DETROIT - The IUPUI basketball team will play its final regular season road game on Sunday (Feb. 19) when the Jaguars take on Detroit Mercy at 1:00 p.m. inside UDM's Calihan Hall. The game will be aired on ESPN+. 

The Jaguars have continued to pile up close calls and near misses in Horizon League play, including a four-point defeat at Oakland earlier this week. Freshman DJ Jackson scored a team-high 23 points in IUPUI's 85-81 defeat and Jlynn Counter tossed in 18 points and seven boards. IUPUI led for much of the game, but yielded a 9-0 run inside the game's final five minutes before ultimately falling by four. Neither team led by more than six points at any spot during a game that featured 16 ties and 15 lead changes. 

Freshman Vincent Brady II scored 14 points and hit four treys for a second straight game while John Egbuta contributed 10 points. 

QUOTABLE
"We're right there, but that's the difference between playing with underclassmen and playing with seniors. I thought we panicked a couple times and made some careless mistakes and (Oakland) kind of let their upperclassmen play through it. I'm encouraged that we came on the road and put ourselves in a position to win a basketball game in one of the tougher environments in our league. The next step for us is consistently getting over that hump and getting to the finish line," head coach Matt Crenshaw said following the loss at Oakland. 

SCOUTING DETROIT MERCY
Detroit Mercy is 12-16 on the year, 8-9 in Horizon League play and 7-3 at home inside Calihan Hall. The Titans have made national waves as fifth-year senior Antoine Davis is bearing down on the NCAA Division I record for career points as he averages 27.8 points per game while shooting 42.4 percent from three-point range. As a team, Detroit shoots 39.5 percent from three. Beyond Davis, Gerald Liddell averages 15.7 points and 10.0 rebounds per game and Jayden Stone checks in at 13.9 points per game. 

UP NEXT
IUPUI will return home to host Robert Morris on Thursday (Feb. 23) at 7:30 p.m. inside Indiana Farmers Coliseum.  

Tidbits heading into Sunday's game (click here for full game notes)
    CRUNCH TIME
    With so many new faces and primarily young faces, head coach Matt Crenshaw is still seeking a closer to help in crunch time. IUPUI has gone down to the wire in seven of its past nine losses and is 0-8 this season in games this season decided by seven points or less. 
    At Robert Morris on Jan. 9, IUPUI trailed 44-29 at halftime, but rallied to come all the way back in the second half. The Jaguars tied the game at 61 all and again at 63-63 before being outscored 14-7 over the game's first five-plus minutes in the 77-70 loss. 
    Against Oakland on Jan. 19, IUPUI again rallied from a nine-point deficit and led by as many as four in the closing minutes before a Jalen Moore trey with 3.0 seconds left sent the game to overtime. Oakland outscored the Jags 15-9 in overtime to secure an 83-77 win, keeping the Jags winless in league play. 
    Against Detroit Mercy on Jan. 21, it was a two-possession game with five minutes remaining before the Titans outscored the Jags 20-12 down the stretch. 
    At Purdue Fort Wayne, IUPUI rallied from 11 down to cut the Mastodons' lead to two in the waning minutes, but couldn't get over the hump late. 
    At Cleveland State on Jan. 29, the Jaguars rallied from down 20 in the second half to down three with 3:01 to play. However, IUPUI was never able to draw even late in that contest before ultimately falling short, 78-72. 
    Against Milwaukee on Feb. 2, IUPUI had two chances to tie the score in the closing minute but came up empty on both in a 72-69 home loss to one of the league's top teams. 
    The most recent defeat was an 85-81 loss at Oakland in a game that IUPUI led for much of the night before fading in the final minutes. 

    SEVEN AWARDS; THREE FRESH AWARDEES    
    IUPUI freshmen have collected seven #HLMBB Freshman of the Week Awards this season as Vincent Brady II has collected four honors, Armon Jarrard has been honored twice and DJ Jackson is a one-time honoree. 
    Brady is second on the team in scoring (10.9 ppg) and third in rebounding (3.9 rpg) and leads the team in minutes played (31.7 mpg, 15th in the HL) and threes made (51). Brady comes in having made at least one three in 23 straight games and in 26 of the team's 28 games this season. 

    A VERY BRADY DUNK
    Speaking of Brady, you may have seen him on your timeline recently as his dunk in the closing minutes of IUPUI's win over Green Bay went viral on social media. Brady threw down a vicious one-handed hammer with 2:40 to play over GB's Cade Meyer, later earning ESPN's #SCTop10's No. 1 play and 'Dunk of the Day' honors, along with additional mentions from Fox Sports, NCAA March Madness, House of Highlights and other social accounts. It received just under 1-million views on ESPN's SportsCenter account alone. 

