MOON TOWNSHIP, Pa. - The IUPUI basketball team will open the 2023 Barbasol #HLMBB Championships on Tuesday night (Feb. 28) when the Jaguars take on No. 6 Robert Morris (15-16) at 7:00 p.m. inside RMU's UPMC Events Center. The two teams split the regular season series with each team collecting a win on their home floor. Tuesday's game will be broadcast on ESPN+. 

IUPUI (5-26) enters the postseason as the No. 11 seed, but played increasingly well as the season progressed. Sophomore Jlynn Counter was voted third team all-league by the league's coaches after finishing the regular season averaging 14.2 points, 3.9 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game while shooting 48.7 percent from the floor. The Jaguars also boast two members of the league's All-Freshman Team in Vincent Brady II (10.9 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 56 3's) and DJ Jackson (9.5 ppg, 3.7 rpg). The duo combined to win the league's Freshman of the Week Award seven times this season with Jackson earning the final two of the regular season. 

With a win, IUPUI would advance to play top-seeded Youngstown State inside YSU's Beeghly Center on Thursday (Mar. 2) at 7:00 p.m.

QUOTABLE
"The difference in the game was experience. They're loaded with experience at every position and we're still learning. When things got tough at the start of the second half, I thought our lack of experience showed and they saw blood in the water and went for the kill. That's what veterans do. That's a really good team and Coach Calhoun has done it the right way, getting his kids and playing the way he wants them to play. I loved our energy and our fight and our willingness to fight all night long," head coach Matt Crenshaw said following Saturday's loss to Youngstown State. 

Tidbits heading into Tuesday's game (click here for full game notes)
    ALL-LEAGUERS
    Three Jaguars collected all-league honors on Monday (Feb. 27) as sophomore Jlynn Counter was voted 3rd Team All-League and Vincent Brady II and DJ Jackson were voted to the All-Freshman Team. 
    Counter is IUPUI's first all-leaguer since Marcus Burk earned back-to-back nods in 2020 and 2021 while Brady and Jackson are the first Jaguars to be named to the Horizon League's All-Freshman Team. 

    SEEDS MATTER
    IUPUI enters the Horizon League Tournament as the No. 11 seed AND a No. 11 seed has never won a game in the Horizon League Tournament. However, a No. 10 seed has won a tournament game each of the past two years as No. 10 RMU won over No. 7 Youngstown State last year and No. 10 Purdue Fort Wayne won at No. 7 Green Bay in 2021. 

    ACADEMIC ALL-DISTRICT HONOREES
    IUPUI's Jonah Carrasco and Boston Stanton III were both named to the College Sports Communicators Academic All-District earlier this week. Carrasco completed his undergrad with a 3.64 GPA and has maintained a 3.83 mark as he pursues his Master's degree in organizational leadership. Stanton has a 3.70 GPA while majoring in psychology. 

    ABOUT TIME
    IUPUI's six-point win over Robert Morris on Feb. 23 was the first time this season the Jaguars have won a game by seven points or fewer. Coming in, IUUPI was 0-8 this season in games this season decided by seven points or less. 
    Half of IUPUI's most recent 12 losses have come by seven points or fewer, including an overtime loss to Oakland on Jan. 19. 
    Thursday's win also marked the first time in head coach Matt Crenshaw's two-year tenure that the Jaguars erased a halftime deficit to come back and win. 

    NINE AWARDS; THREE FRESH AWARDEES    
    IUPUI freshmen collected nine #HLMBB Freshman of the Week Awards this season as Vincent Brady II collected four honors and DJ Jackson earned three, including the final two of the season. Armon Jarrard was honored twice.
    Brady is second on the team in scoring (10.9 ppg) and second in rebounding (4.0 rpg) and leads the team in minutes played (32.0 mpg, 14th in the HL) and threes made (56). Brady comes in having made at least one three in 26 straight games and in 29 of the team's 31 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
    Brady is on his way to finishing the season averaging better than 10 points per game and would currently 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). 
    Vincent Brady II - 10.9 ppg (2022-23)
    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 is 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 six of IUPUI's last 12 games and scored in double-digits in nine of the team's last 12 games
    -he ranks among the Horizon League's top-15 in scoring (14.2 ppg), assists (3.3 apg), field goal percentage (48.7%) and free throw percentage (79.4%)
    -in Horizon League play, he's averaging 14.3 points, 4.0 assists and 3.9 rebounds per game
    -he started the year 0-of-14 from three in the season's first 12 games, but has shot a manageable 15-of-45 (33.3 percent) since.

    BAKERS DOZEN
    Senior Marlon Taylor became the 13th different player to start a game this season as he was awarded his first collegiate 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 (27 games missed) and DJ Jackson (11 games). Other scholarship student-athletes who have missed multiple games this season include Daylan Hamilton (13 games), Amhad Jarrard (9 games), Armon Jarrard (7 games), John Egbuta (5 games), Cooper Dewitt (5 games) and Boston Stanton III (4 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 31 games this season and is tied with Chris Osten with a team-high 30 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 68.0 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 shot an absurd 76.3 percent from the field (61-of-80) at home this year and shot 73.2 percent in Horizon League games. He's doesn't qualify to be among the national or Horizon League leaders (needs 5 FGM/game to qualify), but would rank fifth nationally if he did qualify. 
    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 on Jan. 19 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.