CHICAGO -- UIC will make its shortest road trip of the 2015-16 season Wednesday night when the Flames head about four miles north to Lincoln Park, where they will face the DePaul Blue Demons in another installment of their crosstown rivalry.
The game wraps up a brief two-game road trip for UIC (4-5), but it begins a stretch of seven consecutive games in Chicago. Following Wednesday's meeting with DePaul (5-3), the Flames will open a season-long six-game homestand at the UIC Pavilion on Saturday, Dec. 17 against another in-city foe, Loyola Chicago. UIC also hosts Northern Arizona (Dec. 20) and Roosevelt (Dec. 22) in nonconference action before welcoming Valparaiso (Dec. 30), Detroit Mercy (Jan. 6) and Oakland (Jan. 8) to begin Horizon League play.
It has been well documented that the Flames are one of the nation's least experienced squads, even nine games into the season. As of Dec. 13, only the Mississippi State Bulldogs of the Southeastern Conference have played with less experience this season. UIC's roster, which boasts nine underclassmen, averages 0.73 years of collegiate experience according to
KenPom.com. The Flames have used nine different players in the starting lineup and three different combinations through the first nine games. Junior
Tai Odiase, sophomore
Dikembe Dixson and freshman
Tarkus Ferguson have started all nine contests, while newcomers
Marcus Ottey and
K.J. Santos have made six starts apiece. Eight UIC players are averaging at least 15 minutes per game, while five are playing 22 minutes or more per contest.
While the Flames might have one of the least experienced rosters in the NCAA, they are the best when it comes to getting to the free throw line.
KenPom.com also charts a team's ability to get to the charity stripe, or its free throw rate. UIC's number, 53.1 leads the nation, and the team is averaging 22.2 points per game with the clocked stopped.
The squad's ability to draw fouls has also led to an impressive offensive outburst this season. After averaging just over 68 points per game in the first season under head coach
Steve McClain (2015-16), the Flames are posting an average of 81.3 points per tilt in year two. UIC currently ranks second in the Horizon League in both points per game and field goal percentage (46.8). The team has lit up the scoreboard for at least 80 points in six of nine games thus far after reaching that mark only four times in 30 games a year ago.
Two of DePaul's five wins this season have come at its on-campus venue, McGrath-Phillips Arena, where Wednesday's contest will be decided. The Blue Demons knocked off Robert Morris in the season opener, 78-72, before handling Drake, 77-75, on Nov. 30.
Wednesday's game will be televised on FS1 with Jeff Levering and former Chicago Bull Dickey Simpkins handling play-by-play and analyst duties, respectively. UIC's talented broadcasting trio of Jonathan Hood, Sam Panayotovich and Chris Bleck will also provide the hometown audio call right here on UICFlames.com.
More notes, statistics and information about Saturday's game can be found in the UIC Game Notes PDF linked above.
