Box Score I
Box Score (.pdf)
TULSA, Okla. - Oral Roberts' guard Roderick Pearson hit a short, twisting baseline runner as time expired to hand IUPUI a 76-74 overtime loss inside the Mabee Center on Thursday (Feb. 9) night in Summit League action. IUPUI senior
Alex Young scored a game-high 34 points, including hitting 6-of-9 from three in the loss.
Dominique Morrison led the Golden Eagles with 23 points and Warren Niles, Michael Craion and Steven Roundtree all finished with 11 in the victory. Morrison scored 21 of his 23 after halftime and finished the game hitting 7-of-18 from the floor. Both
Christian Siakam and
Stephen Thomas finished with 11 for the Jaguars.
"We have played Oral Roberts for 85 minutes of tough basketball now," IUPUI head coach
Todd Howard said. "This was our fifth straight game decided at the buzzer. Tonight, we played super on their floor and I'm impressed by the toughness we showed.
"They just hit a running prayer. We executed as well as you can on the road; they just had the ball last."
IUPUI needed late heroics from Young just to get the game to overtime.
The Jaguars trailed by as many as 11 in the second half, but stormed back behind The Summit League Preseason Player of the Year. Trailing 65-61 with under a minute to play, Young countered with an improbable four-point play to tie the score at 65 all with 34.4 seconds left. ORU (22-5, 14-1 Summit) was able to hold for the final shot, but Young forced a Morrison miss to send the game to overtime.
In overtime, ORU blew out to a 71-65 lead on a pair of Roundtree buckets and two Morrison free throws, however, IUPUI (10-16, 4-10 Summit) showed some moxie, beginning with Siakam hitting a free throw to make it a five-point game. At the other end, Young picked off a pass and then scored on a drive to cut the ORU lead to three.
After Morrison pushed the lead back to four on a free throw, Young responded with his career-best sixth three of the game to make it a one-point contest. Roundtree made it a three-point game at the free throw line, but Siakam countered by cleaning up a Young miss with under a minute to play to make it a 74-73 game. IUPUI then came up with a huge stop when
Sean Esposito forced a steal from Pearson and
Ian Chiles tied the game at the free throw line by converting the first of two freebies. However, given the last shot for the second time in the game, Pearson hit the game-winner at the final horn to hand IUPUI its second straight road loss at the buzzer. The Jaguars dropped a similar outcome on a game-winning three at Western Illinois back on Jan. 28 before winning back-to-back home games last week.
The loss kept IUPUI winless on the road this season and extended ORU's home winning streak to 21 straight. The Jaguars also remained winless inside the Mabee Center dating back to a 2004 double overtime victory.
Thursday's game got off to an incredibly slow start offensive for both sides before IUPUI final got untracked. After falling behind 8-4, Young swished back-to-back threes before Siakam dropped in an off-balanced layup to give the Jaguars an early 12-4 lead. After ORU got back within one on a Damen Bell-Holter three-point play, IUPUI scored five straight on a Thomas three and
Lyonell Gaines 15-footer to grab a 17-11 advantage.
ORU went back in front briefly at 22-21 on a Niles free throw, but IUPUI outscored the Golden Eagles 11-6 to close the first half and take a 32-28 halftime lead. The Golden Eagles began the second half with a 16-2 run and later took an 11-point lead on a Jake Lliteras jumper before the Jaguars began chipping away. An initial 7-0 burst prompted ORU head coach Scott Sutton to call timeout after a Chiles trey, but Young and the Jaguars kept plugging.
Morrison hit a number of key buckets to keep the hosts in front late before Young's four-point play ultimately forced overtime.
IUPUI finished the game hitting 46.3 percent overall and 8-of-15 (53.3 percent) from three. The Jaguars also hit 16-of-20 (80 percent) from the foul line, which paled in comparison to ORU's 21-of-24 (87.5 percent) effort. The Golden Eagles shot 45.6 percent overall, but made just 3-of-13 (23.1 percent) from deep.
Young hit 11-of-21 overall and was 6-of-7 from the foul line in his sixth career game of 30 points or better. He took over sole possession of the No. 6 spot on The Summit League's career scoring list, upping his total to 2,176 after entering the game tied with former Valparaiso standout Bryce Drew.
"Alex was outstanding - absolutely outstanding. He hit shots, helped us get stops, rebounded and really put us on his back," Howard said.
Bell-Holter led ORU with nine boards while Young grabbed seven for the Jags. Both Siakam and Thomas finished with six boards as the much taller Golden Eagles only won the glass by two, 34-32.
IUPUI dropped to 1-2 on the season in overtime games. The loss also gave ORU a regular season sweep of the Jaguars after having won in Indianapolis earlier this season.
In need of a win, IUPUI will cap the two-game road trip at Southern Utah on Saturday night in a 9:30 tip-off inside Centrum Arena. Scott McCauley (pxp) will call the action on 1260 WNDE, beginning at approximately 9:20 p.m.. His call can also be heard on WNDE.com or through the free iHeartRadio app available on smartphones. Southern Utah won the previous meeting between the two schools, 72-64 back on Jan. 12 in Indianapolis.