UNI falls flat in lopsided men’s basketball loss to Murray State

CEDAR FALLS — The worst half of Northern Iowa’s men’s basketball season became the worst home loss of Coach Ben Jacobson’s 18-year tenure.

Murray State routed the Panthers at McLeod Center Saturday afternoon, 71-43, in a Missouri Valley Conference game.

UNI’s woes began shortly after the midway point of the first half when Racers guard Rob Perry hit a 3 and jump shot — five of 13 first-half points the senior guard scored — to spark a 10-0 run.

Trey Campbell provided brief hope of stalling Murray State’s outburst, hitting a corner 3 to trim the lead to four with 5:53 remaining, but it became UNI’s final field goal of the half as its offense never found any rhythm.

The Racers (9-14, 6-6 MVC) offense found another gear, though, scoring 15 unanswered points after Campbell’s 3 and finishing the half on a 25-5 run to lead 35-18 at halftime.

“It’s a hard (game) in a number of ways,” Jacobson said. “We had a really good workout yesterday in so many ways. The physicality of the game shifted to their side. We just didn’t have much offense going and I don’t know if that impacted the physicality and the pace and the aggressiveness of what we were doing defensively.”

The Panthers’ (12-11, 6-6) struggles continued after the break with their deficit increasing to 25 points by the time the under-16 media timeout arrived. The Racers’ run from the first half reached 36-7 before a Tytan Anderson free throw with 16:06 remaining.

Looking for answers — or perhaps sending a message — Jacobson subbed out all five of his starters with 14:40 remaining and never put them back into the game.

“Just circumstances of the game,” Jacobson said of the five-for-five substitution. “We gave (the starters) that first five, six minutes to see if we could cut it from 17 (down). But, we didn’t cut it down.”

Going to the bench didn’t provide results, either. Murray State reached its largest lead of 31 the first of two times six minutes later when JaCobi Wood’s layup made it 61-30.

“They were just more physical than us (today),” junior forward Cole Henry said. “It sucks to feel that way — like you just got punked on your home court — and that’s what it kind of feels like. We’ve just got to bounce back from that.”

Perry led all scorers with 17 points and was joined in double figures by Wood and Quincy Anderson, who scored 14 and 12 points, respectively.

Ten of the 11 Panthers who played scored, but none finished in double figures. Landon Wolf finished with a team-high nine points while Bowen Born was held scoreless for just the third time in his career.

“We played our best after Christmas when we had a long runway. We had hard practices and we had them day after day after day,” Jacobson said. “You can’t go as long right now, but we need hard, competitive reps with what we’re doing at practice. We haven’t had enough of them in the last 10, 12 days and that’s my fault.”

UNI returns to action Wednesday at home against Missouri State (13-9, 5-6). Tipoff at McLeod Center is at 7 p.m. (ESPN+).