INDIANAPOLIS - The IUPUI basketball team will look to get back on the winning side of the ledger on Wednesday night (Jan. 10) when the Jaguars host Milwaukee (9-8, 2-2 HL) in Horizon League action at 7:00 p.m. inside Indiana Farmers Coliseum. The game is the second of four straight at home, marking the Jaguars' longest homestand of the 2017-18 season. 

The contest will be aired on ESPN3 as Greg Rakestraw (pxp) and Hall of Famer Bob Lovell (analyst) are on the call. 

IUPUI (4-11, 1-3 HL) is coming off a disheartening 70-65 defeat to UIC in a game that the Jaguars led by as many as 13 in the first half. However, UIC suffocated the Jaguars' in the second half, limiting IUPUI to just 29 percent shooting after the break and forcing 12 turnovers over the final 20 minutes. The Flames, led by 19 points each from Marcus Ottey and Dikembe Dixson, outscored IUPUI 36-24 in the second half to nab the road win. 

Senior Aaron Brennan paced IUPUI with 18 points and six boards while junior Evan Hall added 10 points and seven caroms. Sophomore Nick Rogers closed with seven points, six assists and four rebounds while Ron Patterson and T.J. Henderson scored eight points apiece.  

IUPUI was rolling in the first half, shooting 47 percent from the floor, fueled largely by Brennan's hot start. The local product energized the building with a thunderous and-1 dunk midway through the half, helping IUPUI build a 12-point lead. The lead grew to 13 later when a Hall steal resulted in Henderson feeding Patterson for an alley-oop in transition, just before intermission. UIC closed within seven by halftime, but didn't take its first lead until there were under five minutes to play. 

Brennan upped his scoring average to 11.5 points per game and paces three Jags averaging double-digits. Patterson (10.6 ppg, 31 3's) and Henderson (10.6 ppg, 20 3's) are next in line while Hall (7.9 ppg, 4.6 rpg) and true freshman Jaylen Minnett (7.4 ppg, 26 3's) round out the top five. Henderson and Minnett have done the bulk of their damage off the bench this season as IUPUI reserves average 25 points per game for the year. 

FREEBIES / ENTERTAINMENT
Foam fingers will be provided to students in attendance by Lux on Capitol, while supplies last. In addition, the Indy Air Bears will perform at halftime. 

GAME SPONSOR
Wednesday's game is sponsored by RJE Business Interiors.

SCOUTING MILWAUKEE
Milwaukee is 9-8 overall and 2-2 to start Horizon League play under first-year head coach Pat Baldwin. The Panthers boast an early season road win at Iowa State and defeated Loyola in Milwaukee as part of the non-conference slate. Milwaukee is 5-4 at home this season and 4-4 on the road with road victories over Iowa State, Northern Illinois, Jacksonville and Cleveland State.   
    PROBABLE STARTERS:
    G- Bryce Barnes (5-11, Soph.) 7.3 ppg, 1.9 rpg, 1.8 apg, 38.7 FG%
    G- Jeremiah Bell (6-0, Jr.) 13.1 ppg, 3.1 rpg, 1.4 apg, 42.8 FG%
    G- Brock Stull (6-4, Jr.) 14.1 ppg, 4.6 rpg, 2.7 apg, 38.5 FG%
    F- Vance Johnson (6-8, Jr.) 3.7 ppg, 3.4 rpg, 0.3 apg, 47.1 FG%
    F- Brett Prahl (6-9, Sr.) 9.9 ppg, 5.8 rpg, 1.4 apg, 66.4 FG%
 
INSIDE THE SERIES
IUPUI is 2-4 in the all-time series with Milwaukee, which dates back to 1986. IUPUI won the first-ever meeting on Dec. 22, 1986 in Indianapolis (72-66) and the most recent meeting on Nov. 19, 2014 in Milwaukee (70-68) while dropping the four meetings in the middle. The two teams played a double overtime contest in the Jungle on Feb. 23, 2013 as part of the Ramada Worldwide BracketBuster event in a game won by Milwaukee, 95-88. The Jaguars' 70-68 win in Milwaukee in 2014 was head coach Jason Gardner's first win as Jaguars' head coach. 

