INDIANAPOLIS - The IUPUI basketball team will close out its regular season on Saturday (Feb. 26) when the Jaguars host Green Bay (4-24, 3-16 HL) inside the Jungle at 4:45 p.m.. The IUPUI Athletics Department will recognize the quintet of Jonah Carrasco, Mike DePersia, Bobby Harvey, B.J. Maxwell and Nathan McClure just prior to Saturday's game. The Jaguars are 1-0 inside The Jungle this season, having defeated East-West University back on Jan. 31. 

The Jaguars will look to close out the regular season on a high note on Saturday, having put up some solid stretches recently. Maxwell has been particularly strong, averaging 16.3 points and 6.0 rebounds per game over his past nine games, scoring in double-digits in all nine contests. Freshman Chuks Isitua is making a late push for a spot on the league's All-Freshman Team, averaging 8.7 points and 8.9 rebounds over his past seven games, including a pair of double-doubles. He recently had a career-high 14 points and seven boards at Youngstown State last Saturday and followed with his second double-double of the year with 12 points and 10 boards against Milwaukee on Thursday night. 

Head coach Matt Crenshaw's team has been relegated to just six healthy bodies in each of the team's last 10 games, but still performed admirably, winning a pair of those games and falling by six or less points in two others. IUPUI will enter the Keeps Horizon League Men's Basketball Championship as the No. 12 seed and head out on the road to face the No. 5 seed in the tournament's opening round. Detroit Mercy is the current No. 5 seed heading into the final contest of the season on Saturday. 

SCOUTING GREEN BAY
Green Bay comes in at 4-24 overall and 3-16 in Horizon League play. The Phoenix have dropped 11 straight games and are 0-12 on the road this season after falling at UIC on Thursday,  81-77. Kamari McGee leads the Phoenix in scoring (11.3 ppg) and threes made (23) while Emmanuel Ansong is second on the team in scoring (11.0 ppg) and leads the club in rebounds (5.1 rpg) and field goal percentage (50.2%). Freshman Cade Meyer checks in at 9.3 points and 4.4 rebounds per game and is the lone player to have started all 28 games this season. As a team, Green Bay is shooting 41.4 percent overall and 28.5 percent from three while allowing foes to shooting 47 percent from the floor and 35 percent from deep. 

SERIES NOTES
IUPUI leads the all-time series between the two teams, 8-6. Green Bay has won three of the past four meetings between the two schools on the heels of IUPUI winning six straight from 2010 to 2020.  

UP NEXT
IUPUI will open the Keeps Horizon League Men's Basketball Championship as the No. 12 seed and will play on the road on Tuesday night (Mar. 1) at 7:00 p.m., although the opponent is yet to be decided. 

Game Notes (click here for the full PDF packet)

QUICK HITTERS

• IUPUI will close out the regular season on Saturday when the Jaguars host Green Bay at 4:45 inside the Jungle. IUPUI will honor its four seniors - Jonah Carrasco, Bobby Harvey, B.J. Maxwell and Nathan McClure just prior to tip-off.
• IUPUI will be the No. 12 seed in the upcoming Keeps Horizon League Men's Basketball Championship and will go on the road to face the No. 5 seed on Tuesday night (Mar. 1). Should the Jaguars pull a first round upset, the Jags would then take on No. 1 seed Cleveland State at the Wolstein Center on Thursday night (Mar. 3). 
• Mike DePersia was voted to the #HLMBB All-Academic Team earlier this week while Nathan McClure earned honorable mention honors. It marked DePersia's second straight year earning inclusion while McClure was recognized in his first season of eligibility. DePersia has managed a 3.65 grade point average while majoring in finance while McClure owns a 3.95 GPA and is majoring in general studies. 
• Graduate transfer B.J. Maxwell has scored in double-digits in nine straight games entering today's contest. During that span, Maxwell is averaging 16.3 points and 6.0 rebounds per game. The Austin, Texas-native tallied his 1,000th collegiate point on Feb. 10 at Purdue Fort Wayne. He has 1,089 career points, spanning four schools at the Division I and Division II levels, accumulating 385 points at Abilene Christian, 2 at Detroit Mercy, 371 at St. Edward's University and has 331 this season at IUPUI. 
• Freshman Chuks Isitua is making a real case to earn a spot on the league's All-Freshman Team as he's averaging 6.1 points and 5.3 rebounds against league foes and ranks among the league's top-20 in rebounds and blocked shots in league play. 
• IUPUI has used 11 different players this season and amazingly, all 11 have scored in double-digits at least once this season. B.J. Maxwell has a team-high 16 double-digit scoring games this season and Bakari LaStrap has done so 11 times. Mike DePersia was the last of the 11 Jaguars to score in double-digits this season, doing so against Northern Kentucky on Jan. 22.
• Only two Jaguars have played all 27 games this season - Bakari LaStrap and Chuks Isitua. Every other IUPUI player has missed at least one game this season due to injury or COVID protocols. IUPUI has had just six players in uniform in each of its past 10 games and likely will have just six in uniform going forward as five different players have suffered season ending injuries.
• The IUPUI basketball team had a 3.23 grade point average for the fall with 10 of the 14 team members notching a 3.0 or better. Nathan McClure had a perfect 4.0 in the fall and Stanton had a 3.95 mark. As a team, the Jaguars currently have a cumulative 3.37 team GPA.

