OMAHA, Neb. - Seeking to snap a mini two-game skid, the IUPUI basketball team will face a quick turnaround when the Jaguars take on Southern University (2-4) inside Baxter Arena on Tuesday night (Nov. 25) to cap The Mainland Tournament at Omaha of the Cayman Islands Classic. The Jags fell to Loyola (Md.), 81-77, on Monday night (Nov. 24) and will try to salvage a victory to cap the two-game trip.
IUPUI scored a season-high 77 points and saw junior
Marcus Burk tally a season-best 32 points in Monday's loss. Both teams had impressive offensive runs during the contest, but the Greyhounds landed the final blow of the night to pick off the Jaguars. Junior
Elyjah Goss registered his fifth career double-double with a season-high 14 points and 13 boards and
Jaylen Minnett added 12 points and six boards in the loss.
The game will be just the second-ever meeting all-time between the two schools as IUPUI dropped an 87-78 decision in Baton Rouge on Dec. 27, 1976. That said, head coach Byron Rimm II is no stranger to the Southern University program, having faced them 21 times during his head coaching career at Prairie View A&M from 2006-2016. Rimm went 7-14 in those 21 meetings, sweeping the season series in 2008-09 and 2009-10 and knocking Southern from the SWAC Tournament in 2014.
PROBABLE STARTERS
G-
Jaylen Minnett (6-1, Jr.) - 12.7 ppg, 4.3 rpg, 3.0 apg, 36.0 3FG%
G-
Mike DePersia (5-11, Fr.) - 2.5 ppg, 2.7 rpg
G-
Marcus Burk (6-3, Jr.) - 23.0 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 50.5 FG%
F-
Zo Tyson (6-9, Gr.) - 4.0 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 70.6 FG%
F-
Elyjah Goss (6-7, Jr.) - 5.7 ppg, 7.2 rpg
KEY RESERVES
G/F-
Jamil Jackson Jr. (6-6, Jr.) - 3.2 ppg, 1.2 rpg
F/C -
Brandon Kenyon (6-9, Soph.) - 2.0 ppg, 2.0 rpg
F-
Isaiah Williams (6-8, Jr.) - 7.3 ppg, 4.5 rpg
G-
Grant Weatherford (6-2, Jr.) - 3.8 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 2.8 apg
SERIES NOTES: Tuesday's game marks just the second ever meeting between the two schools. Southern leads the all-time series by a 1-0 count, having defeated IUPUI by an 87-78 score in Baton Rouge during IUPUI's 10-17 1976-77 season.
PRESEASON PICKS: IUPUI was picked to finish ninth in the Horizon League Preseason Polls, just ahead of Cleveland State. Wright State was a near unanimous pick for the league title while Northern Kentucky was picked second. Detroit Mercy sophomore guard Antoine Davis was pegged the league's Preseason Player of the Year and joined on the first team by Jalen Tate (NKU), Xavier Hill-Mais (Oakland), Tarkus Ferguson (UIC) and Loudon Love (Wright State).
NO NEW FOE
IUPUI head coach
Byron Rimm II is more than familiar with Southern, having faced the Jaguars 21 times from 2006-2016 as head coach at Prairie View A&M in the SWAC. Rimm went 7-14 all-time against Southern, including sweeping the Jaguars in 2008-09 and 2009-10 and eliminating the Jags from the league tournament in 2014.
IUPUI has played Southern one time in program history, losing to the Jags on Dec. 26, 1976 by an 87-78 score in Baton Rouge.
30 PLUS
Junior
Marcus Burk tallied a season-high 32 points (12-of-21 FG, 7-of-10 3's) against Loyola (Md.) on Monday night, falling one shy of his career-high 33 from his sophomore year at Campbell. Burk's 32 was the most by an IUPUI player since
Darell Combs hit the same number against South Dakota on Feb. 25, 2016.
FIRE IN THE FIRST
Burk is averaging 13.8 points per game in the first half of games this season, while shooting 57 percent (16-of-28) from three-point range. He scored 23 points before halftime in the win over Anderson and also has first half totals of 17 at Loyola (Ill.) and 16 vs. Loyola (Md.) on Monday night (Nov. 25).
MR. DOUBLE-DOUBLE
Junior
Elyjah Goss notched his second double-double of the season on Monday night, notching a season-high 14 points (5-of-9 FG, 4-6 FT) and matching his career-high with 13 boards (6 offensive). Goss logged his fifth career double-double and is the only active IUPUI player to own a collegiate double-double.
MORE LOYOLA TIDBITS
IUPUI scored a season-high 77 points in the loss to Loyola (Md.) and also had a season-high 16 assists and 11 steals... the 13 threes allowed were the most by an IUPUI foe this season... Loyola (Md.) became the third IUPUI opponent to shoot better than 50 percent from the floor against the Jags this season, as the Jags have dropped all three of those contests...
Jaylen Minnett had 12 points and a career-high six boards in the loss... junior
Isaiah Williams, who came off the bench for the first time all season, closed with seven points, five boards and a career-high five assists... the meeting was IUPUI's first-ever with a Patriot League opponent.