    FRESH DUBS
    It would appear that Brady will be hovering around double-digits in scoring all season long as he sits at 10.9 points per game entering today's game, which would break the program's freshman record.   
    Earlier this season, he had a stretch of four straight games with 15-or-more earlier this season, becoming the first IUPUI freshman to do so since Alex Young in 2008. 
    Freshmen scoring in double-digits has been a rarity for the IUPUI program as just two have done so in the program's Division I-era. The aforementioned Young went on to score 2,286 points in his four-year IUPUI career and current Indiana Pacer George Hill scored 1,619 points in three-plus seasons before being drafted in the first round of the 2008 NBA Draft. 
    Here's the full list of IUPUI true freshmen to score in double digits for a season in the Division I era (1998-present). 
    Alex Young - 10.8 ppg (2008-09)
    George Hill - 10.7 ppg (2004-05)

    COUNTER POINTS
    It's safe to say that sophomore guard Jlynn Counter has emerged as the program's most important player this season. Here are a few nuggets about the Oklahoma City-native.
    -he's scored 20-or-more in five of IUPUI's last nine games
    -he ranks among the Horizon League's top-15 in scoring (14.2 ppg), assists (3.3 apg), field goal percentage (49.5%) and free throw percentage (81.8%)
    -in Horizon League play, he's averaging 14.4 points, 4.3 assists and 4.1 rebounds per game
    -he started the year 0-of-14 from three in the season's first 12 games, but has gone 12-of-36 (33.3 percent) since and made at least one three in seven of IUPUI's last nine games

    BAKERS DOZEN
    Senior Marlon Taylor became the 13th different player to start a game this season as he was awarded a start at Oakland on Feb. 15. All 12 of the Jaguars' scholarship players have started at least one game this season as graduate student Jonah Carrasco started in place of an injured Chris Osten at Cleveland State. 

    TOPS IN THE COUNTRY
    IUPUI is tops in the nation, having had 14 different players miss at least one game due to injury or illness, 12 of whom are scholarship student-athletes. Highest on the list are Zach Gunn (out for the season), Bryce Monroe (24 games missed) and DJ Jackson (11 games). Other scholarship student-athletes who have missed multiple games this season include Daylan Hamilton (10 games), Amhad Jarrard (9 games), Armon Jarrard (7 games), John Egbuta (5 games) and Cooper Dewitt (5 games).
    Behind IUPUI, Wyoming and Iona have all had nine student-athletes miss time.  
    IUPUI has not had a game this season in which the entire roster was available. 

    THE ONLY ONE IS NO. 1
    True freshman Vincent Brady II is the only IUPUI player to have appeared in all 28 games this season and is tied with Chris Osten with a team-high 27 starting nods. 

    TEN HIT TEN
    Freshman DJ Jackson became the tenth different IUPUI player to have a double-digit scoring game for the Jaguars this season, doing so against Detroit Mercy on Jan. 21. Amazingly, of all 10 players who have scored in double-digits this season, none were on the IUPUI roster last season. 

    CHRIS DON'T MISS
    Graduate transfer Chris Osten is currently shooting 67.8 percent for the season, chasing the school record for single-season shooting percentage (Jon Avery - 67.9 percent in 2008-09). The 6-foot-9 forward is shooting an absurd 77.1 percent from the field (54-of-70) at home this year and shooting 73.8 percent in Horizon League games. 
    Coming into this season, he had scored in double-digits just one time in his Division I career in stops at both Arizona State and Northern Illinois, and never had a double-double. However, in 21 games this season, Osten has hit double-figures 12 times and registered four double-doubles.

    SEEING 20-20
    IUPUI had a pair of 20-point scorers against Oakland last Thursday as freshman Vincent Brady II had a career-high 23 points (8-16 FG, 4-9 3's, 3-3 FT) and Jlynn Counter tallied 22 (8-16 FG, 1-2 3's, 5-6 FT). It marked the first time under head coach Matt Crenshaw that two players have gone for 20-or-more in the same game. 

    FRESH STARTERS
    IUPUI had three freshmen in the starting lineup in the season opener at Iowa State as Vincent Brady II, Amhad Jarrard and Armon Jarrard all got the starting nod. The trio, all of whom are Indianapolis natives, combined on four points, five boards and an assist in their collegiate debut. 
    A fourth freshman, DJ Jackson, made his first collegiate start on Dec. 31 against NKU. 

    4K
    IUPUI hosted its annual NCAA Readers Become Leaders game on Dec. 12 against Spalding University and had a program best 4,114 fans in attendance. The game attracted roughly 3,500 3rd graders from Central Indiana and stressed the importance of creating reading habits at a young age. The 4,114 fans easily surpassed the previous record for an IUPUI home game - 3,327 against Indiana State inside Conseco Fieldhouse on Dec. 23, 2008. 
    The previous record for an IUPUI game inside Indiana Farmers Coliseum was 3,159 in the inaugural game against Indiana State on Nov. 14, 2014.