Jason Gardner

11 random things to consider about IUPUI leaving the Summit League

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IUPUI is heading for the Horizon League which is kind of sad because they were that program that was okay at everything and always felt like they were going to be solid in everything in 2 years.

Here are some random notes to consider about what to consider about this situation.

  1. You’ll get to watch 2 less games of your school going up against the Jaguars in basketball on ESPN3.  (Seriously, every single game of IUPUI’s was on ESPN3)
  2. Summit League fans will be a little confused if they should still count themselves as the “Conference that had George Hill.”  It’s as confusing as when the Big Ten Network brags up their relationship with the 1995 Nebraska Cornhuskers.
  3. Denver will probably complain just a little bit less about geography.  Not really, but maybe?
  4. Summit League fans can finally stop considering making a trip to Indianapolis to see their team play IUPUI (and by that we mean just make an excuse to go visit Indianapolis.)
  5. We have to decide who the new HOW IS THIS TEAM SOMEWHAT OKAY AND BEATING US AT HOME Summit League team is.  I nominate South Dakota.
  6. What school can we speculate will be the program the Summit League needs to add the most to keep Fort Wayne sane?  Someone in Kentucky, Illinois, or Indiana.  Actually, let’s just set the Fort Wayne to Another Conference Clock at 4 Minutes to Midnight.  The Denver version still needs to be reset from when the power went out.
  7. You’re going to miss Jason Gardner a whole lot more than you’re going to miss IUPUI.
  8. You might feel a little sorry for Fort Wayne right now.  The closest Summit League school to them is Western Illinois.  That’s a 6 hour drive.  All 25 sports of their sports fans are feeling this one today.  Also, the couple hundred people who pretended to be Mastodon fans after they beat Indiana should notice this in a couple years, too.
  9. You’re going to miss out on seeing the progress of that one freshman that was going to eventually transfer to a D2 school or disappear off the face of the Earth.
  10. There is going to be a Horizon League versus Summit League Challenge now, right?  Sign us up for Milwaukee versus Omaha!
  11. You’ll never really know who is better between North Dakota and IUPUI in sports stuff.  That will sting for a while.

Summit League predictions: Jan 31-Feb 4

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After going two straight weeks of 4-4, I had my best week this year at 7-1.  Stupid South Dakota, had I known Tyler Flack was back, I would have changed my tune.

January 31

Denver (5-4) @ Oral Roberts (3-6) on ESPN3

This game will be close until the very end.  Albert Owens and Daniel Amigo can match up well and cancel each other out, so hopefully neither of them gets in foul trouble.

February 1

North Dakota State (6-1) @ IUPUI (3-6) on ESPN3

It’s hard to feel a lot of confidence in IUPUI right now.  They have lost three in a row, and one game was a 30 point lost to Fort Wayne.  They can usually keep games close, but have had some terrible clock management down the final stretches of games.  If you watch the Jaguars, the players appear to be losing confidence, especially Darell Combs and Jason Gardner constantly looks confused.  The body language is not good for the Jaguars right now, and it’s the worst time of the year to be going through that.

The last three games between these two teams have been close, as they do match up well with each other.  The last road game the Bison had, they beat Western Illinois by 32.

Western Illinois (3-6) @ South Dakota State (3-6) on ESPN3

South Dakota State has looked better defensively since moving away from so much zone defense.  Hard to believe these two teams are playing for not finishing in last in the conference.

Mike Daum has 8 points in Macomb.  That wont happen again.  He’s averaged 31.5 at home in conference play.

South Dakota (6-3) @ Omaha (4-5)

South Dakota made Omaha look silly in Vermillion, and the Mavericks should hopefully be out for revenge.  Marcus Tyus will not go 1-of-12 again.  Tre’Shawn Thurman seems like he is very upset with the Mavericks rebounding recently, and Thurman has a history of being very good when being fired up.

Tyler Flack came back to the ‘Yotes lineup to help South Dakota complete a sweep of Denver.  He will be able to help and defend a potentially fired up Tre’Shawn Thurman, but if he gets in foul trouble or shows a little fatigue coming back from injury then Thurman could go off.  Flack did score 19 against Denver, so he doesn’t appear too rusty.

The ‘Yotes defense and three point shooting will keep this game close, and my teeth hurt thinking that it will be one of those games where the opponent has a 10 point lead, Omaha gets it down to 2, then it goes back to 10, then Omaha gets it down to 1, and it goes back to 10.

