INDIANAPOLIS - Entering the final two games of the Horizon League regular season, the IUPUI basketball team will play an integral role in who captures the league's regular season title. It begins on Friday morning (Feb. 23) when IUPUI (10-17, 7-9 HL) hosts Wright State (21-8, 13-3 HL) at 11:00 a.m. inside Indiana Farmers Coliseum. IUPUI's final two opponents of the regular season - Wright State and Northern Kentucky - are currently tied atop the league standings. Friday's game will be broadcast on ESPN3 as Greg Rakestraw (pxp) and Hall of Famer Bob Lovell (analyst) are on the call. 

Friday's irregular 11:00 a.m. tip-off time is part of IUPUI's partnership with the NCAA on their "Readers Become Leaders" program as 3,000 Indianapolis-area third-graders are expected to be in attendance.

On the court, head coach Jason Gardner's squad is coming off back-to-back victories following Monday's impressive 74-67 win over Oakland University. Senior Aaron Brennan led the charge with 18 points and seven boards and junior Evan Hall, the reigning Horizon League Player of the Week, notched his second straight double-double with 13 points and 12 rebounds. D.J. McCall (12 points) and Ron Patterson (11 points) also finished in double-digits as the Jaguars' balanced attack outgunned the Golden Grizzlies, who shot just 34.8 percent overall and 8-of-31 (25.8 percent) from three. IUPUI shot an efficient 47 percent and 50 percent from three-point range in staving off the league's preseason favorites. Patterson connected on three threes and T.J. Henderson added two more off the bench.

The Jaguars outscored Oakland 38-26 in the paint and the Jaguars' bench outscored OU's 20-8. A win on Friday would give IUPUI's a three-game winning streak for the second time this season. 

FREEBIES / ENTERTAINMENT / GAME SPONSORS / PROMOS
As part of Friday's "Readers Become Leaders" game, approximately 3,000 third-graders from throughout Central Indiana will be in attendance. They'll be provided with pom-poms and mini basketballs and each student will also receive a FREE book, courtesy of Scholastic. In addition, WISH-TV Sports' Anthony Calhoun will emcee a halftime event, encouraging all in attendance to continue their commitment to reading. Friday's game is sponsored by Hubler Auto Group.

QUOTABLE
"I think they've been doing an unbelievable job. I think we've been focusing more on ourselves and our guys have been a lot more confident. I thought we were poised. We did a great job of not allowing their runs to affect our offense. I think our group is seeing that and playing a lot more confident," Gardner said following Monday night's win over Oakland. 

SCOUTING WRIGHT STATE
Wright State is 21-8 on the season and 13-3 in Horizon League play. The Raiders have been strong defensively, allowing foes to shoot just 41.6 percent from the floor and forcing 16 turnovers per game. Wright State is led by longtime South Dakota State head coach Scott Nagy, who is in his second season on the WSU sidelines. 
    PROBABLE STARTERS:
    G- #3 Mark Hughes (6-4, Jr.) 10.1 ppg, 2.9 rpg, 3.1 apg, 42.9 FG%
    G- #13 Grant Benzinger (6-3, Sr.) 14.5 ppg, 5.0 rpg, 1.2 apg, 39.9 FG%
    G- #31 Cole Gentry (5-10, Soph.) 9.2 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 2.6 apg, 42.8 FG%
    F- #11 Loudon Love (6-9, R-Fr.) 12.6 ppg, 9.2 rpg, 0.8 apg, 54.3 FG%
    C- #22 Parker Ernsthausen (6-11, Jr.) 5.1 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 1.6 apg, 45.5 FG%
 
INSIDE THE SERIES
IUPUI is just 2-10 all-time against Wright State as the two schools met 11 times from 1976-1987. Wright State won the earlier meeting between the two schools, 60-52 on Dec. 30 inside the Nutter Center in Dayton.

UP NEXT
IUPUI will cap the regular season on Sunday (Feb. 25) at 1:00 p.m. when the Jaguars host Northern Kentucky at the Coliseum. The Jaguars will recognize the senior trio of Brennan, Patterson and Maurice Kirby before the game at 12:45, so fans are urged to arrive early to the contest. In addition, there will be an All-Sports Reunion that day as former letterwinners across all eras will be in attendance and treated to a pre-game reception. Also, the IUPUI women's soccer team will receive their Horizon League Championship rings at halftime of Sunday's contest.   

