Game Notes (.pdf) I Live Audio I Live Video I Live Stats

INDIANAPOLIS - The IUPUI basketball team will host Summit League leader Western Illinois (16-5, 8-2 Summit) on Saturday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. in a contest that will be televised on Fox College Sports Atlantic nationally and HTSN locally. Greg Rakestraw (pxp) and IUPUI Hall of Famer Bob Lovell (analyst) will call the action from courtside on Saturday afternoon. In addition, the game can be heard on WNDE 1260 AM, WNDE.com and on the free iHeartRadio app as Will Flemming (pxp) will describe the action. His pregame coverage will begin at approximately 2:45 p.m..

FCS Atlantic is carried locally on DirecTV, Time Warner, AT&T U-verse and Comcast. HTSN can be seen on Comcast channel 247 and Brighthouse channel 164. Click here for more options to see HTSN.

IUPUI (6-18, 1-9 Summit) will be looking to snap a season-long eight-game losing skid following last Saturday's 80-79 overtime defeat at Fort Wayne. IUPUI took a 79-77 lead with 18 seconds left when Greg Rice picked off a pass and sprinted the other way for a twisting layup. However, on the next possession, IUPUI was whistled for a foul as IPFW sophomore Joe Edwards dribbled on the right wing. The sophomore hit the first and missed the second, but tracked down his own miss in the corner and hit Frank Gaines slashing to the hoop. Gaines, who finished with a game-high 29 points, swished both attempts to set the final margin. Rice missed a running 35-footer as time expired, giving the host Mastodons the victory. 

Junior center Mitchell Patton led four Jaguars in double-digits with 25 points and junior forward Donovan Gibbs added 17 points and seven boards. Offensively, IUPUI shot 62.8 percent from the field, including hitting better than 68 percent after halftime. Fort Wayne hit 12-of-19 (63.2 percent) from three-point range and outrebounded IUPUI 27-20 in the win.

Western Illinois dropped a 67-60 outcome at Oakland on Saturday, snapping a modest two-game winning streak in the process. The Fighting Leathernecks have developed into one of the nation's top defensive squads, holding opponents to just 52.2 points per game and 38.5 percent shooting from the floor. In addition, WIU is hitting 38.4 percent from three-point range while holding foes to just 31 percent from deep.

Terell Parks headlines the WIU attack on the inside, averaging 13.0 points, 9.1 rebounds and 2.8 blocked shots per game while shooting 57 percent from the floor. Veteran guard Ceola Clark III is netting 11.4 points per game and leads WIU in assists (87), steals (36), threes made (45) and minutes played (741).

Western won the first meeting between the two schools, 57-53 in overtime on Jan. 5 in Macomb, Ill.. IUPUI forced overtime when Lyonell Gaines dropped in a layup in the closing seconds but WIU ultimately captured the victory as part of its school record 11-game winning streak earlier this season.

IUPUI is 27-10 all-time against Western Illinois, despite having lost two-in-a-row to WIU for the first time since 1999-00. The Jags have won three straight over the Leathernecks in Indianapolis following a 58-48 defeat back on December 6, 2008.

This year's Jaguars' have been decimated by injuries, leaving Head Coach Todd Howard with just seven healthy scholarship players. All three freshmen are sitting out the season and expected to redshirt while top returning scorer Ian Chiles is shelved for the year due to injury. Like Chiles, sophomore swingman Marcellus Barksdale is lost for the year with an injury and the road got even tougher when John Hart was declared ineligible at the start of the spring semester. However, Hart was recently temporarily cleared to return to practice as he continues to await an NCAA appeal.

Patton (13.4 ppg) and Gibbs (10.0 ppg) are the only two current Jaguars averaging double-digits while Gibbs also leads the team in rebounding (6.3 ppg). Senior guards Sean Esposito and Rice have continued to flourish of late with Esposito netting 7.0 points and 2.6 boards per game. Rice has climbed to 8.0 points and 3.5 assists per game and has played virtually every minute dating back to the Jan. 5 WIU game.