Role players rotating for undefeated UNI

CEDAR FALLS - Headed into any basketball season, depth is often a talking point for teams across the country - either they have it or they don't.

For the Northern Iowa men's basketball team, it was pretty obvious they had it, almost to the point where Coach Ben Jacobson was going to have a hard time finding room for everyone in the rotation. Through nine games, he's found a way to do it, as the No. 23 Panthers are 9-0 and have had nearly every rotation player step up in a big way at some point.

Apart from the consistency of Seth Tuttle and Wes Washpun - his rough shooting night against Denver notwithstanding - perhaps the most consistent contributor off the bench has been Paul Jesperson.

'I like his experience,” Jacobson said at Monday's media luncheon. 'He's got a couple things. His size allows him to do some things defensively in the area of rebounding. He's been very active in the offensive boards, and those plays came up very big against Stephen F. Austin.

'Then we saw him on Saturday (against George Mason) go to the free throw line and make all six of those free throws and act like there wasn't anybody in the gym. That part of his makeup - he's got that confidence you want in guys late in games. He is playing well, no question.”

Jacobson and the players have talked at length about contributions away from the ball and in areas other than scoring, but that's obviously one of the biggest areas of focus for any team.

Jesperson is averaging just 6.6 points per game, but is shooting 46.2 percent from the field and 41.4 percent from 3-point range.

His numbers each game look like a roller coaster, going for nine, 13 and 11 points against Stephen F. Austin, Morgan State and North Florida. In his next three games, he combined for four total points against Virginia Tech, Northwestern and Richmond. But in the last two, against George Mason and Denver, he had 12 and 10, respectively.

Results like that - on paper alone - could look like an inconsistent player. But Jacobson and the players see it very differently. Because in the games where he wasn't scoring, another player was picking up that slack to be the second or third consistent scorer aside from Tuttle and Washpun. Against Virginia Tech, it was Matt Bohannon with 13. Against Northwestern, it was Nate Buss with 11.

No one really knows who's going to be the guy to fill that secondary scoring role until they get on the floor. Jesperson said they all prepare like it's going to be them and let the rest take care of itself. Knowing so many different guys are capable of it gives them the confidence to know the opposition might not be able to stop it.

'Basically, other teams have a difficult time scouting us. They can't count for eight different players at one time, so when they focus on others, one of us has a chance to step up,” Jesperson said. 'I just try to be as assertive and aggressive as I can every day.”

And with the focus being so much on defense and rebounding early in the season, it's definitely believable when Jacobson and the players say they don't really care who's scoring - as long as someone is.

They had their best outing of the season, by far, against Denver on Wednesday, shooting an MVC record 88.2 percent in the first half (15 of 17 from the field) and 70 percent in the game. It was as balanced as they've been in scoring this season as well. Tuttle had 12, Deon Mitchell 11, Nate Buss 11 and Jesperson with the aforementioned 10.

That's not something the Panthers want to change, either, with the two biggest tests of the non-conference season straight ahead, starting on Saturday at 6 p.m. at VCU.

'That's what makes our team really hard, you know. Some nights some guys won't shoot good or won't be playing well and we'll fill them in with another guy,” Tuttle said on Monday. 'We have a lot of guys that can have a night where they score and a night where they don't score, but we understand as long as we're playing together as a team, putting points on the board and running good offense and we're working our tails off on defense, it doesn't really matter who scores as long as at the end of the night we get the win.”

l Comments: (319) 368-8884; jeremiah.davis@thegazette.com