SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - The IUPUI basketball team will begin postseason play on Sunday night (Mar. 6) when the No. 4 Jaguars take on No. 5 North Dakota State (18-12) in the opening round of The Summit League Tournament at 7:00 p.m. Eastern. Sunday's game will be broadcast on MidcoSN and ESPN3 and will be heard in Central Indiana on 107.5 FM as Morgan Adcock (pxp) is on the call. 

The winner will play the winner of Saturday's first quarterfinal game between No. 1 Fort Wayne and No. 8 South Dakota. 

IUPUI split the regular season series with North Dakota State, with both teams holding serve at home and the two games were decided by a combined five points. Sophomore Jordan Pickett sent the Jaguars to a one-point win in the opener with a trey with 1.2 seconds remaining, while NDSU built an 11-point second half lead and staved off the hard charging Jaguars in the return meeting. 

The Jaguars come in on an offensive roll, having scored 80-or-more in three of the final four games of the regular season, culminating with an 80-77 victory over Fort Wayne in the finale. Junior guard Darell Combs collected the final Summit League Player of the Week award during the regular season, pumping in 31.5 points and 5.5 assists per game over the final two games, including drilling 12-of-18 (66.7 percent) three-point attempts. Combs became the first IUPUI player to score 30-or-more in back-to-back games since current NBAer George Hill pulled off the feat in January 2008. Combs added some accolades earlier this week when the junior guard was voted second team All-Summit and to the league's All-Newcomer Team. Senior guard Marcellus Barksdale was voted honorable mention All-Summit for the second straight year after leading the squad in both blocks and steals during the regular season. 

After earning at least one victory in 10 of its first 11 conference tournament appearances, IUPUI has been shutout the past four years, exiting in the quarterfinals round. Last year, IUPUI fell to No. 3 Oral Roberts, 58-56 in the first year at the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center. Ultimately, Sioux Falls has been unkind to the Jaguars as IUPUI is just 3-7 all-time in tournament play in South Dakota's largest city. The Jaguars made the finals in 2010 behind Robert Glenn and Alex Young, but has won just one postseason game since. 

Sunday's game will be the first-ever postseason meeting between IUPUI and NDSU. The Bison hold a 10-8 lead in the all-time series. 

JAGUAR TIDBITS
TRENDING
    IUPUI continues to trend upwards under second-year Head Coach Jason Gardner. Gardner led IUPUI to a winning record in Summit League play for the first time since 2010-11 when the Jags closed at 12-6 under Ron Hunter. 
    The Jaguars 13 victories are the most since winning 14 under Todd Howard in 2011-12. 

TOP 100's
    The regular season finale win over Fort Wayne gave IUPUI a league-best third win over an opponent ranked among the top 100 in RPI. The Jags swept Fort Wayne and also defeated South Dakota State, ultimately finishing the regular season 3-3 against top 100 teams. 

AWARDED
    Junior guard Darell Combs was recently voted Second Team All-Summit League and to the league's five-man All-Newcomer Team. The Chicago-native closed the year ranked sixth in the league in scoring (16.3 ppg), while finishing with the team lead in threes made (58), free throws made (117) and assists (68). His 31 steals were second on the squad and he played a team-high 30.5 minutes per game. 
    Senior guard Marcellus Barksdale was named honorable mention All-Summit League for the second straight year, this time coming after averaging 8.7 points, 5.2 rebounds and 1.6 assists per game. He was IUPUI's best defender statistically, collecting a team-high 50 steals and 30 blocked shots while starting all 31 games. 

CELLUS CLIMBING
    Senior Marcellus Barksdale has left his imprint on the program, having started 94 straight games dating back to the opener of the 2013-14 season.  
    In his fifth year with the program, the 6-foot-5 veteran has accumulated 946 points, 591 boards (9th on all-time list), 275 assists (13th on all-time list), 160 steals (8th on all-time list) and 66 blocked shots (8th on all-time list).  
    Barksdale is a distant 54 points shy of finishing as the 23rd member of IUPUI's 1,000 Point Club. 

