CINCINNATI, Ohio - The IUPUI basketball team will open the 2018-19 season on Tuesday night (Nov. 6) when the Jaguars take on Xavier inside Cintas Center at 8:30 p.m. in a nationally televised game on FS2. The Jags are on the hunt for the program's first winning record since 2011 while Xavier is coming off a season that resulted in a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and a 29-6 overall record. The game can also be heard on IUPUIJags.com as Morgan Adcock (pxp) is on the call.
If the exhibition game was any indication, head coach Jason Gardner's team will be keyed by a blend of returning faces and redshirts from a season ago. The Jags waltzed to a preseason win over Central State, led by 19 points apiece from
Camron Justice and
Jaylen Minnett. Senior center
Ahmed Ismail was also impressive, making all eight of his field goal attempts to chime in with 18 points and eight boards in limited minutes off the bench. The Jaguars' bench accounted for 46 of the team's 86 points. The Jags played without senior swingman
D.J. McCall, who missed the game due to sickness. The Jaguars' top defender wasn't missed on this night though as IUPUI limited Central State to just 32 percent from the floor and outrebounded the smaller Marauders by a 41-31 margin.
QUOTABLE: We're going to be a deep basketball team. We have a number of different guys who can go out and lead us in scoring on any given night. I think as a coach, you want that because it can be hard to scout against and hard to defend against. You can't just load up on one guy and stop us defensively. That's always been something that we want in the program and I think this year we legitimately have four or five guys that can go out and get 20 (points) on any given night. That's exciting and it's fun for the guys because then they want to share the ball and make each other better."
UP NEXT: IUPUI will host Eastern Illinois in the 2018 home opener on Saturday afternoon (Nov. 10) at 1:00 p.m. inside Indiana Farmers Coliseum. Saturday is Military Appreciation Day as active and retired military personnel may receive discounted tickets by contacting
Lauren Gronke at 317-278-2530. The IUPUI ROTC will provide the pregame colors and the National Anthem will be performed by the National Guard Singers. In addition, there will be a swearing in ceremony during the game as IUPUI Athletics helps usher in a new batch of military heroes.
QUICK NOTES (click here to access the full notes for Tuesday's game):
EXHIBITION NOTES
IUPUI cruised to an 86-52 win in its lone exhibition over Central State on Oct. 29, 86-52 inside Indiana Farmers Coliseum.
Camron Justice and
Jaylen Minnett combined to hit seven treys and each scored a game-high 19 points and
Ahmed Ismail added 18 points (8-8 FG, 2-3 FT) off the bench. Below are some more notes from the Jaguars' emphatic victory.
-The 34-point margin was the largest exhibition win in Gardner's five seasons at IUPUI.
-IUPUI improved to 5-0 all-time in exhibitions under Gardner, winning those five contests by an average of 21.2 points per game.
-
Evan Hall had a double-double (10 pts, 12 reb) in just 19 minutes of action. After shooting 29.4% from the free throw line last year and 35.3% from the foul line for his career, it was a welcome sight to see Hall hit both of his free throw attempts in the exhibition game.
-IUPUI outscored Central State 30-10 in the paint and 19-8 in points off turnovers.
-The Jags never trailed and led by as many as 39 points late in the contest.
-IUPUI had 24 assists on 33 field goals and the starting five had 15 assists against just four turnovers.
-
Camron Justice had the highest +/- of any IUPUI player in the win, going +38 in his 27 minutes on the floor. Both
Evan Hall and
Jaylen Minnett were +28 for the evening.
-IUPUI led wire-to-wire, scoring the game's opening five points and never looking back as they led 39:32 of the 40 minutes.
-Senior guard
D.J. McCall missed the game due to illness, leaving Gardner with 12 players at his disposal. All 12 players saw court time and 10 different Jaguars scored.
Trevor Johnson started in McCall's absence and contributed five points and three boards in just more than 15 minutes of action.
-IUPUI outrebounded the Marauders 41-31 and limited Central State to just one second chance point.
700 DAYS
IUPUI junior guard
Camron Justice is 700 days removed from his last competitive basketball game. 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. The 6-foot-3 guard 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.
LID LIFTERS
IUPUI is 23-23 all-time in season opening games and lost its past two openers heading into tonight's contest. Gardner is just 1-3 in his four season openers with the lone victory having come at Indiana State to start the 2015-16 campaign.
VERSUS X
IUPUI is 0-5 versus Xavier and 0-1 under Gardner. The lone meeting between IUPUI and Xavier since Gardner took over was a 66-43 Musketeer win on Dec. 9, 2014 inside Cintas Center. Marcellus Barksdale was the lone IUPUI player in double-digits with 10 (5-9 FG) and four others closed with six points. Current Jaguar
D.J. McCall was among the group to score six points, finishing with six points and two boards in 21 minutes off the IUPUI bench.
Indianapolis-native Trevon Bluiett paced Xavier with 12 points in that contest.
IUPUI has dropped the five games to Xavier by an average of 30.8 points per game, including an 88-43 loss on Dec. 4, 1974 and a 104-67 defeat in Cincinnati on Nov. 25, 1994. The slimmest margin was a 90-76 loss on Feb. 24, 1976.