GAME NOTES (click here for PDF of the full games notes)
LAST TIME OUT
    IUPUI rattled off a second straight win and a third in four games when the Jaguars defeated Oakland on Monday night (Feb. 19), 74-67. Senior Aaron Brennan led four Jags in double-digits with 18 points and junior Evan Hall recorded his second straight double-double with 13 points and 12 rebounds. 
    The Jags staved off a late Oakland rally, including making all 10 free throw attempts in the final four-plus minutes to knock off the Golden Grizzlies. OU's Kendrick Nunn led all scorers with 29 points, put the guests shot just 34.8 percent overall and 8-of-31 (25.8 percent) from three-point range. Conversely, IUPUI shot 47 percent overall and 6-of-12 from three. 
    
SEED WATCH
    With two games remaining, IUPUI can finish as high as the No. 4 seed in the upcoming Horizon League Tournament and as low as the No. 7 seed. To finish No. 4, IUPUI would need to sweep the remaining two home games, have Milwaukee sweep their final two games and have Oakland go 0-2 to finish (all three teams would be 9-9). 

ONE HALL OF A NIGHT LEADS TO HL POTW
    Junior Evan Hall had one of the best games of his career at Milwaukee on Friday, finishing with 20 points (10-of-15 FG), 10 rebounds and a career-high four blocked shots in the victory. It was Hall's fourth career double-double and he closed one point shy of his career-high in the scoring column. It was his eighth career game with at least 10 rebounds and the first time this season he's led the Jaguars in scoring.
    Hall was later named Horizon League Player of the Week, becoming the first IUPUI player to ever earn the award.  

HALL GOES BACK-TO-BACK
    Junior Evan Hall is riding back-to-back double-doubles for the first time in his career and is the first IUPUI player to post back-to-back double-doubles since Marcellus Barksdale had three-in-a-row from Dec. 18-23, 2013 (Nicholls State, at Indiana State, at SEMO).
    Hall is averaging 16.5 points and 11 rebounds per game while shooting 57.7 percent from the floor the past two games. 

BENCH NOTES
    The IUPUI bench has been especially strong, averaging 25 points per game, including a season-high 43 at Oakland on Feb. 4. The past four years, the IUPUI bench has outscored opponents in 83 of 122 (68 percent) of its games, going 41-42 in those contests. 

BENCH NOTES, PART II
    For the year, IUPUI is getting 36 percent of its points from reserves, primarily keyed by T.J. Henderson and Jaylen Minnett. The Jags bench has hit for 40-or-more points in a game six times this season. 

BENCH NOTES, PART II
    IUPUI's top scorer has been a reserve 10 times this season. Four different players have contributed to those seven occasions. 
    Patterson (1): at Ball State (14 pts)
    Kirby (1): at Purdue (16 pts)
    Minnett (3): at Wright St. (11 pts), at UDM (12 pts), at Oakland (16 pts)
    Henderson (5): at Gonz (18 pts), IUK (19 pts), at GB (13 pts), CSU (19 pts), YSU (22 pts)

SINCE OAKLAND
    Since the second half of the Oakland game (Feb. 4), junior T.J. Henderson has been on a tear. He scored 14 points in the second half at Oakland and followed with back-to-back career-high efforts of 19 against Cleveland State (Feb. 8) and 22 against Youngstown State (Feb. 10). The past five games, Henderson is averaging 15.4 points and shooting 54.3 percent (25-of-46) from the field and 83 percent (20-of-24) from the foul line. 

FREE MONEY?
    IUPUI is shooting just 65 percent from the foul line this season, which would mark the program's lowest mark in the Division I-era. The current lowest mark is 65.4 percent from 2008-09. The lowest single-season on record was a 62.7 percent mark in 1976-77.  

NO. 1 FOR 6TH
    Henderson is making a compelling case for Horizon League Sixth Man of the Year honors, leading the league in scoring (10.3 ppg) among those who have yet to start a game in league play. Wright State's Jaylon Hall (9.6 ppg) is just behind Henderson at this juncture.

THEFT ALERT
    Junior D.J. McCall is currently second in the Horizon League (101st nationally) with 1.65 steals per game. The junior guard has 43 steals this season, surpassing his career total of 41 entering this season in 63 games. 

