CLEVELAND - The IUPUI basketball team will close out the 2023-24 regular season on Saturday (Mar. 2) when the Jaguars take on Cleveland State (17-13, 10-9 HL) at 6:00 p.m. on ESPN+. The Jaguars (6-24, 2-17 HL) are looking to stop a skid and salvage a regular season series split with the Vikings. CSU is coming off a 69-61 home loss to Green Bay on Wednesday night in a game in which it shot just 39 percent from the floor.
IUPUI with toe-to-toe with Milwaukee on Wednesday night before falling to the Panthers, 75-70. IUPUI led 70-69 with under two minutes to play, but saw the Panthers score the game's final six points in the win. Junior
Jlynn Counter scored a team-high 15 points and sophomore
Abdou Samb matched his career-high with 14 points on 5-of-10 shooting. Senior guard
Bryce Monroe came off the Jaguars' bench to contribute 13 points and six assists in the loss.
IUPUI scored the game's first nine points and built an early 19-4 lead before the Panthers tipped the scales and drew within one possession by halftime.
SCOUTING CLEVELAND STATE
Cleveland State is 17-13 overall and 10-9 in Horizon League play. The Vikings are 12-3 at home and alternated wins and losses for the entire month of February, going 4-4 last month. The Vikings rely heavily on a trio of seniors as Tristan Enaruna (20.2 ppg, 6.6 rpg), Tae Williams (12.6 ppg, 5.9 rpg) and Drew Lowder (11.8 ppg, 2.9 apg) are the team's top three scorers.
INSIDE THE SERIES
IUPUI is 4-10 all-time against Cleveland State and 1-5 in the six meetings in Cleveland. The Jaguars have dropped nine straight to the Vikings heading into Saturday's game with the program's last win over CSU coming back on Jan. 10, 2019. CSU defeated the Jaguars earlier this season, 86-77, in Indianapolis.
UP NEXT
IUPUI will open the Horizon League Tournament on the road on Tuesday (Mar. 5).
Notes and Tidbits (click here to download the full IUPUI Game Notes)
ALL-ACADEMIC
On Wednesday (Feb. 28), the league office announces the Valeo #HLMBB All-Academic Teams with senior guard
Bryce Monroe being among three who earned honorable mention accolades. Monroe maintains a 3.57 grade point average while majoring in general studies and leads the team in games started and minutes played, while ranking second on the team in scoring, assists, free throws made and free throw percentage.
PLANTING SEEDS
IUPUI will be either the No. 10 or No. 11 seed in the upcoming Barbasol Horizon League Tournament and will head on the road for the opening round. If the season ended today, IUPUI would face No. 7 Cleveland State for an opening round game on Tuesday, Mar. 5. Odds are, the Jags would stay in Cleveland following Saturday's finale, should that matchup come to fruition.
NOMINATION SEASON
It's officially postseason award nomination season and three Jaguars are up for Horizon League postseason accolades. Junior
Jlynn Counter is on the all-league ballot while sophomore guard
Vincent Brady II is up for the league's All-Defensive Team. In addition, senior
Yves Nkomba is the Jaguars' nominee for the league's first-ever Sportsmanship Award.
MKE LEFTOVERS
IUPUI dropped a home game to Milwaukee on Wednesday, 75-70, as the visiting Panthers scored the game's final six points after the Jags had taken a 70-69 lead with 90 seconds to play... IUPUI scored the game's first nine points and built a 19-4 lead in the opening six-plus minutes...
Jlynn Counter's 15 paced four Jags in double-digits and sophomore
Abdou Samb matched his career-high with 14 points (5-10 FG, 4-5 FT)... Counter had four steals for a second straight game.
FRONTCOURT PRODUCTION
Wednesday's game marked the first time this season that two players in the Jaguars' starting frontcourt both hit double-digits as
Abdou Samb (14 pts, 5 reb) and
John Egbuta (12 pts) both reached 10-or-more.
The duo combined on 10-of-18 shooting and 6-of-7 from the free throw line.
For Egbuta personally, he's coming off back-to-back double-digit scoring games for the first time this season.