Hey, maybe Omaha can win on South Dakota possibly looking ahead to North Dakota State, but I think I am pushing it.

February 4th

South Dakota (6-3) @ North Dakota State (7-1) on ESPN3

The Bison had to build a big lead to hold off South Dakota in Vermillion.  Fargo is not an easy place for away teams to play basketball.  The only two teams to win in Fargo this season are from the state of North Dakota.

Fort Wayne (5-4) @ Denver (5-4)

This could be a really fun game with little defense, just as there was in Fort Wayne.

The Pioneers were able to hold John Konchar to 6 points on 1-of-5 shooting in Fort Wayne in their first meeting. How is that possible?  I’m asking on behalf of the other seven teams in the Summit League.

Last year, Konchar had 10 points and was 4-of-8 from the free throw line in Denver against the Pioneers’ old Princeton style.  But seriously, have the Pioneers kidnapped someone and Konchar is mentally off his game like when Lex Luthor kidnapped Clark Kent’s mother to make Superman go do something stupid like fight Batman?

Oral Roberts (3-6) @ South Dakota State (3-6) on ESPN3

South Dakota State gets Western Illinois and Oral Roberts at home this week.  Good for them.  Cannot wait for the South Dakota State is Back story lines.

Omaha (4-5) @ Western Illinois (4-5) on ESPN3

Omaha was bitter about losing at Western Illinois last season.  It altered their season from a top two finish in the league to dropping to third and not getting an extra day of rest in the Summit League tournament (if they would have won in the first round).

The Mavericks hit 15 threes against the Leathernecks in Omaha earlier this season and forced the young Leathernecks to 18 turnovers.

Garret Covington appears to be feeling better than he did while in Omaha, so defense on him could become critical for the Mavericks.  Anyone else feel like Daniel Norl is becoming the best Mavericks perimeter defender?  He had some good minutes on defense against John Konchar, and he played good defense against South Dakota State.  Might be time to give him some more minutes, just as the Mavericks did last season toward the end of conference play with Kyler Erickson last year.

The Jaguars could run the Summit in 2017

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It’s hard to believe that the Jaguars finished in the top half of the Summit League this season, especially if you can remember that this program won a total of 12 basketball games over the course of two seasons when the Mavericks were just joining the Summit League.  They continue to get better season after season, and 2016-2017 should be much of the same.  If you watched their Summit League tournament game against North Dakota State, and that was all you saw of them, you would think they were back to being the worst team in the league.

The Jaguars only lose two seniors going into 2016-2017, though those players were both significant contributors, but the team should be even better in next season, on paper.  Jason Gardner’s teams won 6 Summit League games in 2015 and 9 in 2016, it is not inconceivable to imagine that they can win 12 conference games in 2017.  This is assuming the whole team doesn’t just quit or something.

This season was somewhat of a transition season for the Jaguars as they introduced introduced 7 new players to the basketball court.  They tried to introduce all of these new players to their system by only playing two non-conference home games.  This just sounds like an uphill battle.  You could tell by the end of their non-conference season that the team had run out of steam.  The Jaguars lost their final 5 non-conference road games by an average of 25 points.  One of those losses was a 35 point loss to Creighton.  Good for you Creighton.  I’m glad you could find those games in your schedule that can benefit you.

What was most impressive to me about the Jaguars was how mature their players were on the basketball court.  They got the luxury of having almost every freaking game on ESPN3, so they actually had one of the biggest spotlights on their players so it was a little more visible to see their maturity as opposed to a team like Denver, who was hardly on anything for Mav fans to watch.  Their players hardly ever argued with the officials, they just played.  Their players didn’t try and do things they were incapable of doing, you hardly saw them taking 30 footers or driving into the lane with three dudes on them.  Their players handled post game interviews well, and you could tell how important basketball was to them.  Everyone on their team also appeared as if they were 30 years old.

The Jaguars are going to have the most coming back to their roster in 2016.  They lose Marcellus Barksdale, so their defense may not be as scrappy next season, but their offense shouldn’t miss much of a beat.  Their offense may actually be better adding Syracuse transfer Ron Patterson to the lineup.  Patterson was seldom used at Syracuse, and he shot a rather low percentage of 31% from the field in 14 minutes a game in his sophomore season at Syracuse.  But believe me, if the Mavericks had a Syracuse transfer, you would be pumped…no matter how terrible his stats were at Syracuse.

