Team #93 - IUPUI

Immediately following the Seton Hall-Marquette matchup, I made the quick walk over the Panther Arena to see my 93rd Division One College Basketball team. On this occasion, I saw the IUPUI Jaguars take on the Milwaukee Panthers. IUPUI is the 9th team that I have seen out of the Horizon League. The Jaguars comes into this matchup with a 1-13 and most recently played Green Bay on Thursday January 13th. IUPUI would lose this matchup to Green Bay by a score of 69-54. B.J. Maxwell has been the leading scorer for IUPUI this season, averaging 12.2 PPG. Milwaukee comes into this matchup with a 5-12 record on the year. They most recently played UIC on Thursday January 13th. The Panthers would lose this contest against UIC by a score of 81-77. The leading scorer for the Panthers has been DeAndre Gholston, he is averaging 15.8 PPG.

Before I even talk about this game, I had no idea how bad IUPUI was. They were 355 of out 358 in KenPom. Holy crap, after watching them in person they are awful. Milwaukee has certainly had it's struggles without Baldwin but even they took care of business. IUPUI seemed to have many players in Health and Safety Protocols. They only showed up with nine players. Milwaukee by far played it's best first half of the season. Once again they were without PBJ. I am to the point where I doubt he plays at all the rest of the year. IUPUI started the game 1-14 from the field. I thought maybe they would play Milwaukee close, man was I sadly mistaken. After 12 minutes of game time, Milwaukee found themselves up two touchdowns. It was 21-7. Believe it or not, nobody could stop Joey St Pierre on IUPUI. Certainly a sentence I never thought I would say. Tafari Simms had one of his better halves of the season for Milwaukee as he had 12 points on five of six shooting. He was able to get into the paint and would not be stopped by any Jaguar defenders. IUPUI shot 29% from the field in the first half and never really showed any signs of life. Milwaukee lead by as many as 17 in the first half and would hold a 38-25 lead at halftime. Nathan McClure and Mike DePersia both had six points for the Jaguars. McClure impressively did not make a field goal in the first half but made six free throws. 

The second half was more of the same. Two minutes into the second half Milwaukee already had a twenty point lead. I never thought I would see the day when Milwaukee would kill a team like this. Heck they even struggled with Milwaukee School of Engineering and St Xavier this year. IUPUI just did not have any skill players at all. All their players were unathletic players who were borderline Division I players. It was a blood bath. The only notable thing about the second half was Nathan McClure tried to draw a charge but fell over before the guy even hit him. Made for a funny play. This game was rather boring and I decided to leave with about eight minutes left. At that time the score was 65-42. Milwaukee would go on to win by a score of 89-54. Milwaukee made 13 three pointers, most in a long time for them. They shot 62% from the field. Never thought that would happen. IUPUI was so overmatched it was not even funny. Azariah Seay and Bakari Lastrap led IUPUI in scoring with nine a piece. DeAndre Gholston had 21 and Tafari Simms had 19 for Milwaukee. Probably the worst game I have seen all year. At least when Marquette played bad teams they were still trying to find an identity and made it close. 

My next game will be Sunday January 23rd as the Marquette Golden Eagles take on the Xavier Musketeers.