JLYNN COUNTS
Junior
Jlynn Counter ranks among the Horizon League's top-15 in six statistical categories - steals (5th, 1.6 spg), assists (10th, 3.1 apg), assist-to-turnover ratio (11th; 1.00 a/to), free throw percentage (12th, 75.5%), scoring (14th, 14.4 ppg) and field goal percentage (14th, 45.3%).
Counter, a preseason Second Team All-Horizon League pick, led the team in scoring (14.5 ppg) and assists (3.3 apg) last season.
COUNTER COUNT
Counter had a 23-point showing against Robert Morris, matching his season-high and most by a Jaguar this season. The Oklahoma City-native tallied his 500th career point against Elon on Nov. 17 and enters today with 840 career points.
...He's scored in double-digits 42 times in 58 career games
...He's hit for 20-or-more points 14 times in 58 career games
BIG. ROAD. DUB.
IUPUI earned its best win of the season at Purdue Fort Wayne on Jan. 17, 85-79. The Jaguars had their best offensive game of the season, shooting a season-high 59.3 percent from the floor. The Jaguars scored a season-high 58 points in the paint, including making 18-of-22 (82 percent) shot at or near the rim.
Here are some other notes from that win:
-It marked just the second home loss for Purdue Fort Wayne this season
-It was the first time all season IUPUI had five players score in double-digits
-IUPUI had a season-high six dunks (Samb 4, Samuels 2); Samb had four dunks all season long before finishing four in that contest
-IUPUI's five three-point attempts were the team's fewest since also attempting four against Denver on Feb. 14, 2015
THAT'LL DOU
In 18 games in the IUPUI starting lineup, sophomore
Abdou Samb is averaging 7.3 points and 3.7 rebounds, going 55-of-89 from the field (61.8 percent).
Samb's field goal percentage has risen from 55.5 percent to 60.3 percent since he moved into the starting five.
#SCTOP10
IUPUI players were featured on ESPN's SportsCenter Top 10 Plays twice in three days on Dec. 29 and Dec. 31 with a pair of dunks.
Against Detroit Mercy on Dec. 29,
Kidtrell Blocker's one-handed dunk from the right side was the No. 8 play on SportsCenter.
Two days later,
Vincent Brady II's one-handed dunk from the left baseline was chosen as the No. 4 play in the country that evening.
ONLY THE LONELY
Only one IUPUI player (
Qwanzi Samuels) has appeared in all 30 games so far this season as the other 14 players have missed at least one game due to injury or illness. Only two others have played in 29 games -
Vincent Brady II and
DJ Jackson. Everyone else has missed at least two games this campaign.
QWANZ SEES DOUBLE
Graduate transfer
Qwanzi Samuels recorded his first collegiate double-double at Minnesota (Dec. 16), having finished with a career-high 13 points (5-8 FG, 3-3 FT), 10 rebounds and four assists in 30 minutes off the Jaguars' bench.
It marked his first-ever double-digit scoring game (in his 96th career game) and his second career game with 10-or-more rebounds.
FOR STARTERS
With the glut of injuries and sickness, head coach Matt Crenshaw has found himself shuffling his starting lineup, using 11 different combinations this season.
No IUPUI player has started every game (Monroe leads the team with 26 starts) and 10 different players have started at least seven games. Counter is second on the team with 24 starts.
NINE MAN ROTATION
Nine different Jaguars are playing at least 11 minutes per game, led by
Bryce Monroe (30.4 mpg) down to
Cooper Dewitt (11.3 mpg).
IN THE CLASSROOM
Seven members of the squad topped a 3.0 grade point average for the fall semester, paced by
John Egbuta (3.62) and
Amhad Jarrard (3.51). Others included
Vincent Brady II (3.48),
Yves Nkomba (3.46),
Derek Petersen (3.29),
Qwanzi Samuels (3.12) and
Bryce Monroe (3.00).
SEEING RED
Both Amhad and
Armon Jarrard will redshirt this season. Amhad missed the entire summer and preseason after suffering an injury last season and Armon was limited to just three games this season while playing through an injury. He was shutdown after trying to play at Indiana State on Nov. 14.
The Jarrards are one of 21 sets of brothers playing for the same team this season and one of nine sets of twins in Division I basketball.
