UNI’s mascot.
No matter what happens the remainder of the season the Missouri Valley Conference should be getting at least two teams into the NCAA Tournament. UNI and Wichita State are on pace for a showdown on the final day of the regular season to decided the Valley title.
The Panthers are ranked 11th and the Shockers are 13th. “Each day I take a look at things on whichever site, so I look at it, and I check it out. But, I haven’t given it much thought. We’ve both had great years and if that continues, I don’t think there is any question that we’ll both be in the NCAA tournament,” UNI coach Ben Jacobson says.
The Panthers take a 13 game winning streak into Wednesday night’s game at Loyola of Chicago and Jacobson says a goal at this time of the season is to keep practice fresh. He says they will continue stressing the fundamentals of defense and blocking out, but he says he mixes up the drills to try and keep things fresh for the team.
Jacobson says 95 percent of the stuff they do is the same as they just want to find a little different way to accomplish things between games.