HOT COMBS
    Junior Darell Combs closed the season on a high note, earning the league's final Player of the Week honor. He had a career night in last Thursday's loss to South Dakota, pumping in 32 points (11-20 FG, 6-11 3's, 4-4 FT) in 35 minutes against the Coyotes. 
    In doing so, he became the first IUPUI player to hit for at least 30 points in a game since Donovan Gibbs scored 32 against Judson in January 2014. 
    Two days after, he tossed in 31 points and a career-high eight assists in the Jaguars' 80-77 upset of Fort Wayne, including hitting 6-of-7 from beyond the arc. 
    He became the first IUPUI player to net back-to-back 30+ scoring games since current NBAer George Hill did so in January 2008. 

TOPPING 80
    After topping 80 points just three times in the season's first 27 games, IUPUI closed the year by scoring 80 or more three of the season's final four contests. Five of IUPUI's 80-point games came at home this season. 
 
FULL POWER
    IUPUI ended the regular season healthy, although that wasn't the case for much of the year. Prior to the final week, the Jaguars hadn't been full strength since the Jan. 14 loss to Oral Roberts as Evan Hall and Jordan Pickett were both sidelined for portions of time. IUPUI was only at full strength 16 times this season as Hall, Pickett and Nick Osborne have all missed time to a variety of injuries.

CLOSE CALLS, LOTS OF 'EM
    Half of IUPUI's Summit League games were decided by five points or less this season (Jags went 4-4 in those games). 
    IUPUI had a late January/early February streak where four straight games were decided by two points or less. The Jags dropped a 53-51 heartbreaker at Denver on Feb. 4 after squandering a 15-point second half lead. 
    Prior to that, IUPUI won three straight by a combined five points, two coming on last second buzzer beaters. The Jags won at Fort Wayne (84-82) when Marcellus Barksdale scored on left-handed layup as the final horn sounded. 
    The Jags then needed a defensive stop on the final play to beat Western Illinois (69-67) at home and picked off North Dakota State (73-72) on Jordan Pickett's trey with 1.2 seconds remaining. 
    IUPUI is 4-1 this season in games decided by two points or less, having beaten Indiana State 72-70 in the season opener. 

O'LEARY HONORED
    IUPUI junior Matt O'Leary was recently voted Academic All-District 5 for his prowess on the court and in the classroom. O'Leary has a 3.81 grade point average while majoring in management in the Kelley School of Business and is now eligible for Academic All-America honors. 
    He was joined on the District 5 team by Alec Peters (Valpo), Chris Fowler (Central Michigan), Max Hooper (Oakland) and Colby Wollenman (Michigan State). 

4/5 SPLIT
    As expected, the two prior meetings between IUPUI and North Dakota State both came down to the wire. IUPUI won in Indianapolis on a Jordan Pickett three in the closing seconds while NDSU held serve at home, staving off the Jaguars after building an 11-point lead in the second half. IUPUI had chances to tie or take the lead in the final minute, but ultimately fell by four. 
    
TRANSFERABLE GAINS
    Four of IUPUI's top five scorers are 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 nearly 44 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 8.7 points per game this year. 

BUZZER BEATERS
    IUPUI now has three buzzer beater game winners in the Gardner-era as sophomore Jordan Pickett is the most recent Jaguar to knock one in, draining a three with 1.2 seconds left to send the Jags to a 73-72 win over North Dakota State. 
    Senior Marcellus Barksdale was the star of stars at Fort Wayne on Jan. 23 with a game-winning layup as the horn sounded. 
    Last season, P.J. Boutte beat Ball State in overtime with a runner at the horn to give the Jags a 71-69 on Nov. 22, 2014.

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 21-5 (12-0 this season; 8-0 vs. Summit foes) when shooting a higher percentage from the floor than their opposition while going just 2-34 (1-18 this season) when being outshot by opponents.