INDIANAPOLIS - The IUPUI basketball team will open Summit League play on Saturday afternoon (Dec. 31) when the Jaguars host Western Illinois (4-8, 1-0 Summit) inside Indiana Farmers Coliseum at 1:00 p.m.. The game will be broadcast on ESPN3 as Greg Rakestraw (pxp) and Bob Lovell (analyst) are on the call. In addition, the game will be heard on 97.5 Fox Sports FM, 1260 WNDE and the iHeartRadio app as Morgan Adcock is on the call.
Saturday's game will be a family friendly New Year's Eve event as balloon artists, glitter tattoo artists and other kid friendly attractions will be setup throughout the Coliseum.
Tickets are available via the link or at the Coliseum box office.
The Jaguars (6-8, 0-0 Summit) will look to build on an unblemished 4-0 mark at home this season, following Wednesday's 81-60 win over Marian. Senior
Darell Combs led the way with 23 points, including hitting for his 1,000th collegiate tally when including his sophomore year at Eastern Michigan. Junior
Aaron Brennan came off the bench to hit 3-of-4 threes and finish with a season-high 13 points. Senior
Matt O'Leary rounded out the double-digit scorers with 10 points in the victory. After a slow start, IUPUI pulled away late in the first half and blew the lead out past 30 in the second half. The Jaguars made 10 threes in a game for the sixth time this season and held Marian below 40 percent shooting.
"I thought our guys did a good job. In the beginning, we were just kind of missing shots and I think because of the break, the guys were stressing a little bit at the start of the game," Head Coach
Jason Gardner said after the win. "I think they really calmed down and got in a good flow and started hitting shots.
"We got some run outs and some easy ones in transition and that helped everyone."
For the season, Combs leads the team in scoring (17.1 ppg), threes made (30), free throws made (46) and minutes played (30.7 mpg). The Chicago-native hit for 20-or-more for the fifth time this season and the 13th time in his career with the 23-point outburst against Marian.
Western Illinois is coming off an impressive 93-91 road win at Summit League favorite Fort Wayne on Thursday night (Dec. 29). Garret Covington finished with 25 points on 10-of-20 shooting while freshman C.J. Duff added 21 on 7-of-9 shooting from three-point range. Collectively, WIU hit 18-of-37 (48.6 percent) from three-point range as six different Leathernecks hit at least one triple.
For the year, Covington leads WIU and is second in The Summit League in scoring at 19.6 points per game and is third in the league with 39 threes made.
IUPUI is 31-14 all-time against WIU and 30-9 since they became conference foes in 1998-99. Gardner is 3-1 against Western Illinois as the Jags have won the last three meetings in the series.
JAGUAR TIDBITS
SUMMIT LEAGUE OPENERS
Head Coach Jason Gardner is 2-0 in Summit League openers, having won at Fort Wayne (63-58) on Jan. 4, 2014 and at South Dakota (77-66) last season.
INSIDE THE COLISEUM
IUPUI is 13-2 (.867) at home the past two seasons and 18-10 (.643) since Gardner took over the program.
10 TREYS
IUPUI has made at least 10 threes in a game six times this season. That said, four of those six have come in the Jaguars' four home games, where IUPUI is averaging hitting 12.3 triples per contest. The Jags are shooting 47.6 percent from deep in home games this season.
COMBS NOTES (@KidDRell1)
-Senior Darell Combs leads the Jags in scoring (17.1 ppg - fifth in The Summit) 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 38 times in 45 career games and 12 of 14 this season. He's hit for 20-or-more five times this season and 14 times in his career.
-Combs scored his 1,000th collegiate point in a 23-point effort in the win over Marian on Dec. 28. Including his 271 points scored at Eastern Michigan, Combs has 1,016 career points entering tonight's game.
-Combs not only leads the Jags in scoring, but also leads the team in free throws made (46), threes made (30) and minutes (30.7 mpg).
-Combs handed out his 100th career assist in the loss at Illinois.
-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 13 straight games in double-digits, having hit for 10 or more in every game this season except the season-opener at EKU.
-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 field goal percentage (3rd), three-point percentage (7th), scoring (7th), rebounding (8th), assists (11th) and free throw percentage (13th).
-After scoring just 20-or-more once last season, O'Leary has already done four times this year, including a career-high 25 at Illinois.
-O'Leary led the Jags in scoring just three times last season, but has already done so five times this year.
-O'Leary has started all 46 games of his IUPUI career.
-The past seven games, O'Leary is shooting 18-of-36 (50 percent) from three-point range. He's made a three in all but one game this season.
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 29-of-77 (37.7 percent) this year.
-Patterson has hit at least three threes in six of the Jaguars' 14 games, including a career-high 5-of-9 in the win over Eastern Michigan.
-Patterson leads the Jaguars with 17 steals.
-His stat line in a 15-point effort at Marquette earlier this season was three 3's and three dunks.
LINEUP TWEAK
For the first time this season, Head Coach Jason Gardner altered his starting five prior to the win over Urbana, inserting sophomore D.J. McCall for junior Ron Patterson. McCall was averaging 9.3 points and 7.0 rebounds per game in the three games leading up to his move to the starting five.
Since moving to the starting five, McCall is averaging 5.3 points, 6.0 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game.
MARIAN TAKEAWAYS
D.J. McCall just missed a double-double, finishing with four points, 11 rebounds and a career-high seven assists... after hitting 10 threes prior to the Marian game, junior Aaron Brennan went 3-for-4 from deep and scored a season-high 13 points... seniors Matt O'Leary (3 blocks) and Darell Combs (2 blocks) both set a new career-high in blocked shots as IUPUI blocked a season-high seven attempts... freshman Giovanni Fraser tallied a career-high five points off the bench in just eight minutes of action.
SMARTY CATS
The Jaguars recently posted an all-time best semester GPA of 3.09 during the fall. All total, 13 Jaguars posted a GPA of 3.0 or above, led by Matt O'Leary's 4.0 mark.
MAJOR CONFERENCE FOES
IUPUI finished this season 0-4 against major conference foes with losses coming at Michigan, Marquette, Illinois and Northwestern. The Jags dropped those four games by an average margin of 16.8 points per game - the slimmest margin being an eight-point loss at Illinois.
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