HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. - The IUPUI basketball team will look to get back to the winning side of the ledger on Friday night (Dec. 28) when the Jaguars open Horizon League play at Northern Kentucky (10-3, 0-0 HL) at 7:00 p.m. The game will be broadcast on ESPN+ and can be heard on IUPUIJags.com as Morgan Adcock (pxp) is on the call.
IUPUI (8-5, 0-0 HL) comes in riding back-to-back losses for the first time all season as the start to the current stretch of five straight road games has been unkind. A week ago, the Jags shot a season-low 35.3 percent from the floor and dropped a 74-70 road contest at Morehead State. Junior
Camron Justice labored his way to 20 points and sophomore
Elyjah Goss just missed a double-double with 11 points and nine boards (six offensive). Fellow sophomore
Jaylen Minnett also chimed in with 11 points off the bench and senior
Evan Hall had nine points and eight boards.
MSU got 20 points from Lamontray Harris and 13 points and 11 boards from Malek Green. MSU point guard A.J. Hicks carved up the Jaguars' defense en route to nine points, nine assists and eight boards.
Despite the Jaguars' shooting woes, they still had a chance to steal a road win, lead with 5:21 to play when Hall split a pair of free throws. The game would be tied at 66 all and 68 all before Morehead State closed the game outscoring the Jaguars 6-2 in the final two minutes.
Friday's game at NKU pits the lone two Horizon League teams to notch winning records in non-conference play as NKU comes in at 10-3 and the Jags sit at 8-5. NKU has been stingy defensively, allowing just 65.2 points per game and opponents are shooting just 38.4 percent against the Norse. Teams are even less successful from deep, connecting on just 28 percent overall and less than six makes per game. Horizon League Preseason Player of the Year Drew McDonald has lived up to his billing, averaging 18.3 points, 9.5 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game while shooting 48 percent from the floor and 38 percent from three. The Norse are a perfect 8-0 at home, having won those games by an average margin of more than 21 points per game.
QUOTABLE: "We've got to be better than that. Plain and simple. It's really disappointing because we had a real chance to gain some momentum headed into Horizon League play. I thought we took some rushed shots and we settled for some shots, rather than attacking them offensively. Those are some things that we really haven't done all year, but we did them tonight," Gardner said after the loss at Morehead State.
UP NEXT: IUPUI will cap the two-game road trip at Wright State on Sunday (Dec. 30) at 3:00 p.m. on ESPN3. That game will also be heard on IUPUIJags.com as Morgan Adcock (pxp) is on the call.
QUICK NOTES (click here to access the full notes for Friday's game):
JAGS DROP SECOND STRAIGHT ROAD GAME BEFORE CHRISTMAS
IUPUI lost back-to-back games for the first time all season when the Jaguars dropped a 74-70 decision at Morehead State on Friday, Dec. 21 in Morehead, Ky. The loss soured a homecoming contest for
Camron Justice and
Evan Hall as the duo had more than 100 friends, fans and family members in attendance.
IUPUI shot a season-low 35.3 percent from the floor, but still nearly escaped victorious thanks to a +7 turnover margin (16-9) and 18 offensive boards. IUPUI's last lead of the night came with 5:21 to play when Hall split a pair of free throws. The game would be tied at 66 all and 68 all before Morehead State closed the game outscoring the Jaguars 6-2 in the final two minutes.
Camron Justice led three Jaguars in double-digits with 20 points and
Jaylen Minnett and
Elyjah Goss finished with 11 points apiece. Goss also grabbed nine boards (six offensive) and blocked a pair of shots. Lamontray Harris had 20 points for Morehead State and Malek Green had a double-double off the bench with 13 points and 11 caroms. MSU point guard A.J. Hicks finished with nine points, nine assists and eight boards in 38 minutes.
Here are some more quick notes from last Friday's game:
-The two teams split the home-and-home series with IUPUI winning at home over the Eagles last season. IUPUI is now 3-1 all-time against Morehead State.
-Justice hit for 20-or-more for the ninth time in the Jaguars' past 12 games, albeit on 6-of-20 shooting.
-Goss went 3-of-6 from the floor with all three makes coming via dunks.
