MUNCIE, Ind. - The IUPUI basketball team will continue a stretch of six straight road games when the Jaguars take on Ball State (4-3) on Saturday afternoon (Dec. 3) at 2:00 p.m. inside Worthen Arena. The game will be broadcast on ESPN3 as Joel Godett (pxp) and David Eha (analyst) describe the action. In addition, the game can be heard on the iHeartRadio app as Morgan Adcock (pxp) is on the call.
Head Coach
Jason Gardner's team comes in seeking its first road win of the season following Wednesday's loss at Illinois State. The Jags come in battle tested, having weathered road losses at Michigan and Marquette, among others. The recent loss at ISU was largely due to falling into a big first half hole against a longer, more athletic squad.
"(Illinois State) is a quick twitch, athletic team and they caused us some trouble early. I think we were just a little more careless with the basketball and that allowed them to get some easy baskets in transition and kind of get some momentum against us," Gardner said. "I liked our fight tonight, especially in the second half.
"We missed too many layups again tonight, but part of that was their size and athleticism inside. They did a good job of challenging and changing shots inside. We needed to do a better job of getting into their bodies and getting to the foul line, but they're a good team on the inside."
Senior
Matt O'Leary continued his hot play with 17 points and seven boards and junior
Ron Patterson added 15 points, including three threes. Senior
Darell Combs chipped in with 13 points as the IUPUI starting five accounted for 58 of the team's 63 points. Senior
Kellon Thomas added nine points and junior
Aaron Brennan had five points off the bench.
The Jags have struggled shooting the basketball of late, dipping below 40 percent in each of the past two games to slide to 42.3 percent overall for the year. The Jags have also been bullied on the glass, being outrebounded by 11 caroms per game in each of the past two contests.
IUPUI (2-5) comes in at 4-7 all-time against Ball State and just 1-5 in the six meetings in Muncie. IUPUI dropped a 61-58 contest on Dec. 1 of last season.
Ball State is led by Tayler Persons (15.7 ppg, 5.7 apg) and Franko House (13.6 ppg, 6.1 rpg, 52.2 FG%) and has early wins over Saint Louis, Coppin State, Southern Utah and IU Kokomo. Ball State is leading the Mid-American Conference by shooting 48.1 percent from the floor and 39.4 percent from three-point range. Four BSU players have hit at least 10 threes this season, led by junior Sean Sellers' 14 makes in seven games.
JAGUAR TIDBITS
COMBS NOTES (@KidDRell1)
-Senior Darell Combs leads the Jags in scoring (16.3 ppg) and was voted preseason First Team All-Summit this season. Combs was a 2nd Team selection following last season.
-The Chicago-native has scored in double-digits 32 times in 38 career games and six of seven this season.
-Combs not only leads the Jags in scoring, but also leads the team in assists (24), free throws made (24) and minutes (32.6 mpg).
-Combs capped his junior year with back-to-back 30 scoring games, becoming the first IUPUI player to do so since George Hill achieved the feat in 2008.
MATT O'LEARY NOTES (@OLeary_15)
-Senior Matt O'Leary is riding a career-best six straight games in double-digits, having hit for 10 or more in every game this season except the season-opener at Eastern Kentucky.
-O'Leary is two games removed from a career-high 22 points at SIUE and has made 60.7 percent of his field goal attempts in the past two games (17-of-28),scoring 39 points in losses at SIUE and Illinois State.
-O'Leary has one of the team's two double-doubles this season (Evan Hall has the other) and has two career double-doubles in an IUPUI uniform.
-O'Leary entered this week ranking among The Summit League leaders in eight different categories including rebounding (5th), assists (8th) and scoring (14th).
PATTERSON NOTES (@Buss34)
-Not known as a three-point threat upon transferring from Syracuse, junior Ron Patterson has been lethal from deep to start the season. The Indianapolis-native made just 15-of-71 (21.1 percent) attempts in his two years with the Orange, but is 18-of-44 (40.9 percent) in his first seven games with the Jaguars.
-Patterson has hit at least three threes in five of the Jaguars' seven games, including a career-high 5-of-9 in the win over Eastern Michigan.
-Patterson leads the Jaguars with eight steals and four dunks this season. His stat line in a 15-point effort at Marquette earlier this season was three 3's and three dunks.
SPLITS
IUPUI is 2-0 at home this season and 0-5 in road games. The Jags' winning scoring margin in the two home games was 17.0 points per game while the margin on the road has been -12.8/game.
PLUS/MINUS
Plus/minus has become increasingly popular in the statistical world, particularly at the professional basketball ranks. Below is a quick look at IUPUI's best in /-, among those who have logged major minutes.
PLUS
Hall ( 2.71/game)
Henderson ( 0.53)
McCall (-0.57)
MINUS
Brennan (-6.29)
K. Thomas (-5.14)
Combs (-4.43)
2K CLASSIC
IUPUI capped the four-game 2K Classic with a 2-2 record, losing road games at Michigan and Marquette and winning the Indianapolis Subregional of the event. IUPUI captured home victories over Howard (77-55) and Eastern Michigan (83-71). Junior Ron Patterson was named Subregional MVP after averaging 16 points and hitting 9-of-17 threes. He was joined on the All-Tournament Team by senior forward Matt O'Leary, who averaged 10.5 points, 9.5 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 1.5 steals over two games.
EIGHT IN DUBS
Through the season's first five games, IUPUI had already had eight different players score in double-digits as D.J. McCall had 10 at Marquette on Nov. 22. No IUPUI player has scored in double-digits in every game as Darell Combs and Matt O'Leary have tallied double-digits in six of seven games.
JAGS GET DEFENSIVE
The most important stat in the Jags' wins over Howard and Eastern Michigan was how stingy the Jaguars' defense was - specifically on the perimeter. Howard and Eastern Michigan combined to hit just 36.3 percent from the field and 3-of-26 (11.5 percent) from three-point range. Howard was 0-for-9 from three, marking the first time in IUPUI's Division I era (1998-present) that a foe hasn't hit at least one trey.
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