This season the Jaguars had 4 players that were transfers that finally got to play.  Darell Combs was a transfer from Eastern Michigan, he averaged 7.4 points per game in his sophomore season at EMU and then 16.3 points for the Jaguars in his junior season – which was 6th in the Summit League and will be the 2nd highest for any players returning to the league next season.  The team also introduced three players from Loyola, where Gardner used to be an assistant coach.

Matt O’Leary became one of the most consistent post players in the league, he averaged 10.3 points, 6 rebounds, and 2 assists a game in the Summit – after averaging 4.2 points and 2 rebounds his sophomore season at Loyola.  Nick Osborne added 8 points and 6 rebounds per game after averaging 5 and 4 in his sophomore season at Loyola.  Osborne and O’Leary really have the potential to be the best forward combo down low in the league next year. Sophomore Jordan Pickett was hardly ever used at Loyola in his freshman season because of injuries, but he was able to score 9.4 points per game primarily off the bench for the Jaguars this season.

With a bulk of their lineup coming back, the Jaguars have the most they can throw at teams.  They seem to already have 8 guys that build up a solid rotation.  In addition to this, they have three freshman that are committed, yet they all seem like they are redshirt candidates at this point.  Having your starting lineup established in April is never a bad thing for a team.  Unless you’re the Huskers apparently…

Their roster is set, as long as no one transfers, so there is no room for a wave of incoming transfers going into next season.  Aside from the mentioned players, the Jaguars have a good core of young guys to fill in the rest of their team.  Sophomore Aaron Brennan was used as a smaller power forward, and really was the last post player that they used, but he filled in well for injured players this season.  He had 10 points and 6 rebounds in the Jaguars’ win against the Mavericks.  Freshman Evan Hall showed some promise, but missed 9 games this season with injuries.  Hall was able to pull off four double digit scoring performances in his first season with the Jaguars.  TJ Henderson was another freshman who showed some promise with 5 double digit scoring performances, he scored 16 points against the Mavericks in the absence of Jordan Pickett.  DJ McCall did not get to play this season, but he averaged nearly 5 points per game in his freshman season with the Jaguars.  He will be back next season, and at 6’5″ he may be able to make up for the loss of Barksdale.

This team will have chemistry, versatility, speed, and they will be able to throw several different combinations of lineups at teams next season.  They did have to deal with a number of injuries this season, so that can be an issue for them.  The Jaguars may have to face another difficult non-conference season next year, but they should be the Summit League favorite in 2016-2017; even though I am sure IPFW will be the team that everyone just pencils in as the preseason number one.  The Jaguars swept the Mastodons in 2016.

 

 

 

