MACOMB, Ill. - Western Illinois sophomore Garret Covington atoned for a paltry shooting night by knocking in a go-ahead three-pointer with 11.9 seconds left, sending the host Leathernecks to a 63-59 win over the Jaguars on Friday night (Jan. 30) inside Western Hall. IUPUI redshirt freshman Leo Svete missed a good look at a potential go-ahead trey on IUPUI's ensuing possession and Mohamed Conde connected on both ends of a one-and-one with 3.0 seconds left to seal the win, snapping Western's five-game losing skid. 

With the loss, IUPUI (8-14, 4-4 Summit) has alternated between wins and losses for 13 straight games, dating back to the Dec. 20 win over South Alabama.

J.C. Fuller led Western Illinois (8-11, 3-5) with a game-high 20 points and Jamie Batish chipped in 11, including hitting 3-of-4 from downtown. Covington, WIU's top scorer coming in, hit just 4-of-18 shots and closed with nine points. Senior Khufu Najee paced the Jaguars with 12 points and Svete added 11 on 5-of-6 shooting. 

"We got the look we wanted," IUPUI Head Coach Jason Gardner said. "Leo made some big shots for us last week and had been shooting it well tonight, so we wanted to go to him.

"He got a clean look and I thought, being on the road, it was best to go for the win. Plus, the way we rebound, I thought we'd have a decent shot at getting the offensive board too. We executed but the shot didn't fall."

Covington's connection capped a back-and-forth affair that included nine ties and 16 lead changes. Western seemed primed to win it easily in regulation, going ahead 55-49 on a Fuller runner with 4:40 to play. However, IUPUI used a late 7-0 run to nab a 56-55 lead, punctuated by a DavRon Williams three-point play with 1:21 left. Williams scored his only five points of the night during the run, only to see Batish answer by swishing a go-ahead three with 66 seconds left, igniting the home crowd. 

Rather than call a timeout, junior P.J. Boutte rushed the ball into the frontcourt and operated behind a ball screen before banking home a go-ahead trey of his own with under a minute to play. After Western was slow to get organized offensively, the hosts called timeout to set the table. IUPUI defended the possession well but were slow to rotate on Covington after Jabari Sandifer penetrated the collapsing defense. 

"Give him credit, (Covington) made a shot when they needed it," Gardner said. "I thought we did a good job on him all night aside from that possession and it burned us."

The first half was similarly nip-and-tuck with neither team holding a lead for any length of time.  

After Svete tied the game at 10 all on a 16-foot jumper, Western Illinois answered with seven straight points, capped by a Conde layup. However, IUPUI responded with a deliberate 10-0 run over the next five-plus minutes, beginning with a Svete drive. Freshman D.J. McCall added a putback during the run and the Jaguars scored six points at the foul line to build a three-point lead. The two teams traded the lead eight times in the first half with the host Leathernecks ultimately taking a 28-27 lead to the break. 

IUPUI shot 45.3 percent overall, doing the bulk of the work in close. The Jaguars outscored WIU 26-22 in the paint and outrebounded the Leathernecks by one, despite Conde's 14 boards. Boutte led IUPUI with five rebounds and three assists off the bench to go along with five points. Both Justus Stanback and Marcellus Barksdale scored six points apiece as all 10 Jaguars dented the scoring column and played double-digit minutes. 

The loss was IUPUI's sixth straight to Western Illinois. Picked to finish last in the league by virtually every preseason publication and the league's official preseason poll, IUPUI finds itself at .500 at the midpoint of league play. Included in those four losses are two overtime defeats with only one opponent (at South Dakota State) easily handling the Jaguars. 

"We have a lot of work left to do," Gardner said. "We've definitely come a long way since the start of the year, but the goal is to win the conference tournament and get back to the NCAA Tournament."

IUPUI will cap The Summit League schedule with five home games in the month of February, including three straight beginning with Thursday's 7:00 p.m. tipoff with Oral Roberts inside Indiana Farmers Coliseum. That game will be televised on HTSN and ESPN3 as Greg Rakestraw (pxp) and Bob Lovell (analyst) will be on the call. In addition, the game will be heard on WNDE 1260 and the free iHeartRadio app as Will Flemming (pxp) will describe the action. The IUPUI Athletics Department is asking fans to come dressed in black that night as part of a BLACK OUT the Coliseum promotion. In addition, the IUPUI women's tennis and volleyball teams will be recognized during the evening for their achievements earlier in the season.