INDIANAPOLIS – Riding a modest two-game winning streak, the IUPUI basketball team will return home to host Western Illinois (5-6, 1-1 Summit) in Summit League action on Thursday night. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. inside The Jungle with pregame coverage on 88.3 FM / The Walk beginning at approximately 6:55 as Scott McCauley (play-by-play) and Angelo Smith (analyst).
IUPUI (7-8, 1-1 Summit) is fresh off a 76-63 win at Florida Gulf Coast on Monday as junior
Alex Young led the way with 23 points on 9-of-13 shooting. More impressive was the defensive presence displayed by the 6-foot-6 lefty as Young matched his career-high of five steals and established a new career-high with four blocked shots.
Senior
Leroy Nobles made a triumphant return to the starting lineup with 17 points and
John Ashworth and
Stephen Thomas both added 13 in the victory. IUPUI led by just five at the break, but used two sizable second half runs to push the lead to double-digits over the final 10 minutes of action.
IUPUI hit 54 percent overall and 43 percent from beyond the arc in the win. In the Jaguars' past two wins, they've hit 22 threes at a 43.1 percent clip. Ashworth has accounted for nine of the makes in 15 attempts and is averaging 15.5 points over the past two contests.
The Jaguars own a 21-8 lead in the all-time series with Western Illinois and have won four-in-a-row, including all three meetings last season. The Jags bounced WIU from The Summit League Tournament in Sioux Falls, S.D. on Mar. 6 behind Robert Glenn's 30 points.
Western comes in as the best defensive team in The Summit, leading the league in scoring defense (59.2 ppg), FG defense (40.5%) and three-point defense (26.3%). Evansville-native Matt Lander leads the Leathernecks in scoring at 17.6 points per game while 6-foot-8 junior Kaimarr Price comes in averaging 8.3 points and 6.0 rebounds a night.
