CHICAGO – After a hard-fought narrow loss at power-conference foe Oregon State last Friday, UIC returns home to Credit Union 1 Arena on Tuesday for a 7 p.m. (CT) matchup against Chicagoland foe St. Francis. ESPN+ will broadcast the game live with Sam Brief on the play-by-play and Joey Lane adding expert commentary. Fans can also listen to Tuesday's game free of charge worldwide on the Flames Network at UICFlames.com. The Voice of the Flames, Jonathan Hood, is now in his 14th season calling the play-by-play, joined by UIC legend and Hall of Famer Kenny Williams on color analysis.

Tuesday will mark UIC's Homecoming game (featuring a pregame tailgate in Lot 1 across from Credit Union 1 Arena from 3:30-6:30 p.m), as well as Academic Achievement Night and Hoops for Heroes (honoring military veterans and first responders for their service to our country and our community). At halftime, UIC will also celebrate its women's soccer team, which won the program's first MVC title on Sunday and has advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time ever.

• With their campuses separated by less than 50 miles, UIC and St. Francis (located in Joliet) will be meeting officially for the 13th time in their series history, not counting games considered exhibitions by UIC.
• The series is tied 6-6, with UIC having won the past four matchups between the schools, including the only two since the Flames' elevation to the NCAA Division I level in 1981-82.
• UIC is also 5-3 all-time against St. Francis when playing in Chicago and has won the past three times the teams have met in the Windy City.
• The two sides met in last year's season opener for UIC on Nov. 4, 2024, at Credit Union 1 Arena, with the Flames posting a 91-43 victory in head coach Rob Ehsan's debut with Chicago's College Team.
• Current junior guard Ahmad Henderson II had 14 points and five assists in last year's win over St. Francis, a matchup that saw UIC shoot .576 from the field (.478 from three-point range) and come up with 14 steals.

• A member of the NAIA and the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference (CCAC), St. Francis is beginning its 54th season of basketball in 2025-26.
• The Fighting Saints are coming off a 25-6 campaign a year ago, earning a share of the CCAC regular-season title and capturing the CCAC Tournament championship to punch their ticket to the NAIA National Tournament. St. Francis then took Pikeville (Ky.) to overtime in the opening round of the NAIA tournament before being eliminated, 86-84.
• St. Francis has played a pair of exhibition games to start this season. The Fighting Saints dropped a 93-44 contest at Loyola on Oct. 28, and fell at St. Edward's (Texas) by a 108-70 score on Nov. 6. Senior guard Joffrey Nunnally averaged 20.5 points in those two losses.
• Head coach Ryan Marks is beginning his 13th season at St. Francis and his 25th overall. He has a 203-151 (.574) record with the Fighting Saints and a career record of 390-323 (.547). Marks is 0-2 all-time against UIC.

NOTING THE FLAMES

• St. Francis is the first of three Chicagoland opponents on the UIC schedule this season. The Flames will travel to Chicago State on Saturday and return home to square off with Illinois Tech on Dec. 29.
• Prior to last season, UIC and St. Francis had met just once since the late 1970s. On Dec. 21, 2018, the Flames posted a 76-55 win over the Fighting Saints at Credit Union 1 Arena, led by a game-high 20 points from Godwin Boahen.
• During UIC's last outing this past Friday (Nov. 7), junior guard Ahmad Henderson II scored 18 points and swiped a career-high seven steals, while redshirt freshman forward Jayce Nathaniel turned in the finest performance of his college career with 16 points and a team-high seven rebounds, but Oregon State managed to hit enough foul shots in the closing seconds and Henderson's game-tying three-pointer at the buzzer just missed as the Beavers edged the Flames, 76-73 at Gill Coliseum in Corvallis, Ore.
• Freshman guard Andy Johnson added 15 points, including a pair of late three-pointers, the second with 15 seconds left that brought UIC within a point and set up the final act in a back-and-forth drama in the Flames' road opener and a rare trip to the Pacific Northwest. Graduate student guard Sam Silverstein rounded out a quartet of Flames in double figures with 10 points.
• After some early cold shooting, UIC (1-1) found itself trailing, 20-4, but the Flames responded in impressive fashion with a 17-0 run in just over three minutes, capped by another Johnson trey that put the visitors in front, 21-20 at the 9:07 mark.
• From there, it was a single-digit margin the rest of the evening, with the Beavers leading by nine early in the second half and UIC counterpunching to take a five-point lead just past the middle of the period. It would stay a two-possession game on either side of the ledger all the way to the finish line in an engrossing early-season nonconference battle.
• UIC was seeking its first win over Oregon State since 2009, also the last time the Flames defeated a Pac-12 Conference school (the Beavers are affiliate members of the West Coast Conference this season). OSU won 20 games last season and earned a berth in the inaugural College Basketball Crown tournament in Las Vegas.
• UIC's last three matchups with power-conference schools have all been road losses decided by 11 points or fewer — 69-58 at Cincinnati in 2023, 83-74 at Northwestern last year, and Friday's 76-73 margin at Oregon State.
• This was the Flames' closest call against a power conference opponent since an 80-75 win at BIG EAST member DePaul on Dec. 14, 2016.
• UIC's 13 steals were the most they have recorded against a Division I opponent since Nov. 16, 2016, when it also had 13 thefts in an 86-78 win over UTSA at Credit Union 1 Arena.
• Henderson's career-high seven steals were the most by a UIC player since Jan. 9, 2013, when Daniel Barnes had eight steals in a 75-70 home loss to Valparaiso. It also tied for the fifth-most thefts by a Missouri Valley Conference player in the past 30 seasons.
• With its Nov. 3 victory over Detroit Mercy, UIC picked up its second consecutive season-opening win, the first time the Flames have started with a victory in back-to-back seasons since 2019-20 and 2020-21. UIC is 39-40 (.494) all-time in season openers, including a 24-21 (.533) mark since moving to NCAA Division I in 1981-82.
• Rob Ehsan is the first UIC head coach in 40 years to win his first two season openers as the Flames' skipper (the last to do so was Willie Little in 1983-84 and 1984-85).

UP NEXT: CHICAGO STATE
Following Tuesday's game, UIC will embark on its shortest road trip of the season, making the 14-mile trek south to Chicago State on Saturday for the inaugural Chicago Crosstown Challenge (aka "The Battle of the Dan Ryan"). Tipoff time from the Jones Convocation Center is set for 1 p.m. (CT), as the Flames make their first visit to the CSU campus for a men's basketball game since 1999.