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BROOKINGS, S.D. - The IUPUI basketball team will hit the road for the final time during the 2012-13 regular season as the Jaguars will open a two-game trip at South Dakota State (19-7, 10-3 Summit) on Thursday (Feb. 14) night at Frost Arena in Brookings, S.D.. The game will tip-off at 8:00 p.m. Eastern and will be televised on FCS Atlantic and Midco Sports. IUPUI's radio broadcast will begin at 7:45 p.m. as Scott McCauley's (pxp) call can be heard on WNDE 1260 AM, WNDE.com and on the free iHeartRadio app available on mobile devices.

IUPUI (6-20, 1-11 Summit) is looking to break a 10-game losing skid and a five-game slide against SDSU. The Jackrabbits won the first meeting between the two schools this season, 80-65 inside The Jungle on Jan. 19.

Snakebitten is the word to describe the Jaguars, both over the course of the 2012-13 season and during the current 10-game skid. The most recently loss was a 85-78 defeat to Omaha on Saturday, despite the Jaguars having built a 22-point first half lead. Both Mitchell Patton and Sean Esposito finished with a team-high 23 points while Esposito and Greg Rice teamed to hit a perfect 10-of-10 from three-point range in the first half. However, the visiting Mavericks erased a 17-point halftime deficit in just more than nine minutes and eventually led the final 10 minutes of the game.

Patton closed with 23 points, seven rebounds and a career-high four blocked shots and hit 10-of-14 field goal attempts. Esposito was 7-of-10 from three and handed out four assists while Rice added 16 points, six boards and five assists. On the other end, Omaha bullied their way to a 46-28 scoring advantage in the paint and outrebounded IUPUI 40-26. John Karhoff led all scorers with 26 points and Alex Welhouse contributed 17 points and 12 boards.

IUPUI played just seven scholarship players on Saturday as Head Coach Todd Howard's roster has been decimated due to injuries. All three freshmen will sit out the entire season while key contributors Marcellus Barksdale and Ian Chiles are both lost for the season due to injuries. Senior John Hart also had his season cut short as the Purdue-transfer was deemed academically ineligible at the start of the spring semester.

Patton leads the Jaguars in scoring (13.8 ppg) and blocked shots (22) and is second on the team in rebounding (5.0 rpg). Junior forward Donovan Gibbs is on a personal tear, having hit for double-digits in five straight games while Esposito is averaging 13.4 points per game since Jan. 1. Rice, his backcourt mate, is averaging nearly five assists per game in Summit League action and has a 2.00 assist-to-turnover ratio in league games.

SDSU had an eight-game winning streak snapped on Saturday at Oakland in an 88-83 defeat to the Golden Grizzlies. Despite the loss, senior guard Nate Wolters earned his fifth Summit League Player of the Week award, thanks largely to his 53-point outburst at Fort Wayne on Thursday. For the year, Wolters is averaging 22.8 points, 5.8 rebounds, 5.5 assists and 1.7 steals per game while shooting better than 48 percent from the floor. Junior big man Jordan Dykstra is netting 12.4 points and 7.2 rebounds per game while Tony Fiegen comes in at 10.4 points and 5.6 rebounds per game.

As a team, SDSU is shooting 38.2 percent from three-point range with four Jackrabbits having hit at least 36 treys through 26 games. The Jackrabbits are 11-0 at home this year, having won those 11 games by an average of 14.7 points. IUPUI hasn't won in Brookings since Feb. 27, 2010 when the Jaguars escaped with an 86-76 road win.