The Online Reflector

The No. 25 University of Indianapolis men’s basketball team (18-7, 11-6 GLVC) defeated the University of Wisconsin-Parkside (8-17, 1-16) 84-57 on Feb. 18. The Greyhounds shot 53 percent including 10 out of 22 3-pointers.

Senior guard Adrian Moss tallied the first triple-double in school history with 18 points, 10 assists and 10 rebounds. Senior forward/center Wilbur O’Neal led all players with 20 points and seven rebounds.

The Greyhounds led 12-5 less than five minutes into the game when Moss found O’Neal and sophomore guard Leland Brown for back-to-back layups. The Rangers fought back and successfully tied the score at 21 before UIndy was ignited by a 15-4 run.

The Rangers trailed the Greyhounds by 11 at the half, but scored on six of the team’s first seven possessions. However, UIndy managed to stop the Rangers as sophomore guard Reece Cheatham scored a 3-pointer to start a seven-point run.

With 12:30 left to play, the Greyhounds led 52-37. The Rangers never got closer than 11 for the remainder of the game.

The Greyhounds defeated Lewis University 73-64 with a second half come-back on Feb. 16. The game fell on Senior Night and featured a white-out theme in the stands.

The win snapped a three-game losing streak between  the Greyhounds and the Flyers.

Moss led the Greyhounds in points with 18 for the night. He also amassed five rebounds and two steals. O’Neal contributed to the win with 11 points and a career-high three blocks.

Brown came off the bench and tied his career-high of seven rebounds and added 15 career-high points.

Cheatham rounded out the  double figure scorers with 11 points of his own.

Both teams struggled offensively as the defensive ends controlled the first half. The Flyers led 28-21 at the break.

Lewis built the lead to 32-24 less than three minutes into the second half.  Brown ended the UIndy drought with a 3-pointer and the team went on a 13-5 run.

With 3:30 left to go in the game, the Greyhounds took the lead 58-53 after Brown stole an outlet pass for an easy layup. The Flyers could not recover and UIndy won the game.

For the previous two weeks,  UIndy had a difficult schedule, playing all four of its games against top 25-ranked opponents.

Out of those four games, two were played on the road against No. 1 Bellarmine University (22-1, 14-1 GLVC) and No. 16 Northern Kentucky (19-4, 11-4 GLVC). The two games prior to those were played against No. 8 University of Southern Indiana (19-4, 11-4 GLVC) and No. 7 Kentucky Wesleyan College (19-4, 11-4 GLVC).

UIndy hoped for a second upset win over the Bellarmine Knights on Feb. 11, which would give UIndy its third win over a No. 1 ranked team this season. Yet, the Knights had other plans in mind for the Greyhounds and gave them their second straight loss, losing by a final score of 93-79.

Although all of UIndy’s five starters were able to post double digits in points, the Knights proved too much, shooting 56.6 percent, while the Greyhounds only shot 46 percent with four of the starters fouling out before the end of the game.

The team had little time to prepare for the rematch, having had played Northern Kentucky two days prior.

Sophomore guard Miles Mitchell said that although Bellarmine was an important game, especially since it was a return to his hometown area, the team always has taken each game on the schedule one at a time.

“Really, it’s just one game at a time,” he said.  “We can’t look ahead, and definitely can’t take them [Northern Kentucky] for granted, because they came in here [Nicoson Hall] and pushed us around.”

The Greyhounds went on to lose to Northern Kentucky on Feb. 9 for the second time this season by a final score of 77-61.

After only trailing by three at the half, UIndy came out and shot 26.5 percent and made only one out of ten 3-pointers.

Prior to playing on the road, the Greyhounds experienced a split on their home court. No. 8 Southern Indiana visited UIndy on Feb. 4.

The Greyhounds had previously beaten the Screaming Eagles on their home court and went on to defeat USI 65-59 in Nicoson Hall. For only the second time in the program’s history, the Greyhounds were able to finish 2-0 against the Screaming Eagles.

UIndy lost its first home game of the week on Feb. 2 against Kentucky Wesleyan by a final score of 84-67, shooting only 39 percent and 23.8 percent from behind the three-point line.

Head Coach Stan Gouard said that he was impressed with the win over Southern Indiana  but also believed they had a chance to win both games at home.

“At this point, any win is a good win. Of course beating a quality opponent like Southern Indiana is always great. I thought we had a chance to win against [Kentucky] Wesleyan, but we put ourselves in a bind by getting so far behind. But [we] came back and cut the game to three, and we didn’t finish the basketball game,” Gouard said. “It’s a good split for us. I’m happy with where we are as a team. We were able to go out there a couple of weeks ago and get a win at Southern Indiana and Kentucky Wesleyan, and came back here and split.”

Mitchell believed that getting a big win such as this was not only important to the players, but to Gouard as well.

“Beating Southern Indiana was a big deal for us. I know it means a lot to Coach G. [Gouard] because he played down there. So I know it was a big deal for him,” Mitchell said.  “I think it was the second time in school history, so that was also a big deal.”

O’Neal also explained how big of a win this was for the team. He said that being able to do everything the right way is what led to the victory over the USI

“It was a big win for us because they were ranked No. 8 in the country,” O’Neal said. “We had a mind set of just going out and playing hard, playing together as a team and not arguing with each other.”

The Greyhounds will go on the road  to face St. Joseph’s on Feb. 23.