CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. - The IU Indianapolis men's basketball team fell one possession shy of a road win in exhibition play at Austin Peay on Tuesday night (Oct. 27), falling to the Govs 96-94.
Gus Etchison paced four Jaguars in double-digits with 26 points on 10-of-18 shooting and
Reece Hagy added 16 points and five boards.
Markus Pastorcic-Straun made his Jaguar debut with 14 points off the bench and
Jason Clarke Jr. finished with 11. Zyree Collins had a game-high 32 points for APSU and Rashaud Marshall added 20 points and 14 rebounds for the victors.
"We're disappointed. We want to win every time we go out there," head coach
Ben Howlett said. "We've got some things to clean up and work on between now and next week when the regular season begins.
"We didn't shoot it very well tonight and made some careless turnovers, but we'll continue to work and get better."
Neither team led by more than seven points in a game that featured 17 ties and 20 lead changes. Austin Peay led 93-88 with 2:14 to play before the Jaguars scored layups on their next three possessions, the last of which came from Etchison to tie the game at 94 all with 41 seconds remaining.
Marshall drew a foul in close on Austin Peay's offensive trip with 10 seconds to play, resulting in splitting a pair of free throws. The Jags had the ball on the sideline with a chance to get a go-ahead attempt, but were unsuccessful in getting a shot attempt on two different inbounds opportunities. Etchison tried to find
Kameron Tinsley in the corner on the initial play and after then stumbled trying to receive a pass on a second sideline out of bounds opportunity.
In true October college basketball fashion, the teams combined on 38 turnovers and 53 personal fouls, leading to 60 free throw attempts. APSU went 28-of-39 (71.8 percent) from the line while the Jaguars were 14-of-21 (66.7 percent).
Precious Idiaru,
Peyton Heiss and
Manasseh Stackhouse all fouled out for the Jaguars, combining to score nine points among them. Stackhouse's lone bucket was a critical layup with just more than a minute remaining in regulation.
Tinsley closed with nine points and a team-high seven rebounds and Idiaru and
Billy Smith tallied five points apiece. Austin Peay, which won 22 games a season ago, shot 50 percent overall and 43 percent from three in the win.
The Jaguars will open the regular season on Monday (Nov. 2) when they host Miami-Middletown at 11:00 a.m. inside the brand new James T. Morris Arena on the IU Indy campus. Monday's game will be the annual NCAA 'Readers Become Leaders' game with more than 3,500 third-graders from across Central Indiana expected to be in attendance.