Just some haphazard notes listening to the Summit League Media Day

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  • Joe Scott knows his team is young and the Pioneers are a work in progress, but he is preaching maturity to his team.
  • Jon Coffman is pretty damn excited about college basketball and his team.
    • Redshirt Freshman John Konchar has apparently put on a ton of muscle, and the ‘Dons are really excited about him and are more prepared to go small ball this year in the Summit
    • Brent Calhoun is expected to make a big jump for the ‘Dons, he has lost a bunch of weight and is in the best shape of his life.
    • I have realized that after an entire season that I have been spelling “Mastodons” incorrectly.
  • Jason Gardner is excited about this program, and thinks his staff will be more comfortable working together this year.  He has gained a large amount of respect for the Summit League.
    • In his opinion, Mason Archie is his team’s best defender and wants to defend the other team’s best player.
    • Marcellus Barksdale had to play four different positions in just about every single game for the Jaguars, he will not have to do that this year and expects Barksdale to benefit from not having to playing too many different roles.
    • Barksdale and Archie have both graduated already, and set a great example for the team.
    • His 4 transfers are really going to help this team.
    • The new arena has really helped the Jaguars in recruiting.
  • Dave Richman acknowledges that his team has 11 of his 15 guys as freshman and sophomores, but they are a deeper and more talented team than last year.
    • Chris Kading had 3 surgeries in the off season, will probably miss the first couple games of the regular season.
    • Lawrence Alexander carried the Bison on his back, he was the winningst most player in Bison history, it is not going to be easy to replace him.  They will have to replace him by committee.
    • The Bison ended up 12-4 in the league, but many of their games were won by just a possession.
  • Derrin Hansen (and Brittany Lange) is excited about the new arena, it has been a huge asset to the program, and they know it will help them catch up to the rest of the league in the next few years.  Not to mention it is extremely huge for the community.
    • Hansen is expecting more productivity from Tim Smallwood, Hansen is unclear if Smallwood will start or come off the bench yet.  Smallwood has a much better feel for the game right now.  He was a huge help when Marcus Tyus missed the last 6 games of the season.
    • Devin Patterson has become better in his leadership role.
    • Marcus Tyus is coming off his knee injury very well.
    • Jake White was only healthy for 2 or 3 games last year, he can have a big year if he is healthy.
    • Randy Reed is going to have a big role this year.
    • The players UNO has brought in bring in a winning culture, with all of them playing in their state championship games.  Zach Jackson’s team won the state championship.
    • Hansen thinks his new guys can be immediate impacts for his program, but it sounds like minutes may be an issue at this point.
  • Scott Sutton says he is excited and optimistic, but he also sounds like he wants to skip the morning and get straight to lunch.  He likes his new players, he knows there will be growing pains, but it is a tough group of guys that should be ready by the conference schedule.  Their non-conference schedule should really help prepare the Golden Eagles for the Summit League.
    • Obi Emegano and Brandon Conley have both been injured throughout the summer and had shoulder surgeries, but are doing very well at this point.  The staff is doing the best that they can to protect them.
    • Sutton thinks the rule changes in college basketball are going to benefit a guy like Emegano the most.  He already led the league last year in free throws attempted per game and he should get even more attempts at the line this season.  Sutton also likes how his team plays with a 30 second shot clock.
    • Sutton really really likes Jalen Bradley, and will have a hard time keeping him out of the lineup.  Bradley got to play a lot on the team’s summer trip, where the team got to play with a 24 second shot clock.
    • Sutton could have a year where he is starting a couple freshmen.  AJ Owens is their post player, but not as consistent as they would like him to be.  Owens could have the biggest jump this year in the league.
  • Craig Smith sounds like he came to party. He thinks it is going to be a heck of a year for the Summit League, and his team will be a work in progress.  He is glad that his team set a foundation and a culture last year.  They lost a lot of scoring, so they have to figure out a way to score the ball.
    • Smith really does not know who is going to help take on the scoring yet, but Tre Burnette really caught on toward the end of the season.  Casey Kasperbauer is one of the best three point shooters he has ever coached.
    • The Coyotes have had a lot of injuries.  They have 17 players on the roster, but ended a practice with only 10 players recently.  It has been hard to get going and figure out lineups and who plays well together.
    • Dan Jech can score in a lot of different ways and is a great rebounder.  Smith sounds really excited about Jech.
    • Tyler Hagedorn has a great feel for the game and can do a lot of different things.
    • Tyler Borchers has been a great surprise for the Coyotes, he doesn’t look pretty with everything that he does, but he does great things.
  • Scott Nagy says his team has taken their time getting ready because of the great experience that they have at the guard position.  He thinks the Jackrabbits have a lot of depth, which is going to be needed in college basketball with the rule changes.
    • He points out that preseason awards mean nothing.  No one expected Deondre Parks and George Marshall to be all league picks last year.  Some transfers from IUPUI or on other teams could be big time players, and no one knows anything about them yet.
    • Jake Bittle and George Marshall both have nagging injuries, nothing that would keep them out, but they will be hurting after games.
    • Nagy thinks his team is smaller than he would like it to be.  They could even go very small with no true post player in some games.
    • Adam Dykman works extremely hard, and down the road will be a tremendous 4 man in the future.
    • The biggest question mark for the Jackrabbits is: how will they replace Cody Larson?  They are looking at 3 guys to replace him…Connor Devine, Ian Theisen, and Mike Daum.  He has no idea who will be their starting center at this point.
    • Nagy just seems displeased by rule changes, doesn’t see the need for them, but they have to play with them.  He doesn’t think the rule changes will affect how they play though.
  • Billy Wright feels his program is headed in the right direction.  His team has set a philosophy in how they want to recruit and compete.
    • Western Illinois returns 85% of their scoring.
    • His freshman are working hard to compete for starting spots and playing time.
    • Garret Covington has really worked hard to improve his rebounding
    • JC Fuller is one of the most underrated players in the league.
    • De’Angelo Brewster and Brandon Gilbeck will have big breakout years as freshmen.
    • The Summit League is close in talent, you are an injury or two away from going from the top to the bottom, or a recruit away from going from the bottom to the middle of the pack.

