Mitchell leads UNI on Senior Night

CEDAR FALLS - When it comes to offensive production for No. 10 Northern Iowa, the conversation has started with senior forward Seth Tuttle all season long.

And on Senior Night, there was a senior who carried the Panthers when they needed him - but it wasn't Tuttle.

No, it was senior guard Deon Mitchell who offered up the game of the night with 17 points on 5 of 5 shooting and four assists. His cuts to the basket, fast-break layups and passing were much-needed against Evansville, who bottled up Tuttle all night long. Mitchell's effort led UNI to a 68-57 win and extended the team's win streak to 16 games.

'It means a lot (to play well), especially since I've been struggling a lot through the season,” Mitchell said. 'I haven't been having the games I've wanted. It just feels good to come out on senior night and play as well as I did.”

As with the two games before the Aces came to Cedar Falls, Tuttle had a special emphasis focused on him when the Panthers (27-2, 16-1 Missouri Valley Conference) were on offense.

Evansville (19-10, 9-8) sent off-ball double-teams in some instances, and kept a spy on the Sheffield native at all times. Every time he touched the ball there was contact. He had just four points at halftime, and finished with 10 points on 4 of 9 shooting, with eight rebounds.

As hard as he had to work just to get the ball, the double-teams left his teammates open. And more often than not, when he found them, the ball went in.

If the last three games and specialized defenses resulting in 10, 9 and 10 points, respectively, for Tuttle have bothered or frustrated him, it wasn't readily obvious after the game Wednesday night. In fact, he couldn't have cared less, it appeared.

'Yeah, we have three wins (in that time), and to me that's the most important thing,” Tuttle said. 'At times, that Bradley game was a little bit different. But at the end of the day, when we get a W and put one in the right column, that's all that really matters moving forward.

'People are going to throw different defenses at myself, they play Bohannon differently, they change up how they go over screens. It's one of those things: pick your poison. We have enough weapons on the floor, it's give and take. That's what makes us so special.”

Mitchell having his turn to be that poison didn't surprise his coach, even if the Pflugerville, Texas native was relieved to end his home season well after an up-and-down year otherwise.

Coach Ben Jacobson said performances Mitchell has had recently put him at his best in his entire time at UNI. When it looked like the Panthers were going to repeat the Jan. 1 loss to the Purple Aces - where they squandered a 16-point lead - and UNI's lead was cut to five, Mitchell took over.

Following a Jeremy Morgan jumper, Mitchell had six straight points that took the lead from 47-40 to 53-40 and ultimately put the game out of reach.

'I'm really happy for him. I've told him a time or two, this is the best he's played in his entire career,” Jacobson said. 'It happens to come in a year where we have more depth. It comes at both ends - how he's playing on defense, how he's running our offense - he's playing the best he has in his entire career.

'Usually that means you play more than what you have in the past, especially when you're a senior. He's had to accept less minutes and still play at a high level. To be able to have a game like he had in his last one, where it got to five and he took it over for a couple minutes and got us back to double figures makes me really happy for him.”

On paper, Senior Night means a lot - especially when the guys in the class that's going out have meant as much as whom UNI loses to graduation after this year.

But with what this season has become for the Panthers, Senior Night didn't feel like an ending to anyone involved. There's enough left for UNI - starting Saturday in Wichita, Kan., after that in St. Louis for the MVC Tournament and then a few weeks later wherever they end up for the NCAA Tournament - that there was no sadness or retrospective talk.

'I didn't spend hardly any time talking about it the last couple days and hardly no time talking about it tonight - not because I'm not like everyone else and extremely proud of what they continue to do and who they are, but because we have a lot more to do,” Jacobson said. 'This team has done so well that we're in a position that we've got all kinds of stuff to do still.

'But I do appreciate the fact that (the seniors) have held up an important part of what we're trying to get done as a program and understand and grow into what we do as a unit and how we represent our university is way more important than what they do individually.”

And as Tuttle put it when it was his turn to address the crowd after the game, there was never going to be any dwelling on one night.

As Jacobson said, there's things left up on the board to cross off.

'We still have some unfinished business. That starts on Saturday first,” Tuttle said.

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