UP NEXT
IUPUI will host Green Bay on Friday (Jan. 12) inside Indiana Farmers Coliseum at 7:00 p.m.. As part of a Red Out event, FREE ROAR t-shirts will be provided, while supplies last. In addition, the IUPUI Hall of Fame Class of 2018 will be introduced throughout the evening's events. Plus, Friday night is Scout Night at the Coliseum and Boy Scouts can purchase a ticket for just $6, which includes a commemorative patch. 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
    Despite roughing up UIC for much of the first half and building a 13-point lead at one point, the IUPUI basketball team fell short 70-65 to the Flames last Thursday night. Senior Aaron Brennan led IUPUI with 18 points and Evan Hall chipped in 10 points and seven boards. UIC was led by 19 points each from Marcus Ottey and Dikembe Dixson. 
    The Jaguars were outscored 36-24 in the second half and shot a season-low 21.1 percent from three-point range. After turning it over just twice in the first half, IUPUI struggled against UIC's full-court press and committed 12 second half miscues.    
    
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 15 games and Ron Patterson and Evan Hall have each started 14 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 eight games. 

BENCH NOTES
    As a result of the shuffling lineups, the IUPUI bench has been especially strong, averaging 24.9 points per game, including a season-high 42 on two different occasions. The past four years, the IUPUI bench has outscored opponents in 73 of 110 (66 percent) of its games.  

BENCH NOTES, PART II
    IUPUI's top scorer has been a reserve in six of 15 games this season. Four different players have contributed to those six occasions. 
    Patterson (1): at Ball State (14 pts)
    Kirby (1): at Purdue (16 pts)
    Minnett (1): at Wright State (11 pts)
    Henderson (3): at Gonzaga (18 pts), IUK (19 pts), at GB (13 pts)

CHECK THE PERCENTAGES
    In IUPUI's four wins, the Jags have shot 47.2 percent from the field and held foes to 37.6 percent overall and 22.6 percent from deep. 
    In the Jaguars' 11 losses, IUPUI has shot just 40.0 percent overall and allowed opponents to shoot a staggering 53.9 percent from the field and 43.1 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 38-8 (.826) in games in which the Jaguars have shot a better percentage than opponents and just 3-61 (.047) when being outshot. 

GETTING LOOKS
    Two areas where IUPUI has excelled this season are offensive rebounding (66th nationally - 12.1 rpg) and forcing turnovers (64th nationally - 15.6 to/g). 
    Because of those numbers, IUPUI has attempted 117 more shots than their foes for the year, good for 7.8 shot attempts per game. 

GRADE CHECK
    Ten members of the IUPUI basketball team earned at least a 3.0 grade point average during the fall semester - Evan Borgman, Aaron Brennan, Elyjah Goss, Evan Hall, T.J. Henderson, Chad Hudson, Ahmed Ismail, Maurice Kirby, D.J. McCall and Noah Thomas. 

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
    With the win at Green Bay, IUPUI avoided 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. 

THEFT ALERT
    Junior D.J. McCall is currently second among Horizon League players (82nd nationally) with 1.9 steals per game. After not collecting a steal in the season's opening two games, McCall has 26 steals in 12 games (2.17 spg).
    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 six 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 10 double-digit scoring games and Evan Hall and Ron Patterson are next in line with seven. 

SNAPPED AT 13
    Senior Ron Patterson opened the year in 13 straight games to start the season - his longest stretch of his college career. His longest streak last season was 10 straight games from Jan. 5-Feb. 8. 
    The streak was snapped at Green Bay in an 0-of-3 performance and he's 0-9 in the Jaguars' past two games.