STORY TELLER
In IUPUI's two wins this season, the Jags have held opponents to 34 percent shooting overall and 19 percent from three-point range.
In the Jaguars' four losses, foes have shot 54.5 percent overall and 43 percent from beyond the arc.
SPLASH BROTHERS
IUPUI's version of the Splash Brothers -
Marcus Burk and
Jaylen Minnett - has been impressive to start the season, both ranking among the Horizon League's top five in both threes made and three-point percentage.
Burk leads the league in three per game (3.8) while Minnett is second in the league in the category (3.0). Burk leads in three-point percentage (47.9%) and Minnett is also among the top five at 36 percent. By hitting a combined 6.8 three/game, the duo is easily tops in the league for a tandem, trailed next by Northern Kentucky's Tyler Sharpe and Dantez Walton, who average a combined 5.4 threes/game.
Burk is currently second in the league in scoring (23.0 ppg) and Minnett among the top 15 (12.7 ppg).
TOP GUNS
Burk and Minnett are accounting for the bulk of the Jaguars' offense through the season's first six games, having taken 52 percent of the team's field goal attempts (179 of 344) and 73 percent of the team's three-point attempts (98-of-134). In addition, the duo has accounted for 56 percent (214 of 384) of the team's total points.
Burk (23.0 ppg) and Minnett (12.7 ppg) easily lead the team in scoring while
Isaiah Williams is third at 7.3 ppg.
EYING 20
While Burk is off to a hot start and averaging better than 20 points per game to start the year, no IUPUI player has averaged 20 points per game for an entire season since Alex Young averaged 20.4 points per game in 2011-12.
Only three players - Odell Bradley (23.1, 2003-04), George Hill (21.5, 2007-08) and Young (20.4, 2011-12) - have averaged better than 20 points per game during the Jaguars' Division I era.
FINDING DUBS
While Burk has scored in double-digits in all six games to start the season, the remainder of the IUPUI roster has just six double-digit scoring games combined. Minnett has scored in double-figures four times and
Elyjah Goss has done so twice, recording double-doubles on both occasions. No other IUPUI player has hit for at least 10 points in a game yet this season.
MINNETT NOTES
Junior
Jaylen Minnett, the 2019 Horizon League Sixth Man of the Year, is unlikely to be a repeat winner of the award as he's assumed a starting job this season. The 6-foot-1 Terre Haute-native, averaged 12.0 points per game and drilled 78 3's last season, while coming off the bench in all but the season finale.
Some other tidbits on Minnett include:
-He currently owns the nation's fourth-longest streak of consecutive games with at least one made three at 42 games... Minnett made at least one trey in all 33 games last season and the final three games of the 2017-18 season... the last time Minnett went without a three in a game was against Oakland on Feb. 19, 2018 when he was held without a triple in 14 minutes.
-Minnett enters play ranked eighth on IUPUI's all-time list with 147 made 3's in his career...he has some work to do to move up on the list as both Leroy Nobles and Akeem Clark are tied for the No. 6 spot with 186 makes each.
-His 78 3's made last season was the 7th-highest single-season total in IUPUI history.
-His 7.1 ppg scoring average as a freshman in 2017-18 was the highest by an IUPUI rookie since Alex Young average 10.8 points per game in 2008-09.
-His 51 made 3's in 2017-18 were the most by an IUPUI freshman in the program's Division I era (1998-present).
BURK NOTES
The most anticipated new face on the Jaguars' roster this season is that of Indianapolis-native
Marcus Burk, who sat out last season after transferring in from Campbell. The 6-foot-3 guard is an elite scorer, who averaged 15 points per game as a sophomore at Campbell while playing alongside current NBAer Chris Clemons.
In 69 games at Campbell, he averaged 11.2 points per game while connecting on 158 3's. He was named Big South Player of the Week on Nov. 27, 2017 after averaging 24.3 points per game during a four-game stretch. He and Clemons pulled a rare feat on Jan. 22, 2018 as each hit 10 3's in a win over Liberty, becoming the first duo to both hit 10 treys in a game.
Burk starred as a high schooler at nearby Franklin Central, where he averaged 25.3 points, 5.7 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game as a senior, earning a spot on The Indianapolis Star's Super Team.
Burk enters tonight with 914 points in his collegiate career - 776 in two seasons at Campbell and 138 in an IUPUI uniform.
BASKETBALL CENTRAL
IUPUI will be a big part of the center of the college basketball universe this March as the 2020 Horizon League Championships will be played at the Indiana Farmers Coliseum on Mar. 9-10 and the department will later serve as institutional co-host of an NCAA Men's Basketball Regional at Lucas Oil Stadium on Mar. 26-28, alongside the Horizon League and Indiana Sports Corporation. Both the men's and women's Horizon League Semifinals (Mar. 9) and Championship games (Mar. 10) will be played at Indiana Farmers Coliseum as 2020 marks the first of a three-year rotation.