INDIANAPOLIS - IUPUI's two-game winning streak came to a disheartening end on Saturday night (Feb. 11) as the Jaguars fell to Oral Roberts at home, 74-68. The loss dropped the Jaguars to 5-7 in Summit League play, and 11-15 overall for the season. The loss was only the third of the season at the Coliseum, dropping their home record to 6-3 on the year.

Oral Roberts (8-19, 4-9 Summit) snapped a five game skid and collected its first road win of the season.  

The Jags struggled coming out of the gate, hitting only two of their first eight shots. They began to find their range around the 10 minute mark and were sparked by back-to-back trifectas from sophomore T.J. Henderson. However, the lid on the rim remained tight as the two teams traded baskets throughout the half. A late 17-5 run by Oral Roberts left the Jags with some work to do heading into the locker room as they trailed 42-31 at the break. 

"I think we came out slow. I think we missed some shots early," Head Coach Jason Gardner said after the game "a little bit of the focus wasn't there. Any time a team shoots that well from the floor it's hard to overcome that."

Overall, the Jags had a tough time shooting from all over the floor in the first half, going 12-of-29 from the field, 7-of-17 from three. An empty-handed 0-of-5 from the free throw line compounded the shooting woes. On the other end, Oral Roberts converted almost every trip down. The Golden Eagles went 15-of-25 from the floor, including 5-of-9 from three and a perfect 7-of-7 from the charity stripe to reach their 11-point margin at the break. 

"I thought we were flying around and gave up the middle too many times, which is something we normally don't do. I think there was a little bit of lack of concentration as far as not focusing on close outs and keeping guys in front," Gardner said. 

The Jaguars found a little bit of rhythm to open the second half, and chipped away the Oral Roberts lead. Combs scored seven straight for the Jags, and they cut  the deficit down to 50-46. The Golden Eagles responded with a 7-0 run of their own, and stretched the lead back up to 57-46. 

"We wanted to be a lot more aggressive in the second half. We got good looks in the first half, but we shot too many threes so in the second half we wanted to attack the rim more," Gardner said.

Trailing by 13 with just under 10 minutes to play, Aaron Brennan scored six straight to spark a 10-0 run to close the gap to 63-60 with 4:30 to play. However, the Jaguars were never able to fully overcome the deficit. A Darell Combs jumper made it 65-62, but Oral Roberts answered every basket. Trailing 72-68 with under 20 seconds to go, a Ron Patterson three was off the mark and Oral Roberts secured the rebound, all but sealing the game. 

"I think we just dug ourselves too big of a hole. We made runs, but anytime you make a run you know they're going to make one right back, and ours weren't good enough tonight," added Gardner.

Combs scored 13 of his team-high 18 points in the second half and Brennan added 14 of his own. Senior Kellon Thomas rounded out the Jags in double-figures with 13 while Henderson went 3-of-3 from distance to account for his nine points. 

Oral Roberts was led by Aaron Anderson who had 18 and Kris Martin and Albert Owens each had 16 apiece. Jalen Bradley contributed 13 points of his own.
 
IUPUI will begin its final regular season road trip next week, beginning at South Dakota State on Wednesday night (Feb. 15) inside SDSU's Frost Arena. There will be no local media coverage of that contest, but live video will be available on SDSU's GoJacks.com.