INDIANAPOLIS - Amidst a three-game winning streak, the IUPUI basketball team will look to continue its torrid play when it hosts North Dakota State (14-7, 4-3 Summit) on Sunday (Jan. 31) at 1:00 p.m. inside Indiana Farmers Coliseum. Sunday's game will cap Homecoming Week as there will be a pregame VIP Jagating event inside the Coliseum before the game and this year's Royalty Court will be honored at halftime of the contest. In addition, fans wearing pink will receive $5 off the price of an adult ticket as IUPUI Athletics is partnering with the Komen Foundation and Regions Bank to kickoff February as Cancer Awareness Month. As part of Junior Jaguars Day, club members will be invited on the floor following the contest for a postgame layup line and the opportunity to meet and greet selected IUPUI players.

On the court, IUPUI (10-13, 6-2 Summit) moved into a four-way tie atop The Summit League standings with a hard fought 69-67 win over Western Illinois on Friday afternoon. Leading by one, the Jaguars got a key defensive stand with two seconds remaining when a well executed triple-team forced WIU standout Garret Covington into a traveling violation. Junior Matt O'Leary led the Jaguars with a career-high 20 points and 10 boards in his first collegiate double-double. Junior Darell Combs chipped in 18, including 11 straight early in the second half, as the Jaguars continued to dazzle offensively. IUPUI shot better than 50 percent from the floor and improved to 10-0 this season when shooting a higher percentage from the field than their opposition.

Covington paced four WIU players in double-figures with 23 points, including an impressive 90 second stretch at the end of the first half when he scored eight quick points to turn a 13-point deficit into a five-point gap at halftime.

IUPUI is now tied with Fort Wayne, Omaha and South Dakota State at 6-2 at the top of The Summit League standings. Sunday's game will be the first of two meetings this season between IUPUI and North Dakota State as the visiting Bison come in riding a six-game winning streak against the Jags.

Sunday's game will be televised on HTSN and ESPN3 as Greg Rakestraw (pxp) and Hall of Famer Bob Lovell (analyst) are on the call from courtside. In addition, the game will be heard on 107.5 FM as Morgan Adcock (pxp) describes the action. Pregame coverage will begin at approximately 12:45 p.m..

JAGUAR TIDBITS
SEE YOU AT THE TOP
    At the midpoint of Summit League play, IUPUI has climbed to the top of the standings at 6-2 against league foes. Following Friday's win, IUPUI was locked in a four-way tie at 6-2, along with Fort Wayne, Omaha and South Dakota State. IUPUI was a collective 2-1 against those three schools, having beaten IPFW and SDSU and lost at Omaha.
    The six wins match last year's total as the Jags went 6-10 in Gardner's first season.
    IUPUI's current three-game winning streak is the longest in league-play since winning three straight league games in February 2012 as part of a four-game winning streak (the Jags also won at Nicholls State as part of the BracketBusters).

WITH A WIN
    A win on Sunday would give IUPUI it's first four-game winning streak since winning six straight from Dec. 10, 2011-Jan. 3, 2012.

MATT O'YEAH
    Junior Matt O'Leary is coming off his best game of the season, turning in a career-high 20 points (9-9 FG), 10 rebounds and three assists in the Friday's 69-67 win over Western Illinois. O'Leary's perfect 9-of-9 from the floor was one attempt away from qualifying for an IUPUI single-game record for field goal percentage.
    Only twice in school history has an individual gone 10-of-10 from the field - Jon Avery versus Oral Roberts in 2010 and George Hill versus UMKC in 2006.

HE'S .500
    With Friday's win, IUPUI Head Coach Jason Gardner is now .500 in Summit League games, going 12-12 as head coach. He was 6-10 this year and is four-games-over this season at 6-2.

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 44.7 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 five of its past six games and 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 the 160's 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 last 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.

GOOD IN JANUARY
    IUPUI has been notoriously good in January under Head Coach Jason Gardner. IUPUI is 6-2 this January and 10-6 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 19-5 (10-0 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.

86 STRAIGHT
    Senior swingman Marcellus Barksdale has started 86 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 35 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 870 points, 543 boards, 260 assists and 148 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 one shy of Jon Avery and four 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 eight Summit League games with five players averaging better than nine points per game. Combs leads the crew at 16.8 points per game, followed by Barksdale (11.0 ppg), Osborne (10.9 ppg), O'Leary (10.6 ppg) and Pickett (9.9 ppg).
    IUPUI is shooting 49 percent overall and 37.5 percent from three in league play while holding foes to 44 percent overall.

MORE LEAGUE TIDBITS
    In Summit League play, junior Nick Osborne is 7-of-11 (63.6%) from three and shooting 65 percent overall (33-of-51)...  senior Marcellus Barksdale (56.9%) and junior Matt O'Leary (56.5%) have also been incredibly efficient from the field, doing the bulk of their damage inside the arc... the Jaguars have also seemingly fixed the turnover woes, sitting at +1.6 turnovers per game in eight league games... that stat has been aided by a high number of steals as the Jags average 8.1 thefts per game in league play.

ODELL TO THE HALL
    Former standout Odell Bradley was formally inducted in the IUPUI Hall of Fame earlier this season. 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 WORTHY
    IUPUI has made two appearances in ESPN's Top 10 plays this season, most recently Marcellus Barksdale was the No. 7 on the Applebee's Top 10 Hometown plays for his game-winner at Fort Wayne.
    Earlier in the season, 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.