ROSTER CHANGES
    The IUPUI program had a few roster changes at the turn of the semester as one player departed the program and two others joined the Jaguars. Little used sophomore Noah Thomas left the program after having appeared in just two games in the first semester. Thomas, a 6-foot-9 center, totaled four points and four rebounds in eight total minutes.
    On the flip side, the Jaguars brought in a pair of transfers as Mike Sagay (Boston College) and Trevor Johnson (Mesa [Ariz.] C.C.) joined the program. Sagay, a 6-foot-7 forward, comes to IUPUI with two-and-a-half years of eligibility, after having played 15 games at Boston College last season. A 3-star recruit, Sagay was ranked among Connecticut's top players as a senior at St. Thomas More High School. 
    Johnson, a 6-foot-2 guard, comes to IUPUI with two years of eligibility remaining. Johnson was an All-State performer while at Flagstaff [Ariz.] High School before attending Mesa Community College. 
    Both are able to begin practice with the team immediately.   
    
STARTER NOTES
    In the early portion of the season, 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 27 games and Evan Hall is next with 26 starts. Nine of the Jaguars' 11 players have at least one start this season with freshman Evan Borgman getting the nod at Oakland.  
    The group of Brennan, Hall, Ron Patterson, D.J. McCall and Nick Rogers started 15 straight games (5-10) before Gardner inserted Borgman for Patterson at Oakland on Feb. 4. 

WIN/LOSS SPLITS
    In IUPUI's 10 wins, the Jags have shot 47.2 percent from the field and held foes to 40 percent overall and 28.8 percent from deep. In addition, the Jags have outrebounded opponents by 4.6 boards per game in the 10 wins. 
    In the Jaguars' 17 losses, IUPUI has shot just 40.7 percent overall and allowed opponents to shoot a robust 52.1 percent from the field and 40 percent from beyond the arc. In addition, IUPUI has been outrebounded by 2.8 boards per game in the 17 losses. 

IN LEAGUE PLAY...
    IUPUI has defended the three well in Horizon League play, yielding 31.7 percent from deep in 16 games. On the flip side, IUPUI is shooting 37.7 percent from deep in league play, led by Brennan (44.2) and Minnett (41.4). Patterson tops the team with 33 made 3's in league play while Minnett has 29.  
    IUPUI has made as many or more threes than their opponents in 12 of 16 league games thus far. 

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 43-8 (.843) in games in which the Jaguars have shot a better percentage than opponents and just 4-67 (.056) when being outshot. 
    The Jan. 10 Milwaukee win is the only time this season IUPUI has been outshot and won the game. 

GETTING LOOKS
    Two areas where IUPUI has excelled this season are offensive rebounding (50th nationally - 12 rpg) and forcing turnovers (66th nationally - 14.8 to/g). 
    Because of those numbers, IUPUI has attempted 112 more shots than their foes for the year, good for 4.1 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 3-1 in league openers, having won all three of his Summit League openers before losing his Horizon League opener at NKU. 
    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)

DOUBLE-DIGIT COUNT
    T.J. Henderson has a team-high 16 double-digit scoring games this season while Aaron Brennan is next in line with 15 games in doubles. 

SNAPPED AT 13
    Senior Ron Patterson opened the year making at least one three in 13 straight games - his longest stretch of his college career. His longest streak last season was 10 straight games from Jan. 5-Feb. 8.

DEFENDING THE TREY
    The Jaguars struggled to defend the three-point line during the non-league schedule, yielding 36.5 percent. Below are some instances of the Jaguars' woes, both individually and collectively:
    at Bradley (57.1%) - Nate Kennell (5-of-9)
    at EIU (45.0%) - Terrell Lewis (7-of-9)
    at WIU (58.8%) - Kobe Webster (5-of-7)
    vs. SIUE (68.8%)

TOUGH THREE
    IUPUI endured arguably the toughest three-game stretch in program history with road games at No. 21 Purdue (L, 61-86), at Washington State (L, 59-72) and at No. 12 Gonzaga (L, 71-101). The losses at Purdue and Gonzaga dropped IUPUI to 0-17 all-time against nationally ranked foes.        In the non-conference slate, IUPUI had the nation's 50th toughest schedule (hardest in the Horizon League) according to KenPom.com. 

FIVE KEY NUMBERS
    Below are five key numbers from the Jaguars' win over Oakland.
    13-12: Points-rebounds from Evan Hall in the win, including four offensive caroms; the 12 boards represented a new career-high
    9: Jags tied their season-high with nine blocked shots with seven different players contributing to the total
    10-10: IUPUI was 10-of-10 from the charity stripe in the final four-plus minutes
    29.4%: Oakland's FG shooting percentage in the second half
    28.6%: Oakland's FG percentage aside from Kendrick Nunn's 9-of-17 shooting performance.