-Minnett matched his career-high with three steals.
-Junior
Grant Weatherford grabbed a career-high seven boards, but was an uncharacteristic 2-of-7 from the floor and tallied just four points.
MILESTONES
-Senior
Evan Hall enters play needing 10 boards to become the 15th player in IUPUI history to grab 500 career rebounds.
-
Nick Rogers next assist with be the 100th of his IUPUI career.
-
Elyjah Goss needs just two boards to hit 200 in his two-year career.
-Fifth-year senior
D.J. McCall is expected to play his 2,500th career minute in tonight's contest.
ICE COLD
IUPUI is coming off back-to-back games of shooting under 40 percent while heading into play against the Horizon League's top defensive squad. In the past two games - losses to Purdue Fort Wayne and Morehead State - IUPUI is shooting just 37.4 percent from the floor and 15-of-45 (33.3 percent) from three-point range.
CLASH OF THE TITANS
Friday's game pits the only two teams in the Horizon League to have logged winning records in non-league play as Northern Kentucky (10-3) and IUPUI (8-5) paced the league.
FREE MONEY
IUPUI enters play ranked 21st in the country in free throws made (218) and 22nd in free throw attempts (311). Junior
Camron Justice is 26th in free throws made (67) and 44th in free throw percentage (88.2%).
Justice has done unprecedented damage at the free throw line already this season, boasting a pair of games with double-digit makes and no misses. He went 13-for-13 at Boston College, tying for the fourth most makes in a game in program history without a miss. He upped the ante against Bradley, hitting 15 without a miss, giving him the third highest total in school history without a miss (tops in the D1 era).
HE GO, WE GO - JUSTICE NOTES
-In this instance, he being
Camron Justice. IUPUI is 6-3 this season when Justice scores 20-or-better. Justice was recently the first IUPUI player to score 20-or-more in four straight games since Jan. 14-28, 2012 when Alex Young went for 27-27-26-22 in a four-game span. A 20-point game tonight would make him the first IUPUI player to go for 20-or-more in five straight games since Robert Glenn pulled off the feat from Feb. 6-20, 2010.
-The Kentucky-native has led IUPUI in scoring in 11 of 13 games after being held to just nine points in the season opener. In that game, he had just nine points before he was ejected midway through the first half for tripping an opponent, which was called a flagrant 1 foul.
GRANT PAYING DIVIDENDS
Junior
Grant Weatherford's distribution has been incredible of late as he has 19 assists in the Jaguars' past five games against just one turnover. The Jaguars' point guard has been efficient from the field, shooting 54.4 percent from the floor for the season.
CALL ME ISMAIL
After a slow start to his IUPUI career, senior center
Ahmed Ismail is now making his presence felt off the Jaguars' bench. Ismail scored just 10 points total in his first five IUPUI games, but is since averaging 10.0 points and 6.0 rebounds in the past seven games while shooting 27-of-43 (62.8%) from the floor.
BEST START SINCE...
The Jags' 8-3 start was the program's best start in head coach
Jason Gardner's five seasons and best start since the 2009-10 season. That squad finished 25-11 overall and earned a spot in the CBI that season. This marks the first time Gardner has had IUPUI above .500 beyond the fourth game of any of his five seasons.
ROLLING ON DUBS
IUPUI has points-rebounds double-doubles from three different players this season as
Elyjah Goss,
Evan Hall and
Ahmed Ismail have all pulled the trick. For perspective, IUPUI hasn't had three different players get double-doubles in a season since 2013-14 when four different players registered at least one (
Marcellus Barksdale, Donovan Gibbs, Khufu Najee & Mitch Patton).
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. The win was the Jaguars' first over an ACC opponent since 2001 and first over a Power 5 school since winning at Seton Hall in 2009.
Gardner is third on the program's all-time wins list at 56, 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.
SHARING THE WEALTH
IUPUI has had nine different players have hit for 10-or-more points at least once this season.
Nick Rogers became the most recent player to tally double-digits, joining a group that includes
Elyjah Goss,
Evan Hall,
Jack Hansen,
Ahmed Ismail,
Camron Justice,
D.J. McCall,
Jaylen Minnett and
Grant Weatherford.
