VERMILLION, S.D. - The IUPUI basketball team will cap a daunting two-game trip on Saturday (Jan. 7) when the Jaguars face South Dakota (11-7, 2-1 Summit) inside the brand new Sanford Coyote Sports Center. IUPUI (7-9, 1-1) locked in a dogfight at North Dakota State on Thursday night before falling to the undefeated Bison, 93-89.
Fifth-year senior
Kellon Thomas scored a season-high 21 points to lead four Jags in double-digits while
Matt O'Leary added 16 for his 15th straight game in double-digits.
Darell Combs was held to 13 points on 4-of-16 shooting and
Ron Patterson added 11 off the bench. The story of the game was NDSU's efficient shooting against the Jaguars' inability to cash in on opportunities. NDSU shot 52 percent from the floor and was led by sophomore Khy Kabellis' 21-point effort. On the flip side, IUPUI shot just 37 percent overall and tallied just five second chance points, despite grabbing 22 offensive boards. The 22 offensive rebounds were the most since 2011 and both
Aaron Brennan and
D.J. McCall grabbed four apiece.
"I thought we fought and really left it all out on the court tonight," Head Coach
Jason Gardner said. "It's hard to win on the road. You have to be at your very, very best to win on the road and I don't think we were quite there tonight. We did a good job in a lot of areas, but we missed way too many shots - way too many layups - to get the win.
"(NDSU) did a good job of challenging our shots, but a lot of those are shots we typically make. It was a great college basketball game between two pretty good teams and I think it shows just how good this league is. Top to bottom this is a good league and you have to bring it every single night to get wins."
IUPUI comes in at just 3-7 all-time against USD while Gardner is 2-2 in his four meetings with the Coyotes. The two teams split the season series last year with each getting a win on the opponent's home court.
South Dakota is led by Air Force-transfer Matt Mooney (15.6 ppg, 36 3's) and Iowa-transfer Trey Dickerson (10.7 ppg). The Yotes are undefeated at home this year, going a perfect 7-0 which includes a Summit League win over Omaha. Most recently, USD won at Denver behind Mooney's 23 points and Dickerson's 10 points and five assists.
JAGUAR TIDBITS
NDSU TAKEAWAYS
IUPUI dropped to 1-1 in Summit League play following Thursday's 93-89 loss at North Dakota State. Here are some key takeaways:
-IUPUI's 22 offensive boards were the team's most since grabbing 24 on Dec. 3, 2011, also against the Bison. However, IUPUI converted the 22 caroms into just five points - an average of 0.2 points/offensive board. Coming in, IUPUI was averaging 0.9 points/offensive board.
-The Jaguars hit a season-high 21 free throws in 28 attempts, keyed by Kellon Thomas' 9-of-11 effort. Thomas scored a season-high 21 points, one shy of matching his career-high at Kent State. He became the fifth different IUPUI player to lead the team in scoring this season and the third different Jag to score at least 20 in a game.
-IUPUI fell into a double-digit hole in the opening six-plus minutes before getting back within one (42-41) by halftime. It marked the second straight game IUPUI fell behind by double-digits in the game's opening minutes.
-All nine Jags that played, scored at least two points. Eight of the nine had an assist as IUPUI finished with 17 assists against just 12 turnovers.
SUMMIT LEAGUE OPENERS
Following last 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.
WINNING THE GLASS
IUPUI has won the glass in six of its last seven games and has a 8.8 rebound margin the past six games since inserting D.J. McCall in the starting five.
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 four of the nine defeats coming by fewer than 10 points.
10 TREYS
IUPUI has made at least 10 threes in a game seven times this season. That said, four of those seven 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 40 times in 47 career games and 14 of 16 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 1,057 career points (786 at IUPUI) entering tonight's game.
-Combs not only leads the Jags in scoring, but also leads the team in free throws made (52), threes made (35) and minutes (31.1 mpg).
-Combs averaged 25.5 points per game against South Dakota last season, including a career-high 32 in the game in Indianapolis.
-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 15 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 48 games of his IUPUI career.
-The past eight games, O'Leary is shooting 26-of-50 (52 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 31-of-81 (38.3 percent) this year.
-Patterson has hit at least three threes six times, including a career-high 5-of-9 in the win over Eastern Michigan.
-Patterson leads the Jaguars with 21 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 4.3 points, 7.3 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game - the Jags are 4-2 since the lineup change.
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.
CENTURY MARKS
Just before Christmas, the IUPUI offense exploded, scoring 100-or-more points in back-to-back games for the first time since January 1995. The 100 points games in the wins over Urbana and Southern Utah are the first 100-point games since Gardner took over three seasons ago and was the first 100-point game since scoring 112 against Judson on Jan. 2, 2014.
During that span, IUPUI hit 75-of-121 (62 percent) from the floor and 30-of-57 (52.6 percent) from beyond the arc. In addition, the Jags had 49 assists on 75 buckets.
SHOOTING 50
IUPUI is now 13-1 (.929) when shooting 50 percent or better under Gardner and 28-7 (.800) when outshooting the opposition.
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