Northern Iowa stumbles in first game of Hawaii tournament

Three days after beating a top-five team for the second time this season, Northern Iowa couldn't play its way to a date with another highly-ranked opponent.

The Panthers had as many turnovers as made field goals (19) and fell to host Hawaii in the first round of the Diamond Head Classic 68-52 Tuesday night - early Wednesday morning Iowa time - at the Stan Sherriff Center in Honolulu.

'Unfortunately we just made too many mistakes,” UNI coach Ben Jacobson said on the Panther Sports Radio Network postgame show. 'It wasn't a game we couldn't have success in. We miss a couple blockouts, turn it over a couple times when you don't need to and those points add up.”

A win would have matched UNI up with No. 2 Oklahoma in the semifinals, but instead the Panthers will take on Washington State in the consolation bracket at 10:30 p.m. central time Wednesday night (ESPNU).

UNI (7-4) led 23-22 with 8:00 to play in the first half before the Rainbow Warriors (8-1) closed on a 12-3 run, never trailing again.

Northern Iowa got as close as four at 41-37 with 16:04 left. It was 56-47 with 7:45 to go when an 11-0 Hawaii run in the next 3 1/2 minutes halted any hope of a comeback.

Jerey Morgan led UNI with 13 points. Matt Bohannon recorded 11 points, including a pair of 3-pointers that gave him the new school record for career 3-point makes (204). Wes Washpun was also in double figures with 10, adding five assists and five boards before fouling out.

Hawaii's Aaron Valdes led four Rainbow Warriors in double figures with 15. Hawaii only shot 43.1 percent to UNI's 44.2 percent, but got 15 more attempts thanks to a 19-11 advantage in turnovers and nine offensive rebounds to the Panthers' two.

'They do some things to create some of those turnovers, but my guess is when we look at the 12 of them that Wes and Wyatt had, all but two or three of them we could have avoided,” Jacobson said.