UNI out to prove why power-5 teams rarely visit mid-majors against UNC

CEDAR FALLS — Saturday's Northern Iowa vs North Carolina men's basketball game is a big deal.

Not just for the fact that the No. 1 Tar Heels are the first top-ranked team to visit a Missouri Valley Conference team since 1979. Also not for the fact that Linn-Mar grad Marcus Paige is making his return to Iowa — he won't play, despite speculation to the contrary, while still recovering from a broken bone in his right hand.

Saturday's game at McLeod Center is big precisely because it's at McLeod Center. The last power-5 conference team to make the trip to Cedar Falls was Iowa, Dec. 6, 2011, and the Hawkeyes left with an 80-60 loss. It's a game that hasn't happened in a while, and likely won't happen again for a long, long time.

'Major' programs don't go to 'mid-major' arenas anymore. The Panthers are out to prove precisely why against the Tar Heels, and are even disappointed their visitors won't be at full strength.

'You'll have to go a little south and west to get those answers (for why),' said UNI guard Matt Bohannon. 'For being the type of team we are, teams don't like to play us in the non-conference season because they know how tough and well-disciplined we are. We'll play anybody, anywhere. That's our mind-set to be a special team.'

Reasons are varied from program to program for specifically why teams from the ACC, SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 won't go to mid-majors in non-conference. Ultimately it comes down to the overarching point that mid-majors aren't that far behind talent-wise. They have very good (and in a few cases great) coaching. They also have some pretty great environments.

Paige said as much before practice Friday.

'The most important thing is (UNI) has a good team. It's not important what the venue is like if the team's not good,' Paige said. 'The team is good, they're well-coached. But also, it's a cool venue. We play in a 21,000-fan stadium that's huge and almost endless. Then to come in a smaller venue where the fans are right on top of you, it's a different setting.'

That's clearly evident within this state, where the Hawkeyes and Cyclones don't travel to Cedar Falls anymore — instead playing on a neutral court in Des Moines, where the Panthers have taken one (Iowa State) to overtime and beaten another (Iowa) in two of the three years the Big Four Classic has existed.

The last time UNI played both Iowa and Iowa State in the same season, 2011-12, the Panthers beat both — the aforementioned Iowa game, as well as a 69-62 win at Hilton Coliseum a week before. (Not coincidentally, Iowa State lost at Drake, 74-65, that season — the lone with Royce White in Ames — in the Cyclones' last trip to the Bulldogs' home floor.)

Fear is often the culprit when analysts, fans and media want to simplify the reasoning.

The thing is, though, even with that implication, the Tar Heels are No. 1 for a reason. They aren't scared.

If the Panthers are going to be successful against their top-ranked foes, they'll need to control what type of game is played. UNI has gone small — five guards on the floor a few times — in both games so far this season, and given Brice Johnson and Kennedy Meeks are both 6-foot-10, keeping them off the floor would be ideal.

UNC Coach Roy Williams said Friday his team is no stranger to the matchup issues UNI brings.

'We faced that all three games we've played so far — they've had an advantage at the 3-point line, we've had an advantage inside,' Williams said. 'We've got to make (our) advantage a more important factor in the game than their ability to take us from the 3-point line or drive us to the basket. It's hard for our big guys to guard people on the open floor, but that's what we've been facing.'

So yes, Saturday's game is big. The Tar Heels won't take the Panthers lightly, and the Panthers don't believe this is a David vs. Goliath scenario.

They proved their mettle on the biggest stages last season, and will use that experience this year. Clearly this isn't the end-all of their season, but even Bohannon admitted, 'how many times do you have the No. 1 team in the country coming to your place? It's a very important game and we'll certainly learn a ton and see how tough we are.'

UNI will draw on last year's experiences, work through what they always work through in preparation, and see what they can do about confirming the power-5 conferences' reasons to stay as far away from mid-major venues as possible.

'(Last year) helps the players, certainly. We've played against teams that have been ranked inside the top 10, top 20, and a handful of guys on our team have been in those games,' said UNI Coach Ben Jacobson. 'You have to be able to focus on two or three things at each end of the floor and try to make them a little bit harder. We've got to get our transition defense right, and we've got to get that defense set. Offensively, we've got to play the way that fits our team best.

'Some of that feeds into the way Carolina wants to play, but we're going to play the way we play. We'll move the ball in transition and look for the same shots we did against Stephen F. Austin. We've just got to do a great job and see if we can't make things hard on North Carolina.'

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