobles led four Jaguars in double-digits with 18 points and sophomore Alex Young contributed 16 points and seven rebounds. Senior Jon Avery provided a huge lift off the bench, scoring 15 and senior Robert Glenn netted 11.

Memphis hit 11-of-19 (.579) from three and grabbed 18 offensive rebounds that led to 17 second chance points.

"That's a really good Memphis team," IUPUI Head Coach Ron Hunter said. "They've got all the ingredients to make a deep run in March. The Williams kid does a really good job of making plays and setting everyone else up. We wanted them to shoot a lot of threes - especially contested threes. They shot 57, 58 percent from three and that was the ballgame.

"I thought we did a good job keeping our composure, for the most part - we just didn't always execute. Part of that was us and part of that was them. They really got after us defensively and forced us into some mistakes."

IUPUI (9-5) took an early 13-11 lead, quieting a blue-clad crowd of 17,020 when Nobles swished a wing three at the 13:08 mark of the first half. The Tigers countered with a barrage of their own threes beginning with a pair from Wesley Witherspoon sandwiched around a Willie Kemp layup.

Williams then scored nine points in three trips with an old fashioned three-point play preceding back-to-back long-range treys. Avery temporarily stopped the bleeding with a short jumper, but Robert Sallie came back with a three at the 9:45 mark. Again Avery stopped the bleeding, this time with a pair of free throws, but Memphis (9-2) capped the run with seven straight points including a Sallie fast break dunk and Williams three, pushing the lead out to 19.

The Jags got within 11 on a handful of occasions, including after Glenn hit a pair of free throws on the opening possession of the second half, but could get no closer. Monday's defeat marked the first time this season Hunter's team had lost consecutive games.

"Everytime we put something together, they answered," Hunter said. "Or, we'd get a missed shot and they'd get the offensive rebound. We've got some things that need to be cleaned up before we get into the conference. We'll get back to Indy and get back to work and hopefully come out and play well up at Fort Wayne. That's the important part of all this is that we need to be playing our best basketball in our conference."

IUPUI outscored Memphis 24-10 at the free throw line as both Avery and Glenn went 7-of-8 from the stripe. Nobles was 6-of-8 and Young made 4-of-6 in the loss. Avery's 15 points were one shy of tying his season-high.

Williams had six rebounds and five assists to accompany his game-high 27 points and Niles-Henderson grabbed a game-high nine rebounds and blocked three shots. Sallie and Kemp had nine points each and the latter handed out eight assists against zero turnovers. The Jags turned the ball over just six times in the second half, finishing with 15 miscues and Memphis committed 11 miscues. Young led IUPUI with three assists.

IUPUI will now head home before traveling north on I-69 to take on IPFW in Summit League play on New Year's Eve. Tipoff is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. from Memorial Coliseum with Scott McCauley's pregame audio coverage beginning at approximately 12:45. The game will also be able to be seen on tape delay on HomeTown Sports Indiana (Ch. 81) on Comcast and Brighthouse. Greg Rakestraw (play-by-play) and Jan Boser (analyst) will be on the call. Re-air times/dates will be Thursday at 8:00 and 10:30 p.m. and Friday and 10:00 a.m. and 2, 6 and 10 p.m..