The more I look up about the Jaguars, the more afraid of them I become

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With no hopes of making the Summit League conference tournament, there were never really any great expectations of the Mavs over the last 4 seasons, other than just hoping for improvement.  As fans of a transitioning team, I felt most of us would look at it as Okay, We Are Not Great, But We Are Not IUPUI.  I have to say, the more and more I research about the Jaguars, the more and more I am growing fearful of their potential.

You have to consider why we have fans have been going with a little bit of this IUPUI Sucks logic…

They only had 6 wins in each of the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 seasons.  They have not had a winning season since 2010-2011.  What Ron Hunter had built up from a NAIA to Division 1 program had been lost by Todd Howard. Basically to be summed up, ever since the Dakota schools gained some recognition, the Jaguars dropped off the map, so how could adding another school just south of the Dakotas help with that?  IUPUI dumped Howard and got an attractive hire in Jason Gardner, former 2nd Team All American guard at Arizona.

As fans we like to jump on the Oh, He Played Point Guard in College, So He Will Be A Great Coach theory pretty easily.  Maybe we are jumping the gun here on Gardner in thinking he will be a great coach at IUPUI and turn the program around.  When I say “we”, I mean the people that tune into IUPUI games on ESPN3, it is all the commentators talk about.  Before Gardner took over the job at IUPUI, he was an assistant with Josh Pastor at Memphis for a season, and an assistant at Loyola Chicago for two seasons.  By the way, am I the only one that feels Pastor is incredibly overrated?

Anyway, in Gardner’s first year at IUPUI he is able almost double the team’s win totals and get them up to 10 wins…yay!  Which is actually a supreme feat considering there were some people that did not think the Jaguars would win one game all year.  With no real big time scorer, (Marcellus Barksdale led the team this season with 9.5 points per game) the team had an odd style of play, did not shoot particularly that well (42.6 FG% – 7th in Summit, 29.6 3pt% – 9th in Summit), hell they were even last in the Summit League in turnovers with 15.5 per game.  Yes, someone averaged more turnovers than the Mavs!  The Jaguars were able to pick up some wins over IPFW, who was the preseason favorite in the Summit, Denver (twice) who was also a favorite in the Summit before the season started, and also picked up wins against South Dakota, Western Illinois, and Omaha when CJ Carter had a career high 45 points.  Their non conference schedule had some games you expected them to lose; Xavier, Evansville, Purdue, Drake, and Indiana State, but they were able to pick up some close wins against Milwaukee, Ball State, and South Alabama.  Also you know what they did not do during the non-conference?  They did not play any division 2 or NAIA teams for some easy slap stick comedy wins.

The men’s basketball program is growing as the university is growing as well.  Like UNO, as a commuter campus, the university did not have much for on campus living for students.  A few years ago, the university acquired the University Palace Hotel, a one time 4 diamond hotel, whatever the hell that means, and they renovated it into a dorms for students in 2013.  The men’s basketball team has also moved into a renovated Fairgrounds arena, which can seat up to 8,200.  So with a new coach, new facilities, IUPUI is starting to gain some attention, and they are clearly trying to make an effort to get their program to where it once was under Ron Hunter.

As far as what is coming for IUPUI basketball, Gardner has been working toward recruiting some decent talent for the men’s team…although it is not like he has much to improve from.  The Jaguars had 5 players that transferred out from from the 2014-2015 season, but it is not like they are losing 5 guys that anyone is screaming “oh no, we might not get to 10 wins again!”  When Gardner was hired at IUPUI, 3 players from Loyola decided to transfer to the Jaguars program who will be available for 2015-2016.

  • Nick Osborne is 6’8″ and 220, he played in 28 games and made 17 starts in his sophomore year at Loyola while averaging 5.4 points per game and 4 rebounds per game, and he shot 50% from the field.  He is also a post player that can hit 80% of his free throws, that is never a terrible thing.  Maybe he is not a guy that is going to come in and save the program by any means, but taking a year off to practice, he can definitely come into the Jaguars program and be an instant help to the team.  Most likely a starter for the team, especially considering that the Jaguars do not have much of a front court.
  • Matt O’Leary is 6’8″ and 225, he played in 31 games his sophomore season at Loyola and made 5 starts himself.  I do not care what anyone says, O’Leary is always a bad ass last name.  O’Leary averaged 4.2 points per game and 3 rebounds per game his sophomore year at Loyola.  He is also not a terrible passer for a big man, averaging 2 assists per game his sophomore and had a career high of 6 assists at Tennessee Tech.  Osborne and O’Leary can each step out and hit a three, but it is not like it is a big part of their game, does it seriously sound like IUPUI has two John Karhoffs coming into the program?
  • Jordan Pickett is a 6’0″ sophomore guard who also sat out after transferring from Loyola, he only played in 5 games at Loyola before a season ending injury.  Seriously a wild card.

