GREEN BAY, Wisc. - The IUPUI basketball team will continue its stretch of three straight road games to open Horizon League play when the Jaguars face Green Bay (7-8, 2-0 Horizon) on Tuesday night (Jan. 2) at 8:00 p.m. Eastern inside the Resch Center. The game will be broadcast on ESPN3 and can be heard on iHeartRadio and Fox Sports 97.5 FM as Sam Rumpza (pxp) is on the call. 

The turn of the calendar came at an opportune time for the Jaguars as IUPUI (3-10, 0-2 Horizon) comes in having lost eight of nine, although the Jaguars' non-conference slate was ranked toughest in the Horizon League by KenPom.com. The Jags faced road tests at Gonzaga, Purdue, Washington State, Bradley and Ball State before opening league play with three consecutive road games. 

The IUPUI sharpshooting duo of Jaylen Minnett and Ron Patterson nearly shot the Jaguars to a come-from-behind road victory at Wright State, combining to score 21 of IUPUI's 33 second half points. Minnett hit three second half threes and Patterson added two more as they connected on 5-of-9 attempts. IUPUI closed within three in the closing minutes on a T.J. Henderson layup, but WSU's Jaylon Hall answered with a corner trey and the Jaguars committed a turnover on the ensuing possession. From there, the Jags were unable to close it within a single possession game. 

The Jaguars will host UIC inside Indiana Farmers Coliseum at 7:00 p.m. in the Jaguars' Horizon League home opener. That game will be sponsored by IMCU and the K9 Crew is scheduled to perform at halftime of that game. For tickets, contact Lauren Gronke at lgronke@iupui.edu or click here on the Ticketmaster link. 

SCOUTING GREEN BAY
Green Bay is 7-8 overall, but 7-2 at home this season and 2-0 to open Horizon League play. The Phoenix is coming off an impressive 80-79 victory over preseason favorite Oakland on Saturday. Green Bay swept the Horizon League Player of the Week Awards this week as Sandy Cohen III was named Player of the Week and PJ Pipes was named Freshman of the Week. 
    PROBABLE STARTERS:
    G- Sandy Cohen III (6-6, Jr.) 17.5 ppg, 6.8 rpg, 2.5 apg, 46.3 FG%
    G- PJ Pipes (6-2, Fr.) 7.9 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 2.3 apg, 40.7 FG%
    G- Khalil Small (6-2, Sr.) 15.9 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 3.1 apg, 42.7 FG%
    G- Kameron Hankerson (6-5, Soph.) 9.8 ppg, 3.1 rpg, 2.4 apg, 42.3 FG%
    F- David Jesperson (6-8, Sr.) 7.7 ppg, 4.3 rpg, 0.9 apg, 43.3 FG%
 
INSIDE THE SERIES
IUPUI is 2-3 all-time against Green Bay and 0-2 in the two meetings in Green Bay. 

UP NEXT
IUPUI will host UIC in its Horizon League home opener on Thursday (Jan. 4) inside Indiana Farmers Coliseum at 7:00 p.m.. That game will be sponsored by IMCU and the K9 Crew is scheduled to perform at halftime of that game. For tickets, contact Lauren Gronke at lgronke@iupui.edu or click here on the Ticketmaster link. 

GAME NOTES (click here for PDF of the full games notes)
LAST TIME OUT
IUPUI scored a season-low 52 points and opened Horizon League play at 0-2 with a 60-52 loss at Wright State. Freshman Jaylen Minnett led IUPUI with 11 points (3-5 3's, 2-3 FT) and Ron Patterson chipped in 10 (4-6 FG, 2-4 3's) in the loss. Grant Benzinger paced Wright State with 16 points and Justin Mitchell added 11 points, 13 rebounds and four assists.
IUPUI closed within three in the final three minutes, but WSU's Jaylon Hall rattled in a corner three to push the lead to six with 2:35 left. IUPUI turned it over on the ensuing possession and fouled Cole Gentry, who stroked a pair of freebies to make it an eight-point game. IUPUI got no closer than four in the final two minutes. 

STARTER NOTES
In the early portion of the non-league slate, head coach Jason Gardner continued to tweak the Jaguars' starting five, using six different quintets. For the year, senior Aaron Brennan is the lone Jag to have started all 13 games and Ron Patterson and Evan Hall have each started 12 times. Eight different players have at least one start this season.
That said, the group of Brennan, Patterson, Hall, D.J. McCall and Nick Rogers have started IUPUI's last six games. 

HOT BENCH
As a result of the shuffling lineups, the IUPUI bench has been especially strong, averaging nearly 26 points per game, including a season-high 42 on two different occasions. 
Since coming off the bench the last eight games, junior T.J. Henderson is averaging 11.3 points per game. 

LEAGUE OPENERS
Head coach Jason Gardner is now 3-1 in league openers, having won all three of his Summit League openers before losing his Horizon League opener at NKU on Thursday.
1/4/15 - at Fort Wayne (63-58)
1/1/16 - at South Dakota (77-66)
12/31/16 - Western Illinois (89-71)
12/28/17 - at Northern Kentucky (59-77)

AVOIDING 0-3
IUPUI is trying to avoid the program's first 0-3 start to league play since the 2013-14 season. That year, IUPUI opened Summit League play 0-9 in head coach Todd Howard's final season. 

CHECK THE PERCENTAGES
In IUPUI's three wins, the Jags have shot 49.1 percent from the field and held foes to 37.1 percent overall and 26.9 percent from deep.
In the Jaguars' nine loss, IUPUI has shot just 40.0 percent overall and allowed opponents to shoot a staggering 54.3 percent from the field and 44 percent from beyond the arc. 

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 37-8 (.822) in games in which the Jaguars have shot a better percentage than opponents and just 3-60 (.048) when being outshot. 

THEFT ALERT
Junior D.J. McCall is currently second among Horizon League players with 1.9 steals per game, putting him among the nation's top 100 in the category. After not collecting a steal in the season's opening two games, McCall has 21 steals in 10 games.
By comparison, McCall had just 22 steals all of last season. 

NEW NIGHT, NEW SCORER
It's seemingly been a new leading scorer every night for the Jaguars this season as five 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 nine double-digit scoring games and the team's leading scorer, Ron Patterson, is next in line with seven.

13 AND COUNTING...
Entering tonight, senior Ron Patterson had made a three in 13 straight games - his longest stretch of his college career. His longest streak last season was 10 straight games from Jan. 5-Feb. 8. 

DEFENDING THE TREY
The Jaguars have struggled to defend the three-point line in non-league play, yielding 39.7 percent. 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 1-7 this season when hitting fewer threes than opponents this year and 2-3 when making the same number or more treys than foes. 

TOUGH THREE
IUPUI endured arguably the toughest three-game stretch in program history with road games at No. 21 Purdue (L, 61-86), at Washington State (L, 59-72) and at No. 12 Gonzaga (L, 71-101). The losses at Purdue and Gonzaga dropped IUPUI to 0-17 all-time against nationally ranked foes.

FIVE KEY NUMBERS
Below are five key numbers from the Jaguars' loss at WSU.
7:56: Scoreless stretch of the first half that saw a one-point IUPUI lead turn into an eight-point deficit   
5-9: Combined three-point shooting from Jaylen Minnett (3-5) and Ron Patterson (2-4)  
18: Season-low scoring output in points in the paint
3: Season-low second chance points coming off seven offensive boards
11-13-4-4: Points, rebounds, assists and steals for WSU senior guard Justin Mitchell, who also finished with eight turnovers