Box Score

RENSSELAER, Ind. –  On the final day of the regular season, the ninth-ranked UIndy men's basketball team (23-3, 15-3 GLVC) secured a share of the GLVC East Division title with a 109-102 win at Saint Joseph's Thursday night.  With a first-round bye in the upcoming GLVC Tournament secured, the Greyhounds shared the East title with Wisconsin-Parkside, as each finished the conference season with a 15-3 league mark.

"It's great sharing the East Division title," said head coach Stan Gouard.  "A lot of credit goes to our staff, all the players, from the mangers to the best guy on the basketball court, because it's a total team effort."
 
Senior Reece Cheatham provided the biggest of many offensive highlights for the Hounds by becoming just the 24th player in program history to surpass 1,200 career points.  Cheatham came into the night needing 15 points to reach the milestone and nearly reached 1,200 before the halftime buzzer.  The Indianapolis native compiled 14 first-half points before finishing a team-high 26.
 
Cheatham drained back-to-back 3-pointers early in the second half to surpass the mark.  In all, he connected on five shots from distance, moving into fifth on the school's all-time list with 166 career triples.
 
Sophomore Jordan Loyd had a special night as well, as the Atlanta, Ga., product came off the bench to notch a pair of career highs with 20 points and eight rebounds.  Two other Hounds finished in double figures, as junior Brennan McElroy compiled 18 points, seven boards and five steals and senior Jared Grady added 12 points.
 
Depsite the lofty point total, UIndy fell short of its sum in the first match-up between the in-state rivals; the Hounds hung 118 on the Pumas in Nicoson Hall Jan. 20, good for the highest total in a GLVC game this season.  The 10th-highest scoring team in Division II this season, UIndy has racked up six 100-point games of the year, its most since 1988-89.
 
After trailing by as much as 22 points early in the second half, the Pumas (2-24, 1-17) got to within six late in the ball game.  Junior Cameron Vines, the league's leading scorer, finished with a game-high 28 points.

Although Coach Gouard was not entirely pleased with how his team finished, the accomplishments of the entire regular season were not lost on teh sixth-year head man.

"I'm so proud of our guys," Gouard said.  "Although I'm disappointed tonight in how we played, the bottom line is we won.  We took care of business all year to get to this point, and our guys deserve a lot of credit for not just winning tonight but all season.  They've endured so many things as a group and everybody found a way to stay together and instill some trust amongst each other and here we are.  It's a great feeling to finally get this program to where I wanted it to be when I got here six years ago.
 
"We're excited to be where we are right now and we really want to get better going into the conference tournament next week."
 
By earning the No. 3 seed in the upcoming conference tournament, UIndy gets a well-deserved rest this weekend while the GLVC's four through 12 seeds duke it out Sunday in the conference tourney first round.  The four winners will join the top-four seeds in Evansville, Ind., for the GLVC quarterfinals Mar. 7.  UIndy's quarterfinal game will start at 9:30 p.m. ET.