DETROIT - The IUPUI basketball team was tripped up by previously winless Detroit Mercy inside Calihan Hall on Wednesday night (Feb. 14), 81-66. The host Titans scored the game's first 11 points and never looked back in a wire-to-wire victory.
DJ Jackson led three Jaguars in double-digits with 17 points off the bench and
Kidtrell Blocker added 11 points. Junior
Jlynn Counter finished with 10 points, seven rebounds and seven assists in the loss. Jayden Stone paced Detroit Mercy (1-26, 1-15 HL) with 25 points on 10-of-20 shooting and Marcus Tankersley contributed 19 points in the win.
While IUPUI (6-21, 2-14 HL) shot a respectable 48 percent from the floor and 6-of-16 (37.5 percent) from three, the Jaguars yielded too many trips to the foul line as the hosts outscored them 24-12 at the charity stripe. The Titans attempted 33 free throws to IUPUI's 14 attempts, keyed by Tankersley's 9-of-9 effort. Detroit Mercy also won the glass 31-22 and outscored the Jaguars 36-24 in the paint.
The Titans scored 11 points in short order before
Abdou Samb finally got the Jaguars on the board with a layup nearly three minutes into the contest. The lead hovered around double-figures and grew to 15 by halftime as Detroit Mercy shot 60 percent in the opening stanza, including hitting five threes.
The hosts led 61-42 with 10:56 to play before IUPUI later snuck within eight with 4:47 remaining. IUPUI turned up the full court press to force back-to-back turnovers, resulting in Jackson and
Vincent Brady II layups. However, the Brady transition basket would be the Jaguars' final field goal of the night as they were limited to just three made free throws from that point forward and outscored 10-3 down the stretch.
Jackson was efficient in scoring his 17 points on 5-of-7 shooting in just 22 minutes. Blocker hit 5-of-8 shots and grabbed four rebounds and
John Egbuta just missed double-digits with nine points. Samb scored IUPUI's first six points of the contest, but was held scoreless from there.
IUPUI will continue the two-game road trip on Saturday (Feb. 17) when they take on Oakland at 3:00 p.m. inside the Athletics Center O'rena.
