RICHMOND, Va. - Seeking a second straight win, the IUPUI basketball team fell just shy of picking off one of the nation's elite on Tuesday afternoon (Dec. 23) as the Jaguars fell to Richmond 57-53 inside Robins Center as part of the 2014 Gotham Classic. Richmond's Kendall Anthony led all players with 19 points and ShawnDre' Jones pumped in 11 for the Spiders, who improved to 6-0 at home this season. Anthony and Jones combined to hit 8-of-11 from three-point range to fuel the Spiders' victory.

Junior Mason Archie, II had a team-high 12 points for the Jaguars and sophomore Elijah Ray added 11 in the loss. Archie misfired on a potential game-tying jumper with five seconds to play and Richmond's Trey Davis iced the win by nailing two free throws in the final seconds.

Richmond (7-4) came in ranked No. 42 in RPI and undefeated in the four-game Gotham Classic, while IUPUI (3-9) was fresh off an overtime win over South Alabama and seeking a benchmark victory.

"I really liked the way we fought when we got down today. We played hard and we played them tough, we just didn't make enough plays down the stretch and that was the difference," Head Coach Jason Gardner said. "It took a lot out of us to come from behind like that, but we had a lot of different guys step up and make plays.

"We could've easily given up early and seen them blow us out, but credit our guys, they really scrapped today."

Anthony tried to bury the Jaguars early, hitting three of the Spiders' six first half treys to help build an early 26-12 lead.

IUPUI (3-9) used a massive 21-3 outburst spanning both halves to flip the 14-point deficit into a four-point lead early in the second half.The Jaguars closed the first half with seven straight points, all coming from Ray, to pull within 29-22 at halftime. Ray began the spurt with a tough turnaround jumper and later split a pair of free throws after rebounding a Khufu Najee miss and drawing a foul. He closed the half with a pair of layups, the second coming in transition.

The second stanza began with two Justus Stanback baskets before Anthony stopped the bleeding with his fourth trey of the contest. However, IUPUI scored the game's next eight points, capped by a pair of Ray buckets to go in front 36-32 at the 11:59 mark.

Jones finally put Richmond back on top at 40-39 with a trey before the lead changed hands six times. IUPUI was down 48-45 before Najee hit a tough jumper to get the Jaguars back within one, but Alonzo Nelson-Ododa knocked in a corner three, his first field goal of the game, with the shot clock winding down to make it a two possession game.

IUPUI was unable to get a defensive stop until Anthony missed the front end of a one-and-one with 20 seconds left with the Spiders leading 55-53. However, Archie's 16-footer hit the right side of the rim and was easily rebounded by Davis.

IUPUI outshot Richmond as both teams fired at a 46 percent clip, but Richmond buried 10-of-18 threes (55.6 percent), while holding the Jags to just four trifectas. The Jaguars won the glass 30-15 and committed a season-low 10 turnovers, but only forced eight Richmond miscues.

Archie hit 4-of-10 shots, including a pair of threes, and grabbed a career-high five boards to lead the squad. Ray was 5-of-8 from the floor in just 17 minutes off the bench and Najee added eight points and three boards in his first action in more than a month. IUPUI's top scorer, Marcellus Barksdale, was hindered by foul trouble and finished with just two points.

Junior P.J. Boutte handed out a team-high five assists off the bench and Leo Svete and Stanback tallied six points apiece.

IUPUI will be back in action shortly after the Christmas holiday when the Jaguars play at Pepperdine (7-3) on Dec. 27 at 4:00 p.m. Eastern in the final contest of the 2014 Gotham Classic. That game will be heard on WNDE 1260 AM as Will Flemming (pxp) calls the action from Malibu, Calif..