FARGO, N.D. - After the opening week of Summit League play, only three teams went unscathed. On Thursday night (Jan. 5), two will go head-to-head when the Jaguars (7-8, 1-0 Summit) head west to take on North Dakota State (10-5, 2-0) inside Scheels Center at 7:00 p.m. Central (8 Eastern). Thursday's game will be televised on ESPN3 and MidcoSN and will be heard on 97.5 Fox Sports FM, 1260 WNDE and the iHeartRadio app as Morgan Adcock (pxp) is on the call.
Head Coach
Jason Gardner's team opened Summit League play with an impressive 89-71 win over Western Illinois, thanks to big games from seniors
Darell Combs and
Matt O'Leary. Combs finished with a game-high 28 points on 11-of-18 shooting and O'Leary chipped in 20 points and nine rebounds in the come-from-behind win. The Jags fell into a 16-5 hole in the opening minutes before an angry Gardner called timeout and challenged his team.
Message sent - and received.
The Jags scored the game's next nine points and eventually outscored WIU by 19 points for the remainder of the half to take an eight-point halftime advantage.
"We've got three fifth-year seniors in the starting lineup, so we've kind of seen it all," O'Leary said afterwards. "I don't think we were surprised by it. We just didn't get off to a very good start, but we got it going from there."
O'Leary matched his career-high with four made threes and Combs did the bulk of his damage inside the arc, making 9-of-14 shots in the interior.
"I thought we did a good job of responding to them when they'd hit shots," Gardner said. "They made some tough jumpers, but I thought our guys did a good job of continuing to dig in and contest their jump shooters.
"I was really proud that we got contributions from every guy that stepped on the court today. From Darell and Matt and Kellon offensively, but beyond that, I thought D.J. hit the glass hard and Ron did a really good job of getting deflections and making it hard for Covington."
North Dakota State comes in having opened Summit League play with wins over South Dakota State and Omaha. Junior guard Paul Miller was subsequently named Summit League Player of the Week after averaging 21.5 points, 8.0 rebounds and 4.0 assists in the two victories. For the year, Miller leads the Bison in scoring (14.1 ppg) and is second on the squad with 24 made threes' Senior Dexter Werner (10.7 ppg, 7.7 rpg) is the only other NDSU player in double-digits while three others - A.J. Jacobson (9.9), Carlin Dupree (9.6) and Khy Kabellis (9.1) - are all north of nine per night.
IUPUI is just 8-11 all-time against NDSU and Gardner is 1-4 in five meetings. The two teams split the regular season series last season before the Bison knocked off the Jags in the opening round of The Summit League Tournament.
JAGUAR TIDBITS
SUMMIT LEAGUE OPENERS
Following Saturday's win over Western Illinois, Head Coach Jason Gardner is now 3-0 in Summit League openers. He previously won at Fort Wayne (63-58) on Jan. 4, 2014 and at South Dakota (77-66) last season.
GOING 2-0
A win today would put IUPUI at 2-0 in the Summit - a feat it hasn't achieved since the 2011-12 season when the Jags opened the year with wins over Western Illinois and UMKC.
32-31-28
Those aren't Sir Mix-a-Lot lyrics - those are senior Darell Combs point totals in his last three Summit League games. Combs closed last season with 32 and 31-point outings before opening this season with 28 (11-18 FG, 2-4 3's, 4-4 FT) against Western Illinois.
INSIDE THE COLISEUM
IUPUI is 14-2 (.875) at home the past two seasons and 19-10 (.655) since Gardner took over the program.
NO SLIM WINS
All seven of IUPUI's wins this season have been by double-digits with the closest margin being a 12-point win over Eastern Michigan.
On the flip side, the Jags haven't lost many close games either as only three of the eight defeats coming by fewer than 10 points.
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' five home games, where IUPUI is averaging hitting 11.2 triples per contest. The Jags are shooting 47.9 percent from deep in home games this season.
COMBS NOTES (@KidDRell1)
-Senior Darell Combs leads the Jags in scoring (17.9 ppg - fourth 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 39 times in 46 career games and 13 of 15 this season. He's hit for 20-or-more six times this season and 15 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 1,044 career points (773 at IUPUI) entering tonight's game.
-Combs not only leads the Jags in scoring, but also leads the team in free throws made (50), threes made (32) and minutes (30.9 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 14 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 nine different categories including field goal percentage (4th), three-point percentage (6th), rebounding (8th), scoring (9th), free throw percentage (12th) and assists (13th).
-After scoring just 20-or-more once last season, O'Leary has already done five 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 47 games of his IUPUI career.
-The past eight games, O'Leary is shooting 22-of-43 (51.2 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' 15 games, including a career-high 5-of-9 in the win over Eastern Michigan.
-Patterson leads the Jaguars with 20 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 4.6 points, 6.6 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game - the Jags are 4-1 since the lineup change.
WESTERN ILLINOIS TAKEAWAYS
Darell Combs (28 points) and Matt O'Leary (20) gave IUPUI two 20-point scorers in a game for the second time this season - it also occurred at Ball State (Combs-21, O'Leary-20)... the win extended the Jaguars' winning streak to four against WIU... the Jags fell into a 16-5 hole in that game, but outscored the Leathernecks 42-23 the remainder of the first half... it was the second time this season the Jags recovered to win a game in which they trailed by double-digits at one point, joining the Ball State win... O'Leary matched his career-high with four threes made... Combs tied his career-high with 11 field goals made, doing so in just 18 attempts.
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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