Panthers pushing to reach a new level

NORTH LIBERTY -- What's the next step?

"Internally, we're still trying to keep that one-day-at-a-time mentality," said Jacqui Kalin, one of 13 University of Northern Iowa women's basketball players on Game Time League rosters this summer.

But Kalin dared to look ahead to next season:

"From an outside perspective, what our program needs next -- and what our league needs -- is to win a game in the NCAA tournament."

The Panthers came tantalizingly close last year, giving Big Ten regular-season champion Michigan State all it wanted before falling short in a first-round game at Wichita, Kan.

That ended a 19-game win streak for UNI, which finished the season at 27-6 and sweeping the Missouri Valley Conference regular-season and tournament titles.

"We're not satisfied," Kalin said. "But we're happy about how far we've come, and we're excited about next year."

Why not? UNI will return four of its top five scorers -- Kalin (15.3 points per game), Katelin Oney (9.7), KK Armstrong (8.8) and Rachel Madrigal (7.8) for 2011-12.

Oney and Armstrong are former Cedar Rapids Washington standouts. Madrigal is from Decorah, Kalin from Sioux City.

All are seniors.

"As a senior, we have to teach the game to the younger girls," said Armstrong, who spent much of Wednesday's game in hand-to-hand combat at the point with UNI freshman Sharnae Lamar. "We need to teach them to play the way (Coach) Tanya (Warren) wants us to play ... what it takes to be a Division-I player."

GTL rosters are dominated by Panthers and Iowa Hawkeyes. The summer league takes away a little of the fear factor of competing against players from a major conference.

"I think it's important for the younger players," Kalin said. "It's definitely an opportunity to play in a major-college setting."

The Game Time League continues for four more weeks. Then practice starts in about three months.

Northern Iowa surely will be the preseason favorite in the MVC and should be in or near the Associated Press preseason top 25.

"We just want to keep moving forward," Armstrong said.