    SOME NUGGETS
    -With his 12 points against Milwaukee on Thursday, Nathan McClure hit for double-digits in back-to-back games for the first time in his IUPUI career. McClure tallied 13 at Youngstown State last Saturday as well. 
    -McClure had made at least one three in nine straight games and has made 17-of-42 (40.5 percent) attempts during that span. 
    -Junior Mike DePersia has made two threes in each of IUPUI's last three games, going 6-of-13 (46.2 percent) during that span. The New Jersey-native has made at least one three in 13 of the team's last 14 games. 
    -Freshman Chuks Isitua has grabbed 10 boards or more in four of IUPUI's last seven games. Two of those games - at Cleveland State (12 pts, 10 reb) and vs. Milwaukee (12 pts, 10 reb) - have been double-doubles. He's averaging 8.9 rebounds per game over those seven games, including 3.7 offensive boards per game. 
    -B.J. Maxwell has scored in double-digits in nine straight games entering today's contest, his longest stretch of the season. 

    FANTASTIC VOYAGE
    IUPUI recently completed a five-game road stretch between Feb. 10-19, logging 1,612 miles and more than 26 hours on the bus. During the stretch, IUPUI played road games at Purdue Fort Wayne (Feb. 10), Cleveland State (Feb. 12), UIC (Feb. 14), Robert Morris (Feb. 17) and Youngstown State (Feb. 19), going 1-4 on the trip. 
    The Jags spent roughly 30 hours at home in Indy following the game at UIC before trekking 350-plus miles to Moon Township, Pa., for the game at Robert Morris. 

    SIX STRONG
    IUPUI has played its past 10 games with just six in uniform as injuries have ravaged the roster. It began in the preseason when Zach Gunn was lost to a season ending injury and four others (Jonah Carrasco, Bobby Harvey, KJ Pruitt and recently departed Azariah Seay) have since been lost for the season. Carrasco was the most recent to be bitten by the injury bug, suffering a season-ender against East-West on Jan. 31. In addition, senior Dimitar Pandev is no longer on campus after having returned to Macedonia at the start of the spring semester.
    Lastly, two freshmen (Kaleb Edwards and Derek Petersen) won't suit up this season as redshirts, leaving head coach Matt Crenshaw with just six in uniform. 

    SINCE SIX
    It could be argued that IUPUI has played better basketball since being relegated to just six players, beginning with the Jan. 22 game against Northern Kentucky. 
    Here are some comparables of full season vs. last 10 games. 
                            Full Season        Last 10 Games
    FG%:                       37.9%        38.7%
    3FG%:                     28.9%        31.8%
    REB MARGIN:           -1.5        +0.0
    OPP FG%:              44.2%        43.3%
    PPG:                          52.7        55.7
    OPP PPG:                 67.0        65.4

    All six individuals have seen dramatic production increases as well. Here are some individual numbers over the past 10 games: 
    B.J. Maxwell (15.6 ppg, 5.7 rpg)
    Bakari LaStrap (10.7 ppg, 3.3 apg)
    Nathan McClure (9.2 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 40.5 3FG%)
    Mike DePersia (8.1 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 4.2 apg, 3.00 a/to ratio)
    Chuks Isitua (7.3 ppg, 7.6 rpg, 1.0 bpg)
    Boston Stanton III (4.4 ppg, 2.7 rpg)

    GET DEFENSIVE
    Through a combination of pace and production, IUPUI is second in the Horizon League in scoring defense, allowing 67.0 points per game. 

