UNI men back at it after holidays

CEDAR FALLS - The Northern Iowa men's basketball team wasted no time getting back to practice following the holidays.

In fact, the 23rd-ranked Panthers (10-1) were back in the gym in the evening on Christmas Day. It had been a few days, but Coach Ben Jacobson liked what he saw from the group. With one more non-conference game left, there was no time to waste.

'I think we had just enough time - four and half days - where the guys felt like they got away from each other, away from me and away from practice,” Jacobson said. 'When they got back Christmas night, everybody seemed really good.”

Jacobson said he gave the guys a little more time than in years past as a little pre-emptive strike against burnout that can develop over the course of a long season.

Each year is different in that regard, and he and his staff chose not to schedule a game on the Monday following the Dec. 20 win against Iowa to give the players as much time as possible around the winter holidays. Next year, for example, the team will be in Hawaii at the Diamond Head Classic during Christmastime.

Once they did get back to practice, though, Jacobson said it didn't take long for the players to shed the holiday hangover and get back to where they were before the break.

'Coming off the holidays and some time away - and I'm glad it was four and a half days, but with my coaching hat on, I had some concerns because four and a half days is a long time in terms of being away from practice,” Jacobson said. 'It didn't take nearly as long as I thought. We got right into some skill work, then right to some defensive drills and guys picked up in a lot of ways where we left off prior to the game against Iowa.”

He was more than happy to see that happen, too.

UNI hosts South Dakota State (a Valley member in football, but not basketball) Sunday at 2 p.m. in the McLeod Center, and Jacobson said there's plenty to prepare for. Experienced upperclassmen are leading the way for the Jackrabbits, with senior Cody Larson averaging 13.5 points and 7.1 rebounds - and drawing Seth Tuttle comparisons from Jacobson - and junior Deondre Parks averaging 13.6 points and 4.2 rebounds. But there's youth helping off the bench, too, most notably in freshman Reed Tellinghuisen, who's averaging 8.2 points and 2.8 rebounds.

And even as good as the defense has been, like any coach, Jacobson wants to see it get better, especially in this final tuneup before conference games commence.

'Our defense has been very good, but I'd like to see our defense become even a little bit stingier - see if we can't take some things away from South Dakota State that they want to get with their first action and force them to do some things later into the shot clock,” Jacobson said. 'We need to take another step forward with our defense.”

Maybe more importantly, though, is what will happen on the glass.

The time off may have been necessary mentally and for morale, but with improvements Jacobson wants to see in rebounding, he'd probably have rather not taken a single day off.

'We've been out-rebounded just three times in 11 games,” Jacobson said. 'So it's improved from last year, but when we go back and watch the tape, we're still missing some blockouts, we're still getting beat on some individual battles in terms of rebounding. And we can get better effort from some guys in terms of offensive rebounding.

'So there is room in all three of those areas for our rebounding to be better. For us to take another step forward, that's something that has to happen.”

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