Darrell Combs is a another player who sat out the 2014-2015 season after transferring from Eastern Michigan.  Combs is a 6’2″ guard who can score the ball.  He played in 36 games, and started 7 his sophomore season for an Eastern Michigan team that went 22-15 and made it to the second round of the CIT.  He averaged 7.5 points per game his sophomore year, but he only shot 32% from the field, so hopefully for the Jaguars he has been working on that in the year that he redshirted.  But hopefully for the Mavs, he has not… He did also score in double figures 12 times his sophomore season.  Osborne, O’Leary, and Pickett are all candidates that could jump into the starting lineup at IUPUI with Barksdale for the 2015-2016 and completely change the look of their team.

Incoming as freshman, the Jaguars have T.J. Henderson, a 5’11” guard from Indianapolis.  Henderson averaged nearly 30 points per game, 5 assists, and 5 steals per game as a junior in high school.  He also held offers from IPFW, Kennesaw State, and Buffalo.  I cannot find out how his senior season went, he transferred high schools, but 30 points per game, 5 assists, 5 steals…ehhhhhhhhh.  We will (obviously) have to wait and see what that will translate into as a college player.  Five steals a game just sounds like Devin Patterson to me, that is a good thing.  I saw a blip in an article mentioning Henderson returning from an injury and scoring 20 points in a game in “limited minutes.”  The team will also be adding Henderson’s teammate, forward Gary Bonds, at 6’8″ he was in and out with injuries over his senior season.  So, another wild card, he did also receive scholarship offers from Wright state and New Orleans.  IUPUI will also be gaining a 6’9″ forward from Indianapolis, who played with Henderson and Bonds in AAU, and averaged 14 points and 13 rebounds as a senior.  He is described as being a guy who does the dirty work of setting screens, diving after the ball, posting for rebounds, which is never a terrible thing to have on your roster.

The Jaguars also have Evan Hall, a 6’7″ forward from Hindman, Kentucky who picked IUPUI over Eastern Kentucky, Morehead State, and Northern Kentucky, some recruiting sites listed him as a 3 star player as well.  Hall averaged 15 points and 8 rebounds as a senior and shot 65% as a senior, he also had 14 points and 8 rebounds as a junior while shooting 72% from the field.  Sounds like is pretty solid, or like he played against a bunch of 5’10” post players in a small Kentucky region.  I have never been to Kentucky, no one has ever invited me, and I doubt anyone ever will.  He was on the AAU National Championship team though.

The team will be adding Grant Sinn, who is a transfer from North Park University in Chicago, which is a real thing, but I am unclear if he ever actually played before transferring to IUPUI in the Spring semester.  He shot 45% from three point range in high school.  If you ever talk to a non-hipster from Chicago, they do not know what or where North Park is.  Sinn gained interest from some D-1 programs before settling on North Park, Gardner has said that Sinn will be an immediate asset to their basketball program.

As for more for the future, Gardner and IUPUI picked up a transfer from Syracuse, 6’3″ guard Ron Patterson.  Patterson was never the ultimate player at Syracuse, so he does not sound like a big time factor for the success of IUPUI, or like he is going to be an All First Team player for the Summit League.  His best game at Syracuse was a 13 point and 4 assist performance in a blowout win over Colgate.  He averaged 2.6 points per game and 1.7 assists while shooting 31 percent from the floor in his sophomore year at Syracuse.

None of these incoming players, or new facilities are guarantees for success for the Jaguars, but they certainly are some positive momentum that the Jaguars have not had in a few years.  They ended their season on a 2 point loss to Oral Roberts in the Summit League tournament, ending the season on a 2 point loss in a tournament makes players think Crap, If Only We Would Have Hit One More Three Earlier In The Game!  That sticks in their mind and makes them work harder in the off season, well hopefully.  The Jaguars are not a joke anymore, they are not what they were from 2012-2014.  Gardner is pulling them into the right direction, they might not get to the North Dakota State and South Dakota State level this upcoming season, but they have the tools to get their eventually.