SPOKANE, Wash. - The IUPUI basketball team will cap a non-conference road gauntlet on Monday night (Dec. 18) when the Jaguars take on 2017 national runner-up No. 12/15 Gonzaga (9-2) inside the McCarthy Athletic Center at 6:00 p.m. Pacific (9 Eastern). IUPUI (2-7) is amidst a five-game losing skid, which includes recent road losses at No. 21 Purdue and at Washington State on Saturday night (Dec. 16). 

Monday's game marks IUPUI's final road test during the non-league portion of the schedule. IUPUI will then return home to host IU Kokomo on Friday, Dec. 22 inside the Jungle at noon before embarking on the program's first season of Horizon League play. 

Senior Ron Patterson was one of the lone bright spots in the 72-59 loss at Washington State on Saturday night, matching his career-high with 19 points while grabbing a team-high six boards. Patterson stroked three threes in a 43-second stretch of the first half to help IUPUI pull within one just before halftime. However, WSU closed strong to lead 36-30 at the break and unloaded a 9-0 run early in the second half to take command of the game. 

Redshirt freshman Elyjah Goss and junior T.J. Henderson both chimed in with nine points off the Jaguars' bench, which outscored WSU's reserves, 25-15. 

However, IUPUI struggled to knock down shots while allowing the Cougars to shoot well above 50 percent. The Jaguars connected on a season-high 10 threes and committed a season-low nine turnovers, but hit just 24-of-71 attempts overall to close at 33.8 percent shooting. It marks the fourth time in nine games IUPUI shot less than 40 percent from the floor while the Jaguars' last five opponents have all shot better than 53 percent overall. 

Seniors Aaron Brennan (12.9 ppg) and Patterson (11.4) are the team's top two scorers while fellow senior Maurice Kirby leads the squad in rebounding at 4.8 per game. Henderson is the team's top assist man with 26 through nine games.  

SCOUTING GONZAGA
Gonzaga is 9-2 on the year and 6-0 on its home floor, winning those games by an average of 22.7 points per contest. Head Coach Mark Few's team's only two losses of the year was a double overtime defeat to Florida in the PK80 and a loss to Villanova in the Jimmy V Classic in New York City. Gonzaga boasts wins over Ohio State, Texas, Creighton and Washington already this season.  
    PROBABLE STARTERS:
    G- Silas Melson (6-4, Sr.) - 11.0 ppg, 3.4 rpg, 2.5 apg, 42.6 FG% 
    G- Josh Perkins (6-3, Jr.) - 14.9 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 5.0 apg, 46.8 FG%
    G- Zach Norvell, Jr. (6-5, R-Fr.) - 12.9 ppg, 3.4 rpg, 2.6 apg, 47.6 FG%
    F- Johnathan Williams (6-9, Sr.) - 15.4 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 1.8 apg, 53.8 FG%
    F- Killian Tillie (6-10, Soph.) - 11.5 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 2.0 apg, 55.1 FG%

INSIDE THE SERIES
Gonzaga leads the all-time series, 1-0, having defeated the Jaguars 86-56 in the 2010-11 season opener in Spokane as part of the CBE Classic.

UP NEXT
IUPUI will return home to host IU Kokomo at 12:00 p.m. on Friday afternoon (Dec. 22) inside the Jungle. It'll mark the Jaguars' first game inside the Jungle since the end of the 2013-14 season. For tickets, contact Lauren Gronke at lgronke@iupui.edu. 

GAME NOTES (click here for PDF of the full games notes)
SERIES BREAKDOWN
Monday's game is the second-ever meeting between the two schools. IUPUI faced Gonzaga in 2010 season opener as part of the CBE Classic, falling to the Zags, 86-56.

NEW FIVES
IUPUI head coach Jason Gardner has continued to tweak the Jaguars' starting five, having used six different quintets in the season's first nine games. Senior Aaron Brennan is the lone Jag to have started all nine games and Ron Patterson and Evan Hall have each started eight times. Eight different players have at least one start this season. 

HOT BENCH
As a result of the shuffling lineups, the IUPUI bench has been especially strong, averaging 22.9 points per game, including a season-high 42 at Purdue. In that game, IUPUI had three players in double-digits off the bench in Maurice Kirby (16 pts), Jaylen Minnett (12) & T.J. Henderson (10).
The Jaguars' bench has outscored the opposition in five of the past six games. 

BUSS FOR 19
Ron "Buss" Patterson matched his career-high with 19 points at Washington State on Saturday, connecting on 5-of-13 three-point attempts, including three in 43 seconds late in the first half. Patterson also led the Jaguars with six boards. 

KIRBY'S CAREER NIGHT
The well traveled Maurice Kirby had his best night at the Division I level at Purdue, tallying a career-high 16 points (8-12 FG) and four rebounds in 23 minutes. It marked the first double-digit scoring game in the graduate transfer's career, including his two seasons at Loyola. Kirby also collected a pair of steals in the loss. 

