A tale of two halves for UNI en route to MVC title

ST. LOUIS - 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …”

The opening line to the Charles Dickens epic is an apt description for the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament championship game Sunday, but maybe with a tweak of the title to A Tale of Two Halves.

Differences in execution and performance couldn't have been more drastic for No. 11/12 Northern Iowa from the first half to the second half. Fortunately for the Panthers, they picked the right half to have the best of times, and will bring the MVC championship trophy back with them to Cedar Falls by way of a 69-60 victory against Illinois State.

'That was different than just about every game I've been a part of,” said Coach Ben Jacobson. 'We had more than our hands full at halftime. I give our guys a lot of credit for sticking to what's worked for us and getting that ball in to Seth (Tuttle) and attacking in transition, doing the things we practiced when it would have been easy to get away from it.”

The worst of it: UNI shot 7 of 30 overall and 1 of 9 from 3-point range in the first half. The Panthers (30-3, 16-2 MVC) were out-rebounded 21-17 and only had two assists as a team.

UNI's offense felt stagnant, the defense gave up a few easy buckets and yet another physical effort by the Redbirds against Tuttle - five or six times, Illinois State was called for non-shooting fouls on players guarding the tournament's Most Outstanding Player - had UNI down 18 at one point and 14 points at halftime.

The best of it came from the moment the ball was inbounded for the second-half. A 17-4 run in the first 6:27 turned a 36-22 halftime deficit into a 41-40 lead.

'We had to reverse things,” Tuttle said. 'We were the ones who were aggressive, and we had to put them on their heels. Once we did that, we were on a roll. … We got hot at the right time. Jeremy (Morgan) got us going, hit the big shots. [Nate] Buss got hot. It was a lot of fun to be a part of that.”

All the things that seemed to plague the Panthers in the first half melted away with two Tuttle post moves and a Morgan 3-pointer. The confidence and swagger that UNI has played with all season - and was missing in the first half - came roaring back en route to the team's 30th win this season, tying for most in program history.

The old basketball saying of 'shoot your way out of the slump,” rang true for the Panthers, with all of Morgan's nine points coming in his 3 of 5 second half from deep; each in the run that opened the second half and regained the lead for UNI. Matt Bohannon, who was 0 of 3 from the field in the first half, hit a pair of his own, finishing with nine points as well.

'We just kept shooting,” Bohannon said. 'We knew we put in a lot of preparation, every single one of us, through the summer and the off-season, to make those shots. We just stayed confident. We had guys and coaches on the sidelines saying just shoot it, just stay confident, and the next one is going to go in.

'That's kind of what happened. We just kept shooting, and fortunately some of them fell.”

Within Bohannon's explanation of the source of the Panthers' confidence, Jacobson's obsession with preparation can clearly be seen.

What he's set as the defining characteristic of his program started years ago, and he said Sunday his favorite part of seeing his players shoot their way back into the game and stay confident in the face of every reason not to was that it's not the first time this has happened - this year or in the whole of his time at UNI.

'The thing that I've appreciated most about our program is that this isn't the first group to do that. There were guys before them that showed them the way to confidence,” Jacobson said. 'It's through hard work. That's the only way you get there. These guys have been great, and they had some great guys before them to help them understand the importance of preparation.”

The Panthers get a week to celebrate the best of times before Selection Sunday (March 15 at 5 p.m.) reveals what seed their automatic bid gets them.

And after so many years of focusing so hard on the work in between games, even the steely-exterior that is Jacobson softened Sunday, and he said it'll stay that way for just a little bit. Why work so hard to not enjoy when things go well, after all.

'One of the things I learned going through it as an assistant and the two times as a head coach is I allowed myself to get pretty wrapped up in the preparation and just getting on to the next one and on to the next one. I think that's just how I'm wired,” Jacobson said. 'I've gotten a little bit better, a little bit more perspective now. I've enjoyed these four months tremendously, and we will continue to.”

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