UNI can’t keep up with first-place Drake as losing streak reaches 6

CEDAR FALLS — The added energy of a rivalry game did not outweigh defensive miscues as Northern Iowa lost its sixth straight game, 82-74, to Drake Wednesday night at McLeod Center.

The Panthers (12-15, 8-9) looked poised to give the first-place Bulldogs (22-6, 13-4) a competitive game, trailing just 23-20 more than halfway through the first half and shooting better than 50 percent from the field.

But Drake began to build a lead that UNI ultimately proved unable to come back from, making seven of its last nine field-goal attempts to end the first half with a 41-31 advantage.

“Defensively we weren’t good enough in the first half,” UNI coach Ben Jacobson said. “Probably five or six (plays) that really hurt us and had us down 10 or 12 for the last five, six minutes (before) halftime. (Drake’s) playing really, really well on top of being good. All the sudden you get five or six (bad) possessions and they take advantage of most of them and that’s the 10 points.”

UNI’s defensive shortcomings continued in the second half and mostly stood in the way of mounting a serious comeback.

However, a four-plus minute offensive lull from the Bulldogs late in the second half allowed the Panthers to creep their way back within a possession at 70-67 with 2:47 remaining.

Ege Peksari — who entered Wednesday night averaging just 4.5 minutes per game — energized UNI’s offense in his 16 minutes off the bench. He sparked an 8-2 run early in the second half and kept the Panthers offense in sync as Tytan Anderson, Trey Campbell and Bowen Born did the heavy lifting during the comeback bid.

“That’s one of the things we felt like was missing in the last two games — our offense was just hard to come by,” Jacobson said. “We felt like we needed some more ball handling (and) passing on the floor to see if we could get some easier shots and Ege did that for us and really played a good game.”

Missouri Valley Conference player of the year candidate Tucker DeVries steadily poured in a game-high 19 points for Drake, but Roman Penn proved most clutch in crunchtime, scoring 14 of his 16 points in the second half and dishing out three of his game-high nine assists to seal the Bulldogs’ eighth straight win.

“I thought offensively we were able to get some things off of our ball screens as well,” Drake coach Darian DeVries said. “I thought Roman was a big factor in that, either as a distributor or a finisher for us. Ultimately he was probably the biggest difference down the stretch — just his play. You’re starting to see what Roman Penn looks like when he’s got both feet that feel good. He’s been a huge difference here during this winning streak.”

Reserve guard Connor Enright and Garrett Sturtz joined DeVries and Penn in double figures. Enright scored a career-high 14 that included a 4-for-4 mark from 3-point range, while Sturtz added 13 and five rebounds.

UNI was led by 16 points from Born, while Campbell added 15. Anderson finished with 12, James Betz scored 11 and Cole Henry chipped in 10.

Henry explained how the loss to a rival isn’t an easy pill to swallow, but UNI’s body of work against the Bulldogs was not another step backward during this six-game losing streak, unlike recent losses to Indiana State and Evansville.

“The margin for error is zero in this league. Everybody can beat anybody any given night,” Henry said. “In the locker room after the game Coach talked about how we took a step in the right direction tonight. Losing to Drake is never fun. It always hurts, but if anything good came out of this game I think we’re taking steps forward when we need to, which is getting close to March.”

UNI travels to Missouri State (14-13, 10-7) Saturday for a 3 p.m. tipoff at Great Southern Bank Arena (ESPN+). Drake hosts Belmont (19-9, 12-5) at the same time (CBS Sports Network).