Niko Medved
Drake has been a bright spot in an otherwise dismal college basketball season that has seen the men’s teams for Iowa, Iowa State and Northern Iowa combine to open 0-12 in conference play. The Bulldogs are 4-0 in the Missouri Valley for the first time since winning the title 10 years ago. First year coach Niko Medved does not feel the need to keep his team grounded heading into Wednesday night’s game at Valparaiso.
“This group of seniors and juniors they know what the other side feels like and they know what it feels like to go through the losing”, said Medved. “We don’t have to sell to these guys how hard it is to be successful in this league.”
UNI is 0-4 in the Valley after Sunday’s 56-50 loss to Loyola. It was the Panther’s sixth straight loss but coach Ben Jacobson felt his team made progress.
“We have got to get some things going a little bit better offensively”, said Jacobson. “We did some things better and executed a little bit better.”
Iowa is 0-5 in the Big Ten after Sunday night’s 91-73 loss at Maryland and Iowa State takes an 0-3 Big 12 record on the road to 12th ranked Kansas Tuesday night.