    DAT DUB
    IUPUI finally got the monkey off its back, capturing a road win at Robert Morris on Feb. 17, 66-56. IUPUI hit 7-of-8 from three in the second half to finish at 50 percent for the game. B.J. Maxwell and Bakari LaStrap both finished with a game-high 18 points and Mike DePersia scored 11 of his 13 points after halftime. 
    The win was IUPUI's first victory over a Division I foe this season and the Jaguars' first road win of the season. 

    JERSEY MIKE DELIVERS
    Junior Mike DePersia currently leads the Horizon League (18th nationally) with a 2.73 assist-to-turnover ratio, having delivered 71 assists against just 26 miscues. He recently moved into the top-15 in the league in assists at 3.23/game and had a season-high six assists and no turnovers against Robert Morris on Feb. 5. Included in those six assists was the 200th dime of his collegiate career.
    He's only had more turnovers than assists in a game once this year and just eight times in his 72 career games played. 
    Last season he ranked No. 3 in the country with a 3.74 assist-to-turnover ratio, delivering 71 assists against just 19 miscues. In league play, he upped that figure to 4.13. His 3.74 mark last season easily eclipsed the previous IUPUI single-season mark, which was 3.30 set by Taj Hawkins back in 2001-02.
    DePersia tied IUPUI's single-game record with 14 assists in a game in a Feb. 12, 2021 win over UIC, doing so without committing a turnover. He had a six-game span where he didn't turn the ball over once, dishing out 31 assists during that span. 
    His current 2.61 career assist-to-turnover ratio (227 assists / 87 turnovers) is in line to set a new IUPUI career records. The current IUPUI career record in the category is 2.16 as Brady Adkins had 261 assists against just 121 turnovers from 1994-1996.  

    JONAH TIES THE BLOCK MARK
    Not only did Jonah Carrasco register his first career double-double against East-West on Jan. 31 with 13 points and 10 boards, he also tied the IUPUI single-game record with seven blocked shots. 
    Coming in, 6-foot-6 John Hester held the single-game record, having swatted seven shots against Indiana Tech on Jan. 21, 1997. 

    THIN BENCH
    IUPUI's bench was averaging nearly 20 points per game for the bulk of the season before injuries beset the roster. IUPUI got at least 10 bench points in each of the first 17 games of the season, but has yet to do so in nine of the team's past ten games. 
    For the season, IUPUI reserves are averaging 14.0 points per game. 

    CRAFTY VETERAN
    Maxwell is an interesting case study in today's new world of college basketball as he's entering his seventh year of college this season. After redshirting his opening season (2015-16) at Abilene Christian, he played three full seasons at ACU before transferring out for a fifth season. He played just two games at Detroit Mercy in 2019-20 before suffering a season ending injury and receiving another season of eligibility. He spent all of last season at Saint Edward's University in Austin, Texas, where he averaged 18.6 points and 5.3 boards per game while earning NABC Second Team All-District honors.
    After all NCAA student-athletes were granted an additional year of eligibility due to COVID-19 issues, Maxwell opted to join the IUPUI program for a seventh season of schooling. He entered this season having played 94 collegiate basketball games and having scored 758 points across both NCAA Division I and II levels.     

    A GRAND NIGHT
    Maxwell's journey has spanned four schools in three different states at both the Division I and Division II levels, but through it all, he's pumped in more than 1,000 collegiate points. Maxwell has 1,089 collegiate points entering play - 385 at Abilene Christian, 2 at Detroit Mercy, 371 at St. Edward's University and 330 this season at IUPUI.