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INDIANAPOLIS - Junior center Mitchell Patton led four IUPUI players in double-figures with an efficient 24 points, but visiting South Dakota shot 50 percent overall and outscored the Jags 20-4 at the foul line on its way to an 87-69 Summit League win inside The Jungle on Thursday (Feb. 28) night. USD's Trevor Gruis led all scorers with 26 points, six boards and five assists and Juevol Myles chipped in 18 points, seven boards and five helpers in the win.

Both Donovan Gibbs and Sean Esposito had 12 each for the Jaguars and Greg Rice finished with 10 points and seven rebounds in the loss. The defeat was the 14th straight for IUPUI (6-24, 1-14 Summit) and the seventh straight home loss.

South Dakota (10-18, 5-10 Summit) led from the outset, hitting threes on three of its first four possessions against the Jaguars' zone defense to build an early 9-4 lead. The Coyotes' advantage swelled to 26-13 at the 12:46 mark after Karim Rowson finished a three-point play off a Myles assist. Offensively, IUPUI repeatedly fed the ball inside to Patton, who connected on 8-of-10 first half attempts and scored 16 of the Jaguars' 38 points before intermission. USD extended its lead to 47-33 on a Rowson layup with 1:21 left before the break, but IUPUI finished the half with five straight points to make it 47-38 at the break. Junior P.J. Hubert capped the half with a three-point play on a nifty inbounds feed from Rice under the IUPUI basket.

"Overall, we just came out with a lack of energy and a lack of intensity and by the time we tried to turn it up, it was too late," Rice said.

IUPUI outshot USD from the floor in the first half, but was outscored 15-1 at the free throw line after a 12-4 foul disparity. The Coyotes hit their first 15 free throw attempts before Rowson missed a pair late in the stanza.

"We were down nine at the half despite the free throw attempts being 17-1," IUPUI Head Coach Todd Howard said. "We made the same shots (as they did). Fouls killed us, either via glass or late, but 17-1 is hard to overcome.

"Both games were identical with them. We made 57 field goals in two games, but the free throw attempts are too big of a disparity."

USD pushed its lead out to 15 less than five minutes into the second half, capped by back-to-back baskets by Myles and Casey Kasperbauer to make it 60-45. However, IUPUI crept back within eight with just more than 10 minutes to play. After Jordan Shanklin collected a steal along the USD baseline, Gibbs converted the turnover into points when he swished his tenth trey of the season to make it 64-56. The Jaguars were still down 10 with 6:35 left when USD used an 12-1 run to put the game away.

Jordan Boots started the rally with a three and Gruis followed with a putback of a Myles miss. After Gibbs stopped the bleeding by splitting a pair of free throws, Boots rained in another three and two trips later, Gruis scored on another layup. Kasperbauer capped the run with a steal near midcourt which resulted in an uncontested layup.

Kasperbauer finished with 13 points and Boots contributed 11 in just his fifth career start. The duo combined to hit five of USD's seven threes as the Yotes finished the game 7-of-23 (30.4 percent) from three-point range. IUPUI was just 5-of-15 with Esposito connecting on a pair of triples.

USD outrebounded the Jaguars 38-32 and outscored IUPUI 14-5 on second chance points.

"We've got to work on boxing out, getting rebounds and finishing at the bucket," Rice said.

South Dakota turned the ball over just four times while IUPUI committed a season-low seven turnovers. Esposito matched his career-high with seven assists for the second straight game and didn't commit a turnover in 40 minutes work. Patton hit 12-of-16 shot attempts and notched his fifth 20+ scoring game of the season, three of which have come in Summit League play.

The loss dropped the Jaguars to 1-3 all-time against South Dakota and 1-1 in the two meetings in Indianapolis.

IUPUI will cap the regular season this Saturday, Mar. 2 when the Jaguars host Kansas City inside the Jungle at 7:30 p.m.. IUPUI will honor its four-man senior class of Sean Esposito, John Hart, Nick Kitcoff and Greg Rice prior to the contest and will also host an informal reunion of the 2003 NCAA Tournament team at halftime. Those former players expected to attend include Odell Bradley, Matt Crenshaw, Brandon Cole, Marcus May, Antoine Lewis, Chris Sanders and D.A. Harvey.

Saturday's game can be heard on WNDE.com and on the free iHeartRadio app with pregame coverage beginning at 7:15 p.m.. Scott McCauley (pxp) will be on the call and that contest can also be viewed on the IUPUI LIVE! subscription service.