INDIANAPOLIS - Riding back-to-back Summit League wins and sitting second in the league standings, the IUPUI basketball team will open an important two-game homestand on Friday afternoon (Jan. 29) when the Jaguars welcome Western Illinois (7-11, 0-7 Summit) to town. The rare in-week matinee will tip at 1:00 p.m. and be broadcast on ESPN3 and HTSN as Greg Rakestraw (pxp) and Hall of Famer Bob Lovell (analyst) call the action from courtside. In addition, the game will be heard in Central Indiana on 107.5 FM as Morgan Adcock (pxp) calls the action. 

Alumni wishing to attend Friday's game can receive $5 off their tickets by purchasing online (use the discount code JAGS) or by calling the IUPUI Ticket Office at 317-278-2530. 

On the court, IUPUI (9-13, 5-2) has been white hot since the start of league play, winning five of seven games and going 3-1 on the road. The most recent win was a dramatic 84-82 victory at Fort Wayne, capped by senior Marcellus Barksdale's left-handed buzzer beater as the final horn sounded. Junior Darell Combs paced five Jaguars in double-digits with 20 points and classmate Nick Osborne added a career-high 19 points on 7-of-10 shooting off the bench. IUPUI led by 13 at the break and pushed out to a 17-point lead early in the second half before having to recover to claim the road win. Fort Wayne dominated much of the second half, eventually taking a five-point lead on back-to-back DeAngelo Stewart threes with roughly five minutes to play. Rather than sulk, IUPUI retook the lead, thanks in part to Osborne's career-best third trey of the game with 90 seconds left. Fort Wayne tied the score with 21 ticks remaining, leading to Barksdale's heroics. 

IUPUI won the previous meeting with Western Illinois, picking off the Fighting Leathernecks 67-60 on Jan. 9 in Macomb. Combs and Osborne combined to score 38 of the team's 67 points in that win and Matt O'Leary added nine points and six rebounds.

Combs leads the squad at 16.0 points per game and is joined by the balanced group of Jordan Pickett (9.9 ppg), O'Leary (9.7), Osborne (9.0) and Barksdale (8.4). Osborne is the team's top rebounder at 6.5 caroms per game, despite playing just 20.6 minutes a night and coming off the bench in league play. The 6-foot-8 O'Leary has a team-high 42 assists and is one of just two Jaguars with an assist-to-turnover ratio better than 1.00. 

On Friday, IUPUI Head Coach Jason Gardner and his coaching staff will be wearing sneakers on the sidelines as part of the annual Coaches vs. Cancer Suits & Sneakers initiative. Gardner previously visited the State House earlier this month as part of the ongoing awareness campaign. The three action items included in the NABC-led awareness campaign are for individuals to donate at last $5 to the cause, wear sneakers to work to fight cancer comfortably.

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 44.6 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 8.4 points per game this year. 

STEADY CLIMBING
    IUPUI has won four of its past five games and sits tied for second in The Summit League nearing the midpoint in the season. The Jags are 3-1 on the road in league play with the lone loss coming at league leader Omaha. 
    Not only has the Jags' record continued to rise, but the RPI has climbed to 161 after sitting in the high 200's for much of the season. 

BUZZER BEATER
    Senior Marcellus Barksdale was the star of stars at Fort Wayne on Saturday, hitting a left-handed layup at the buzzer to send the Jaguars to an 84-82 win over the Mastodons. 
    The game saw IUPUI build a 17-point lead early in the second half before giving it all back as the 'Dons eventually built a 5-point advantage with five minutes left. However, IUPUI recovered and seized the road win to move into a tie for second-place in the league standings. 

IPFW TAKEAWAYS
    There were a lot of positive numbers for the Jaguars in the win at IPFW - here's a quick rundown. 
    Junior Nick Osborne scored a career-high 19 points (7-10 FG, 3-5 3's), including a key trey with just more than a minute to play... junior Darell Combs tossed in a game-high 20 points (8-12 FG) and nabbed three steals... IUPUI turned it over a season-low five times and outscored the Dons 20-5 in points off turnovers... IUPUI finished with five players in double-digits for just the second time this season... sophomore Aaron Brennan was awarded his first start of the year in Evan Hall's absence and turned in four points, three boards and two assists in 22 minutes of work... IUPUI shot better than 50 percent from the field for the fifth time this season, improving to 5-0 in those contests.

GOOD IN JANUARY
    IUPUI has been notoriously good in January under Head Coach Jason Gardner. IUPUI is 5-2 this January and 9-6 in the year's first month since Gardner took over last season.  

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 18-5 (9-0 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. 

85 STRAIGHT
    Senior swingman Marcellus Barksdale has started 85 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 34 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 862 points, 540 boards, 260 assists and 147 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. 

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). 

IN LEAGUE PLAY
    IUPUI has been extremely balanced in the opening seven Summit League games with five players averaging better than nine points per game. Combs leads the crew at 16.6 points per game, followed by Osborne (11.7 ppg), Barksdale (11.4 ppg) and Pickett (10.9 ppg) in double-digits. O'Leary is just off the pace at 9.3 points per game. 
    IUPUI is shooting 48.6 percent overall and 36.5 percent from three in league play while holding foes to 43.5 percent overall. 

MORE LEAGUE TIDBITS
    In Summit League play, junior Nick Osborne is 7-of-9 (77.8%) from three and shooting 71.4 percent overall (30-of-42)...  the Jaguars have also seemingly fixed the turnover woes, sitting at +1.3 turnovers per game in seven league games... that stat has been aided by a high number of steals as the Jags average 7.9 thefts per game in league play. 

OOHS AND OZ
    Junior Nick Osborne has been hot of late, scoring in double-digits in his last five appearances, all coming off the bench. In league play, Osborne is averaging 11.7 points and 5.5 boards per game while shooting 71 percent from the floor and 78 percent from three. All of this is coming in just 19 minutes per game, all off the bench. 
     
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.