IUPUI (2-2) vs. St. Francis Brooklyn (2-2)
Friday, Nov. 23, 2018 - 7 p.m.
Live Video:	Click Here
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Series:	first-ever meeting
Last Meeting:	none
Game Notes:	Click Here

NIAGARA, N.Y. - After a week between games that covered the Thanksgiving holiday, the IUPUI basketball team will return to action on Friday night (Nov. 23) when the Jaguars take on St. Francis Brooklyn (2-2) at 7:00 p.m. inside Niagara's Gallagher Center. The game is the Jaguars' third of four games in this year's Fort Myers Tip-Off. 

Ironically, Boston College captured the Fort Myers Tip-Off title on Wednesday night, despite suffering a home loss to the Jaguars in their second game of the tournament. Camron Justice tallied 29 points in the Jaguars' 76-69 victory over the Eagles and senior Evan Hall contributed his sixth career double-double with 18 points and 10 boards. In the second game of the road trip, IUPUI (2-2) fell at Richmond, 78-70. IUPUI built a 13-point first half lead, only to see the advantage whittled down to a single point by halftime. Richmond led the majority of the second half and was keyed by a career-high 31 points from Jacob Gilyard. Justice paced four Jaguars in double-digits with 14 points and Hall tossed in 13 on 5-of-7 shooting. Senior D.J. McCall contributed a season-high 11 points and Jaylen Minnett added 10 points, four boards and three assists off the Jaguars' bench. 

IUPUI shot a season-high 52 percent from the floor and outscored Richmond 18-0 in bench points, but couldn't sneak a second straight road victory. 

Friday's game is the first-ever between IUPUI and St. Francis Brooklyn and a win would give the Jaguars the program's best start since 2009. 

QUOTABLE: "We made way too many mistakes to come in here and try and get a win on the road. You've got to give Coach Mooney and his staff all the credit. We came out aggressive and threw the first punch, but they never really panicked and just stuck with what they do. They kind of settled in defensively and made things hard for us in the second half," Gardner said after last week's 78-70 loss at Richmond. 

UP NEXT: IUPUI will cap the four-game Fort Myers Tip-Off on Saturday night (Nov. 24), facing either host Niagara or Grambling State. Tip time and opponent is contingent upon Friday's result.   

QUICK NOTES (click here to access the full notes for Friday's game): 
    SPIDERS STUMP JAGUARS IN 2ND HALF
IUPUI was unable to finish the recent two-game road trip with back-to-back wins as the Jaguars dropped the second game of the Fort Myers Tip-Off, 78-70 at Richmond last Friday. IUPUI led by as many as 13 in the opening half and led 30-29 at the break, but was outscored 49-40 after halftime in the eight-point loss. Junior Camron Justice led four Jaguars in double-digits with 14 points and Evan Hall tallied 13, but Richmond's pint sized point guard Jacob Gilyard was the story, collecting a career-high 31 points on 12-of-16 shooting.
    Below are more notes about the loss at Richmond.
-IUPUI shot a season-high 51.9 percent from the floor, but allowed Richmond to shoot 52 percent from the floor, including 61 percent after halftime.
-IUPUI's bench outscored Richmond's reserves by an 18-0 margin, marking the fourth time in four games the IUPUI bench has outscored the opposition.
-IUPUI held Richmond to just four offensive boards and two second chance points.
-After being outrebounded by seven caroms in the season-opening loss at Xavier, IUPUI has won the glass in the past three games, including a dominating 40-28 margin at Boston College. IUPUI outrebounded Richmond 34-26 last Friday.
-D.J. McCall scored a season-high 11 points (5-6 FG) against Richmond, becoming the seventh different IUPUI player to score at least 10 points in a game this season.
-Sophomore Jaylen Minnett tallied 10 points off the IUPUI bench and matched his career-highs in both rebounds (4), assists (3) and steals (2) at Richmond.
-The main difference in the games was free throw shooting. IUPUI made just 7-of-14 attempts while Richmond was 20-of-29 for the game. Richmond outscored IUPUI at the charity stripe 17-5 after halftime.

    BLOW OUT THE CANDLES
Head coach Jason Gardner celebrated his 38th birthday in style, collecting his 50th career head coaching win at Boston College on November 14. Gardner is third on the program's all-time wins list at 50, but is a far cry from the top two in program history. Current Georgia State head coach Ron Hunter (275) and IUPUI Hall of Famer Bob Lovell (195) own the top two spots in program history.

    GAME 5
In each of the past four seasons, IUPUI has opened 2-2 and dropped game five of the campaign. In every instance, IUPUI has never gotten back to .500, also dropping game six of the schedule. The last time IUPUI was above .500 after the fifth game of the schedule was 2009-10 when the Jaguars opened 4-1 en route to a 25-win season.

    SHARING THE WEALTH
After four games, IUPUI has just one player who has scored in double-digits three times (Justice) and seven different players have hit for 10-or-more at least once. D.J. McCall became the most recent player to tally double-digits, joining a group that includes Elyjah Goss, Evan Hall, Jack Hansen, Camron Justice, Jaylen Minnett and Grant Weatherford.

    TRENDS
Some trends are beginning to shake out after the season's opening four games. Sophomore Elyjah Goss has led the Jaguars in rebounding in all three games and comes
in averaging 8.5 boards per game. As a team, IUPUI is averaging 11.3 offensive boards per game, led by D.J. McCall's team-high 13 offensive boards. The offensive rebounding is a direct result of the Jaguars'
poor shooting as IUPUI ranks towards the bottom in field goal shooting (41.4%) and three-point shooting (32.0%).

    700 DAYS
IUPUI junior guard Camron Justice was 700 days removed from his last competitive basketball game when the Jags took the floor against Xavier. Justice played just more than a season at Vanderbilt before joining the IUPUI program prior to last fall and sitting the full season as a transfer. Prior to Xavier, Justice last played in a game on Dec. 6, 2016 when the Commodores defeated High Point. Justice and Evan Hall were high school teammates at Knott County Central (Ky.) High School, helping the Patriots to four straight state tournament appearances. Justice finished his high school career with 3,588 points and 393 treys before being named the 2015 Kentucky Mr. Basketball.

    OTHER NEWBIES
While Justice is nearly two full years removed from his last Division I game, others in the Jaguars' rotation are in similar spots. Junior guard Grant Weatherford has never appeared in a Division I game, despite graduating from Hamilton Heights High School in 2015. Weatherford redshirted at Purdue in 2015-16, played a full season at Midland (Texas) College in 2016-17 and sat out all of last season.

    A LOOK BACK
Last year's IUPUI team ranked among the nation's best in steals (6.8 spg) and turnovers forced (14.7 to/game). IUPUI ranked 53rd nationally in turnovers forced per game and were among the nation's best in steals percentage. In addition, last year's squad was among the best in the country in hitting the offensive glass, grabbing 11.5 offensive caroms per game. Evan Hall ranked 102nd individually in offensive rebounding, grabbing 2.6 offensive boards per contest as a junior.

    HOT BENCH
A staple under head coach Jason Gardner has been his teams' bench scoring as the IUPUI leader likes to play 9-10 players and use his bench frequently. Gardner's teams have matched or outscored the opposition's bench in 95 of 129 games (73.6 percent), including the season's first four games. All total, the IUPUI bench is averaging nearly 24 points per game this season and outscoring opponents' benches by 16 points per game.