UNI survives poor shooting night, beats Southern Illinois 49-41

CEDAR FALLS - The shooting was somehow colder than the weather Wednesday night.

Northern Iowa and Southern Illinois' men's basketball teams shot a combined 34-for-103 from the field and a combined 5-for-37 from deep. However, thankfully for the home fans in attendance, they got to see their Panthers get back to .500 and improve to 7-6 in the Missouri Valley Conference with a 49-41 win.

As has been the case of late for UNI, it was given a boost from its frontcourt. Juniors Bennett Koch and Klint Carlson scored 16 of their team's 22 first-half points. Carlson - helped by double-teams - guarded standout Saluki forward Sean O'Brien and held him to eight points.

'Their offense kind of runs through (O'Brien),” Carlson said. 'To be able to hold him to just eight points is big for our defense. That was a total team effort with the double-teams and the rotations.”

Head coach Ben Jacobson acknowledged the ugliness of the game, but also gave praise to the defensive effort his team put forth, specifically their shutting down of Saluki standouts O'Brien and Mike Rodriguez, who combined to score 15, 10 points short of their combined average.

'I think it just happened to be one of those games where two teams know each other well,” Jacobson said. 'We knew that we had to take Rodriguez away with the ball screen and we had to try to do what we could with O'Brien. I just thought it was one of those games.”

Freshman point guard Juwan McCloud entered Wednesday's game against SIU with back-to-back double-digit scoring efforts to his credit. The freshman scored only three points in the win, but according to his coach, he was key in stopping Rodriguez.

'Juwan has come a long ways. He's long enough and he's got good enough feet where he's able to stay in front of guys,” Jacobson said. 'I thought he did a good job and that's a hard thing to ask of a freshman against (Rodriguez) - he's having a terrific senior year.”

Even with the Panthers getting their record back to .500 (12-12, 7-6), and having a real opportunity to head to the Missouri Valley Conference tournament as the No. 3 seed, Jacobson reiterated that his staff's message will not change.

'I don't ever talk about (our record) with the team. In fact I tell the team, your record doesn't have anything to do with how you're going to practice today. It doesn't have anything to do with how you're going to play on game night,” Jacobson said. 'I also don't tell the guys what they can talk about and what they can't talk about. And having been a player, and been in their shoes I'm certain they look at our record and I'm certain that they wake up tomorrow and feel better about seeing that we're back to .500.”

The Panthers travel to Missouri State on Saturday. Game time is set for 3 p.m.