INDIANAPOLIS - The IUPUI basketball team will host Eastern Illinois in the 2018-19 home opener on Saturday afternoon (Nov. 10) at 1:00 p.m. inside Indiana Farmers Coliseum. IUPUI will honor retired and active duty military personnel during a daylong Military Appreciation Day celebration. Saturday's game will be broadcast on ESPN3 as Greg Rakestraw (pxp) and Hall of Famer Bob Lovell (analyst) will call the action from courtside.
IUPUI (0-1) and Eastern Illinois (0-1) both hit the road to open the season against big name foes as the Jaguars fell at Xavier, 82-69, and EIU lost at Texas, 71-59. IUPUI trailed by as many as 18 in the first half before closing the half on a 17-2 burst to make it a three-point margin at the break. IUPUI eventually took a second half lead before ultimately succumbing down the stretch to the Musketeers. Sophomore
Jaylen Minnett scored a career-high 21 points in the loss and true freshman had 10 points in his collegiate debut.
Junior
Camron Justice added nine points in just 11 minutes of action and
Grant Weatherford closed with eight points in his IUPUI debut. Indiana-native Ryan Welage scored 21 of his game-high 24 points after halftime, including making five second half treys. Xavier finished the game shooting 47 percent from the floor and outscored the Jaguars 36-16 in the paint.
QUOTABLE: "I thought we fought. I thought we competed. We just needed to get to some more loose balls or get that key rebound in a couple situations in the second half. I think what we showed though is that we can fight and scrap and that's going to be a key component to our success this year. There were some times where I thought we lost our discipline and were probably a little too aggressive at times, but that's something we'll talk about and work on. That's not necessarily a bad thing," Gardner said after Tuesday's loss at Xavier.
UP NEXT: IUPUI will hit the road to face Boston College on Wednesday night (Nov. 14) at 7:00 p.m. in the opening game of the Fort Myers Tip-Off. The game will be broadcast on ACC Extra from Chestnut Hill.
QUICK NOTES (click here to access the full notes for Saturday's game):
FOR OPENERS
IUPUI dropped its season opener at Xavier on Tuesday night, 82-69 inside the Cintas Center in Cincinnati. IUPUI trailed 35-17 late in the first half, but outscored Xavier 20-2 spanning both halves to ultimately tie the score on the opening possession of the second half. The Jaguars later took a lead on a
Jaylen Minnett trey and were still within four points with eight minutes to play. However, Xavier closed strong en route to the victory. Here are some quick hitters from the Xavier game.
-Four members of IUPUI's starting five (Goss, Ismail, Justice & Weatherford) were making their first-ever starts in an IUPUI uniform.
D.J. McCall made his 65th career start alongside the quartet.
-Sophomore
Jaylen Minnett scored a career-high 21 points in the loss, hitting 5-of-12 from deep. Minnett's previous career-high was 16 points during his freshman season.
-Speaking of freshmen, IUPUI's two rookies provided a spark off the bench as
Jack Hansen and
Brandon Kenyon combined to contribute 17 points, five rebounds and hit 5-of-5 from the foul line. Hansen tallied 10 points (3-8 FG, 2-6 3's, 2-2 FT) in his debut while Kenyon added seven points (2-5 FG, 3-3 FT) before fouling out.
-McCall put up a prototypical McCall stat line, finishing with four points, five boards (four offensive) and a team-high five assists with no turnovers.
-Junior
Camron Justice was well on his way to a double-digit scoring night in his IUPUI debut, having scored nine points near the midpoint of the first half. However, Justice was ejected from the game for a Flagrant 2 foul, leaving him with nine points and three boards in his 11 minutes of work.
-The IUPUI bench outscored Xavier's by a 41-11 margin with 21 of the 41 coming from Minnett.
-The bigger, more athletic Musketeers dominated on the inside, outscoring IUPUI 36-16 in the paint and 11-4 on second chance points.
-Head coach Jason Gardner dropped to 1-4 in season openers.
AVOIDING 0-2
IUPUI has gone 0-2 in two of Gardner's first four seasons at the helm of the program. Both his 2014-15 and 2016-17 teams opened 0-2 before winning their third games of the season. IUPUI hasn't opened a season 2-0 since the 2009-10 campaign.
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 92 of 126 games (73 percent), including the season opener at Xavier.
VERSUS EIU
IUPUI is 2-3 all-time against Eastern Illinois and 2-1 during the program's Division I era. Last year's 80-79 loss in Charleston was IUPUI's first loss to the Panthers since 1984. In last year's game, IUPUI led for nearly 30 of the 40 minutes, but it was EIU that took the last lead of the night with a pair of Terrell Lewis freebies with six seconds left to go ahead by one. On IUPUI's ensuing possession,
T.J. Henderson tried to drive down the right side of the lane, but turned the ball over as time expired. Lewis scored a career-high 25 for EIU while
Aaron Brennan had 25 to lead four Jaguars in double-digits.
Ron Patterson (19),
Evan Hall (13) and Henderson (10) all finished in dubs while
Jaylen Minnett had eight points.
IUPUI shot a blistering 59.6 percent from the floor and 8-of-17 (47.1 percent) from deep while outscoring the Panthers 42-33 in the paint.
