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UIC Athletics

thevalley
73
UIC UIC 11-18,4-14 MVC
88
Winner Indiana St. INS 24-5,15-3 MVC
UIC UIC
11-18,4-14 MVC
73
Final
88
Indiana St. INS
24-5,15-3 MVC
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 F
UIC UIC 29 44 73
Indiana St. INS 45 43 88

Game Recap: Men's Basketball |

Men’s Basketball Falls in Gritty Battle at Indiana State, 88-73

Flames return home Wednesday for Senior Night matchup against Drake

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (Feb. 24, 2024) – Senior guard Isaiah Rivera (Geneseo, Ill./Geneseo/Colorado State) led five UIC players in double figures with a team-high 16 points, but the Flames were unable to complete a gritty second-half comeback, dropping an 88-73 decision to Missouri Valley Conference leader Indiana State on Saturday night at the Hulman Center in Terre Haute, Ind.
 
Senior guard Toby Okani (Orange, N.J./Cushing Academy (Mass.)) scored 15 points while graduate student guard Marquise Kennedy (Chicago, Ill./Brother Rice/Loyola) had his best offensive game in a UIC uniform with 12 points and tied his career high with four steals. Redshirt sophomore forward Jaden Brownell (Sandy, Utah/Alta) contributed 11 points and a team-high six rebounds, and sophomore guard CJ Jones (East St. Louis, Ill./East St. Louis) added 10 points and a team-best four assists despite missing large portions of the game with foul trouble before eventually fouling out.
 
UIC (11-18, 4-14 MVC) connected on 12-of-29 three-pointers (.414) in the game, with Rivera going 4-of-7 and Okani 3-of-5. The Flames also made 9-of-10 foul shots and clawed back from a 22-point second-half deficit to get within nine points with five minutes to play before Indiana State held UIC at bay down the stretch.
 
COACH'S COMMENTS
"We need to play better in the first half, not dig ourselves a hole and put ourselves in a position where we have to play really well and get a little lucky in the second half to come back and win the game," said head coach Luke Yaklich. "We played really well and hard (in the second half) to get back into the game and got it to nine (points). We just didn't close out the game when we got it to nine — had a couple misses and then three turnovers soured things at the end after we had built some momentum to get back into the game. As was true of other games, we have a really good competitive character in our locker room, the kids really want to win and we're learning how to win. The competitive resolve our guys had in the second half was what you need to play 40 minutes with to win at a high level against a high-level team in a high-level environment. Kudos to our guys in the second half, but we've got to have that juice and sustain and execute in the first half so we're not down 16 (at halftime)."
 
FIRST HALF
  • Jones opened the scoring with a floater in the lane at the 18:49 mark.
  • A second basket by Jones tied the score at 4-4 a minute later.
  • Rivera got on the scoreboard for the first time at 14:47 with a stepback three-pointer to bring UIC within 10-7 heading into the first media timeout.
  • Jones twice brought the Flames back within a point, the latter at 12-11 on a short runner off the glass with 13:23 to play.
  • Less than a minute later (12:28), Jones picked up his second foul and had to go to the bench.
  • Indiana State then scored 10 of the next 11 points to move in front 22-12 (10:36).
  • Kennedy converted a tough three-point play at the 8:51 juncture to make it 22-15, ISU.
  • The Sycamores then added another six consecutive points before three-pointers by Okani and junior forward Filip Skobalj (Belgrade, Serbia/Don Bosco-Schule Rostock) trimmed the margin to 30-21 with 5:57 to go in the half.
  • Junior guard Yusef Salih (Gainesville, Va./Highland School/Idaho) was fouled on a three-point attempt and made all three foul shots (ISU 40-26, 2:13).
  • Okani added another three-pointer at the 1:26 mark, the final points of the half for UIC.
  • Jones led the Flames with eight points and three assists in the first half, while Okani added six points and two blocks.
 
SECOND HALF
  • Indiana State opened the second half on an 8-2 run to take its largest lead of the night (53-31, 17:02), a spread the Sycamores would match at the 11:14 mark (69-47).
  • From there, UIC began to methodically chip into the lead, starting with an 11-2 run over the next 2:41. Brownell scored seven of his 11 points in that spurt.
  • Rivera capped the run with a driving layup in transition and the Flames drew within 71-58 with 8:33 to play.
  • ISU scored the next five points to briefly stretch the margin back to 18 points.
  • UIC then made another gritty charge with a 9-0 run in a span of 1:36, bookended by transition layups from Kennedy, the latter of which made it 76-67 with 5:15 to go.
  • Kennedy then knocked down a three-pointer from the right wing and it was 83-73, ISU with 2:51 remaining, but the Flames couldn't quite get any closer.
 
NOTES
  • For the second consecutive game, UIC turned in a balanced offensive performance with five players scoring in double figures. Prior to this past Wednesday's win over Evansville, the Flames last had five double-digit scorers on Nov. 25 against George Washington in the semifinals of the Baha Mar Hoops Nassau Championship in the Bahamas.
  • UIC made 12 three-pointers on Saturday, tying their highest total in conference play this season (the Flames also had 12 treys at Murray State on Jan. 2).
  • Saturday marked the 12th time this year UIC made 10 or more three-pointers in a game and the 18th time the Flames shot better than 35 percent from beyond the arc.
  • UIC shot 90 percent from the foul line for the fourth time this season and first since Feb. 3, when it went 25-of-27 (.926) against Southern Illinois.
  • The Flames had exactly nine steals for the fourth consecutive game.
  • Rivera scored in double figures for the 21st time this season (40th of his career) and surpassed the 900-point mark for his career (currently 903).
  • Kennedy posted his third double-figure scoring game this season, having scored 10 points in a win at his former school, Loyola (Nov. 14), and at Valparaiso (Jan. 20).
  • Kennedy's four steals are the most he has had since coming to UIC and tied his overall career high he set on three prior occasions while at Loyola (the last on Feb. 14, 2023, at UMass).
  • Kennedy dished out his 200th career assist on Saturday.
  • Okani tied his career highs with three made three-pointers and five three-point attempts. He made three triples on Dec. 12 against Green Bay, and attempted five on Jan. 21, 2023, vs. Northern Iowa, and last Wednesday vs. Evansville. Okani is the sixth different UIC player to make at least 25 three-pointers this season.
  • Okani had two blocks on Saturday and has a career-high 58 swats this year, grabbing sole possession of ninth place on the UIC single-season list (Derrick Johnson had 56 blocks in 1987-88). Okani also has 97 blocks in less than two full seasons at UIC.
  • Okani grabbed his 600th career rebound on Saturday.
  • Brownell scored in double figures for the eighth time this season (he had one all of last year) and led the Flames in rebounding for the second consecutive game.
 
UP NEXT
UIC will close out its regular-season home schedule at 7 p.m. (CT) Wednesday when it plays host to Drake in a Missouri Valley Conference contest on Senior Night at Credit Union 1 Arena. ESPN+ will broadcast the game live, while the Flames Network radio feed can be heard live and free of charge at UICFlames.com.
 
Tickets for Wednesday's matchup, and all remaining UIC basketball home games, can be purchased online through Ticketmaster and UICFlames.com/Tickets, as well as through the UIC Athletics Ticket Office (312-413-UIC1) or by visiting the Credit Union 1 Arena box office on game day.
 
For more information, fans are encouraged to visit UICFlames.com, or follow the Flames on social media through X (@UIC_MBB and @UICFlames) and Instagram (@uic_mbb and @uicflames).
 
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