Hlas column first draft: Panthers' offense gets crunched in crunch time

ST. LOUIS - After living so well with itsdefensive sword this season, Northern Iowa was felled by one.

Michigan State played lockdown defense in the second half Friday night in the Edward Jones Dome and locked UNI out of an Elite Eight berth in the NCAA tournament, 59-52.

The score didn't reflect the airtight game. But that wasn't the only thing that was tight. The Spartans held UNI without a basket for the game's final 10:22.

The Panthers stayed afloat with free throws, but their bottom seemed to fall out when Adam Koch missed a pair of those with 2:05 left and MSU up 53-51.

Koch had been 4-of-4 from the line before that, and 84.6 percent from there over the season, making the jolt feel even worse.

When Korie Lucious sank a tough fallaway jumper at the other end of the court with just two seconds left on the 35-second shot clock, the momentum was the Spartans' for keeps.

Five days was too long to give MSU Coach Tom Izzo to prepare to for a team No. 1 Kansas couldn't wrap its mind around last Saturday. Forty minutes, as it turned out, was too long to give his team to play. Twenty minutes too long, in fact.

At halftime, it was UNI 29-22. Then the team with the NCAA tourney pedigree took over.

There's a reason this gets progressively harder for mid-majors. With each win, the opponents get so big, so quick. They seem to do the leaps-and-bounds thing so easily.

So it ends here for the mid-major from the Cedar Valley. Maybe Butler will become this year's George Mason today. Maybe it won't, and the Final Four will again be a convention of four teams from power conferences.

But UNI did more than just win two games in this tournament before ceding the spotlight to college basketball's old money.

The Panthers did something that, frankly, no team from Iowa had done for a long, long time. They made NCAA tournament lore.

The win over UNLV last Thursday seemed fairly momentous for UNI's program at the time, but it was just a prelude. The victory they earned over Kansas two days later in Oklahoma City, and the way they attained it, transcended mere winning.

The Panthers instantly wrapped themselves around the hearts of the nation's sports fans. The name “Northern Iowa” was used with fondness in hotel elevators and grain elevators, martini bars and truck stops all over the nation.

I was in a suburban St. Louis restaurant Thursday night and overheard two locals still talking about that game as they watched the Butler-Syracuse game on television.

The 3-pointer little Ali Farokhmanesh made that effectively cut down top-ranked Kansas, and the Panthers leading for the entire final 39 minutes, formed a vivid reminder of why we like this stuff, the tournament in specific and sports in general.

We like sports best when people are at their best. And people are at their best when they charge forward when they're expected to be walled off, and when they accomplish what they do with joy on their faces instead of hardness in their hearts.

There's a distinct possibility the Panthers may never again get this far, or at least not for a long time.

If that's the case, Northern Iowa people will always have 2010 to hang onto. The percentage of mid-major programs that ever reach the Sweet 16 is relatively small. The percentage that lights up faces and causes jaws to drop in all 50 states is much smaller.

UNI, winner of 30 games, loser of just five, did that. It's not a small thing. But it sure is a fine one.

Oh, to have those last two minutes back Friday. But Michigan State, which knows it was in a brawl, was it most needed to be.

But that purple reign was sure fun while it lasted.