UNI’s mascot.
After escaping against Illinois State in the first meeting it was no contest last night in Cedar Falls. The 13th ranked UNI Panthers drained a season high 12 three pointers in an 83-64 rout of the Redbirds.
“We looked hard at our turnovers from the first game and our rebounding from the first game and spend quite a bit of time watching that working on that, knowing that was going to have to be better,” UNI coach Ben Jacobson says.
Seth Tuttle led the Panthers with 23 points on nine of 12 shooting. “Obviously he’s a really good player and he’s work hard to get where he is at, but I’ll tell you what makes it go…he’s unselfish. That’s why we see him play the way he does, because he is unselfish. That really makes things work for us,” Jacobson says.
The Panthers scored 50 points in the opening half and Tuttle says they did not mind the fast pace. “We knew this team likes to run. They have some really quick guards and some mobile bigs…That was one of our keys to the game, stopping them in transition and not giving them anything easy,” Tuttle says.
The Panthers connected on 54 percent from the field enroute to their 12th straight victory. “That’s a really good basketball team and for us to come in here and do what we did tonight, it’s felt pretty good. And you can feel as a team the momentum just keep building,” Tuttle says. “And that’s one thing that we talk about all the time — just keep building — building on the game before and try to get better.”
UNI improves to 12-1 in the Valley and 23-2 overall.
(Story and photo by Elwin Huffman KOEL Oelwein)