IUPUI (8-13, 4-2 Summit) at Fort Wayne (16-5, 5-1)
Date:	Saturday, Jan. 23, 2016 // 7:00 p.m. ET
Location:	Fort Wayne, Ind. // Gates Sports Center (1,800)
TV:	none
Live Radio:	1070 the Fan & 93.5 FM // Morgan Adcock (pxp)
Game Notes:	IUPUI // Fort Wayne
Twitter:	@IUPUIJaguars; @IUPUIMensBball

FORT WAYNE, Ind. - After a week between games, the IUPUI basketball team will hit the road for a one-game trip when the Jaguars square off with in-state foe Fort Wayne (16-5, 5-1 Summit) on Saturday night (Jan. 23) at 7:00 p.m.. The game will be broadcast in Central Indiana on 1070 the Fan and 93.5 FM as Morgan Adcock (pxp) calls the action from inside Gates Sports Center.

On the floor, both teams are vying for the top spot in the league as Fort Wayne is tied atop the standings at 5-1 in league play. IUPUI (8-13, 4-2 Summit) is tied with South Dakota State for the No. 3 spot in the league standings. IUPUI is coming off its most emphatic win of the 2015-16 season, trouncing Denver 76-61 inside Indiana Farmers Coliseum last weekend. Senior Marcellus Barksdale scored a season-high 19 points on 7-of-9 shooting and junior Matt O'Leary tossed in 11 on a perfect 5-of-5 shooting. The Jaguars connected at an incredible 69.2 percent clip, falling just shy of setting a new single-game record for field goal efficiency. The Jaguars' top scorer for the year, junior Darell Combs, added 16 points and was a perfect 3-of-3 from downtown for his 18th game in double-digits this season. The win moved IUPUI to 5-1 this season at home and 4-1 all-time against Denver.

IUPUI has had the better run of the all-time series with Fort Wayne, winning 28 of the 44 meetings between the two sides. Last year, the two schools split the two meetings with each winning on the other's home floor. The Jaguars won their conference opener with a 63-58 outcome on Jan. 4 in Fort Wayne and the Mastodons repaid the favor by winning 69-54 in Indianapolis on Feb. 11.

"We've had a good week at practice and I think the boys are ready," IUPUI Head Coach Jason Gardner said. "A lot of our guys have played with their guys in AAU and high school and in the summers, so I think just having that familiarity with each other makes it a fun atmosphere."

JAGUAR TIDBITS
TOP FOUR
    IUPUI's top four scorers this season are all Division I transfers who sat out last season. The quartet of Darell Combs, Matt O'Leary, Jordan Pickett and Nick Osborne have teamed to score 43.6 points per game - more than 60 percent of the team's output. Senior Marcellus Barksdale is the team's top returning scorer from a year ago and is scoring 8.2 points per game this year.

EMPHATIC
    IUPUI was convincing in its most recent victory - a 76-61 romp of Denver. The Jaguars just missed a school record, hitting 69.2 percent from the floor against the Pioneers.
    The 15-point winning margin was a season-high and came via a balanced scoring effort. Senior Marcellus Barksdale tallied a season-high 19 points (7-9 FG, 4-4 FT) and Darell Combs tossed in 16 (5-6 FG, 3-3 3's). Junior Matt O'Leary needed just five attempts to get his 11 points (5-5 FG, 1-1 3's) and Jordan Pickett added 10 off the bench (3-5 FG, 3-3 FT).
    IUPUI also won the glass, limiting Denver to just 17 boards and 12 defensive caroms. The Pioneers 18 points in the paint were the fewest by an IUPUI opponent this season.
    The game was essentially won by a 17-0 IUPUI run that spanned the two halves. Little used sophomore John Hubler sparked the run with a trey late in the first half, starting a stretch of two straight triples to close the first stanza. From there, IUPUI opened the second half with an 11-0 burst to put the game away.  

PERFECT AT HOME IN THE NON-CONFERENCE
    IUPUI finished the home portion of the non-conference slate with a perfect mark this season, going 3-0 in those contests. It marks IUPUI's first perfect non-conference slate since the 2010-11 season when the Jaguars had just two non-conference home games (IU-Northwest & IU-East).