NEW NIGHT, NEW SCORER
It's seemingly been a new leading scorer every night for the Jaguars this season as four different players have been the team's top scorer and nobody has scored in double-digits in every game. Junior T.J. Henderson has a team-high seven double-digit scoring games while Ron Patterson is next in line with five. The team's top scorer, Aaron Brennan, has four double-digit scoring games. 

THE LAST FIVE...
IUPUI's last five foes have all shot at least 53 percent from the floor, all resulting in Jaguars' losses. For the year, IUPUI opponents are shooting 49.4 percent from the floor and 40.1 percent from three-point range.  

DEFENDING THE TREY
The Jaguars have struggled to defend the three-point line in the season's early going, yielding 40.1 percent through nine games. Below are some instances of the Jaguars' woes, both individually and collectively:
at Bradley (57.1%) - Nate Kennell (5-of-9)
at EIU (45.0%) - Terrell Lewis (7-of-9)
at WIU (58.8%) - Kobe Webster (5-of-7)
vs. SIUE (68.8%)
IUPUI is 0-6 this season when hitting fewer threes than opponents this year and 2-1 when making the same number or more treys than foes. 

TOUGH THREE
IUPUI is amidst arguably the toughest three-game stretch in program history. The Jags lost 86-61 at No. 21/21 Purdue (Dec. 10) and at Washington State (Dec. 16), 72-59, on Saturday night leading up to tonight's game with the Zags.   

MAKE SHOTS, WIN GAMES
The most telling number of outcomes of games under head coach Jason Gardner has simply been field goal percentages.
IUPUI is 36-8 (.818) in games in which the Jaguars have shot a better percentage than opponents and just 3-57 (.050) when being outshot. 

FIVE KEY NUMBERS
Below are five key numbers from the Jaguars' loss to Washington State.
20-4: IUPUI had 20 more shot attempts than WSU, but made four fewer shots than the Cougars  
0-10: IUPUI started the game 0-of-10 from three-point range before Patterson connected late in the first half. Conversely, IUPUI finished by hitting 10-of-21 from that point. 
19: Career-high tying points from Ron Patterson, marking his third 19-point game of his IUPUI career
25-15: Scoring advantage from the IUPUI bench at Washington State
7-of-29: Collective shooting effort from the rest of the starting lineup, aside from Patterson's 7-of-16 night

0-FOR-RANKED
IUPUI has never defeated a ranked opponent, going 0-16 versus the ranked in the program's Division I era. Below is a listing of those 16 results, 11 of which were true road games.
    The Jaguars' average margin of defeat is 20.6 points per game in the 16 total losses:
    12/13/99 at #2 Arizona L, 41-70
    12/15/01 vs. #20 Ball State L, 81-103
    3/21/03 vs. #2 Kentucky L, 64-95 // NCAA - Nashville, TN
    12/13/03 at #25 Dayton L, 59-61
    12/18/04 at #18 Louisville L, 60-80
    11/10/07 at #11 Marquette L, 68-78
    12/14/08 vs. #20 Arizona St. L, 58-59 (ot) Phoenix, Ariz.
    11/14/10 at #12 Gonzaga L, 56-86
    11/21/10 vs. #25 San Diego State L, 46-61 Oxford, Ohio
    12/9/10 at #2 Ohio State L, 64-75
    12/22/10 vs. #7 San Diego State L, 54-56 Las Vegas, Nev.
    12/7/11 at #5 Louisville L, 60-90
    11/12/12 at #5 Michigan L, 54-91
    12/7/15 at #11 Purdue L, 53-80
    12/28/15 at #9 Butler L, 54-92
    12/10/17 at #21 Purdue L, 61-86

AT THE HORN
Winning games at the horn has been a staple of head coach Jason Gardner's squads. So when IUPUI failed to get a shot off at the buzzer in Friday's 80-79 loss at Eastern Illinois, it was almost a surprise. Since Gardner took over, IUPUI has won four games in the closing seconds, including two as time expired:
P.J. Boutte 15' floater at the horn vs. Ball State (71-69 / Nov. 22, 2014)
Marcellus Barksdale layup at the horn at IPFW (84-82 / Jan. 23, 2016)
Jordan Pickett wing 3 with :02 vs. NDSU (73-72 / Jan. 31, 2016)
Darell Combs wing J with :01.5 vs. SDSU (85-83 / Jan. 18, 2017)

FRESH STARTS
In the season opener at Bradley, true freshman Jaylen Minnett became the first IUPUI true rookie to start his debut since Alex Young did so against Northeastern in 2008.
Minnett had five points, two boards and an assist in his IUPUI debut.