84 STRAIGHT
    Senior swingman Marcellus Barksdale has started 84 straight games for the Jaguars, dating back to the opener of the 2013-14 season. Classmate Mason Archie is second on the active roster, having made 33 career starts.
    Barksdale is the program's lone four-year senior and has quietly stacked up some impressive numbers in his IUPUI career. Barksdale, in his fifth year with the program, has accumulated 849 points, 538 boards, 260 assists and 144 steals. He also surpassed the 3,000 career minute mark against Butler on Dec. 28.
    He has climbed to 13th on the program's all-time list in rebounds and is six shy of Jon Avery and nine behind George Hill. He is 14th on the program's all-time list in assists and one short of moving to 13th. It's not unreasonable to think Barksdale could finish as the 23rd member of IUPUI's 1,000 Point Club.

IN LEAGUE PLAY
    IUPUI has been extremely balanced in the opening six Summit League games with five players averaging better than nine points per game. Combs leads the crew at 16.0 points per game, followed by Barksdale (11.2 ppg), Osborne (10.2 ppg) and Pickett (10.2 ppg) in double-digits. O'Leary is just off the pace at 9.2 points per game.
    IUPUI is shooting 48 percent overall and 37 percent from three in league play while holding foes to 43 percent overall and 31 percent from deep.

MORE LEAGUE TIDBITS
    In Summit League play, junior Nick Osborne is perfect from three (4-of-4) and shooting 72 percent overall (23-of-32)... the Jaguars have bucked preseason trends and are outrebounding foes in league play by 1.3 boards per game... IUPUI has also seemingly fixed the turnover woes, sitting at an even turnover margin in six league games.
    
ODELL TO THE HALL
    Last week, former standout Odell Bradley was formally inducted in the IUPUI Hall of Fame. The 2004 Mid-Continent Conference Player of the Year and honorable mention All-American was recognized at halftime of the Denver game.
    Bradley, a Nashville, Tenn.-native, averaged 23.1 points and 8.5 boards per game his senior season, including two games of at least 41 points against Oral Roberts.  

SMART CATS
    With fall semester grades recently posted, four Jaguars earned Academic Advisor's List with a 3.0 GPA or better - Marcellus Barksdale, Aaron Brennan, Matt O'Leary and Noah Thomas. O'Leary, a management major, topped the bunch with a 3.93 GPA during the fall.  

#SCTOP10
    Junior guard Darell Combs found himself on ESPN SportsCenter's Top 10 on Dec. 10 after burying a 60-footer at the end of the first half of the loss at Missouri State. Combs' play was the No. 3 play that night.

MAKE SHOTS - WIN GAMES
    Simple math tells you that making more shots than your opponents will win games. Those numbers hold true for IUPUI in the two seasons Jason Gardner has been at the helm.
    IUPUI is 17-5 (8-0 this season) when shooting a higher percentage from the floor than their opposition while going 1-29 (0-13 this season) when being outshot by opponents.

WORKING OVERTIME
    In just 52 career games on the IUPUI sidelines, Head Coach Jason Gardner has already taken his team to overtime eight times (2-6 overall), including twice this season.

T.J. EARNS ALL-TOURNAMENT HONORS
    Freshman T.J. Henderson was chosen to the Legends Classic Kennesaw State subregional's All-Tournament Team and was subsequently awarded his first career start against South Alabama last Tuesday (Nov. 24) in game two of that regional. The 6-foot guard averaged 12.0 points and shot 8-of-15 from the floor in the two games at Kennesaw State.  

THREE-SEARCH
    Head Coach Jason Gardner knew he'd have more weaponry this season as evidenced by the sheer number of shooters on the roster. In the season's first four games alone, IUPUI had had 10 different players make at least one three, coming off a season in which nine Jags made a trey a year ago. Sophomore John Hubler became the 11th different Jag to make a three this season, doing so at Butler on Dec. 28.
    Archie hit a team-high 33 threes a year ago, but Combs has already surpassed that total with a team-high 38 triples this season.  

9 IN DUBS
    Sophomore Aaron Brennan became the ninth different Jaguar to hit for double-digits in a game this season, tallying 10 points in the win over Miami (Dec. 5). He joins Barksdale, Combs, Archie, O'Leary, Pickett, Hall, Henderson and Osborne on that list.