UNI’s golden season trucks on

CEDAR FALLS - This is the time of the season when it's statement this, statement that. Even so, when Bradley coach Geno Ford used Seth Tuttle in the same sentence as Doug McDermott, that kind of stuck out.

Bradley committed nearly all of its resources to stopping Tuttle, who leads No. 11 Northern Iowa in scoring, rebounding, assists and blocked shots. Its diamond-and-one defense worked. Tuttle was held to single digit scoring (9 points) for the first time since Jan. 4 against Loyola.

It just didn't matter. Bradley (8-21, 3-13 Missouri Valley Conference) didn't have enough and the Panthers (26-2, 15-1 MVC) are riding a magical golden carpet-and-unicorns season. Nate Buss and Wes Washpun paced UNI with 11 points apiece in Saturday's 56-39 victory before 6,650 fans at the McLeod Center.

Bradley had three players with six points. For the second consecutive game and third time this season, UNI held an opponent to less than 40 points. The Panthers also won their 15th straight, tying the school record set in 2009-10, the last time UNI made the NCAA tournament.

'It's a ‘pick your poison' kind of thing on our offensive end,” said Tuttle, whose 17.7 points in MVC games leads the league. 'We're focused on the defensive end of the floor this year. Holding a team under 40 is big time, we're pretty proud of the win.”

Five minutes into the second half, UNI stretched a 27-23 halftime lead to 10 points. Seven minutes later, the lead was 19 points and, hey, ESPN's CollegeGameday is going to be on site for the Panthers' season finale at Wichita State on Feb. 28.

It was time to talk about that statement kind of stuff. It's that time of the year to talk about the big awards. Tuttle is very much in the running for the MVC most valuable player. Maybe All-American? He really is doing Doug McDermott, the former all-everything Creighton star, things. He doesn't have the massive scoring, but Tuttle is much more than that. That was the showcase Saturday.

'Everything they do goes through him,” Ford said. 'We thought our best chance for the upset was to eliminate him from the game as much as possible. . . . He doesn't score it like McDermott, but he impacts the game in so many ways. He hedges well on defense, he's the best frontcourt passer in the league. He's fantastic. The level he's playing at is close to the level McDermott played at as a senior. He scored it more, but if you go complete game, I could probably give you a heck of an argument that Tuttle is better because of all the stuff he does.”

Filling in for Tuttle on Saturday was just about everyone doing a little bit of everything. Junior guard Matt Bohannon crashed into the first row of bleachers after saving a ball in front of Bradley's bench. This triggered a fast-break layup. Bohannon hit a 3-pointer on UNI's next possession and the Panthers led 49-30 with 7:52 left.

Tuttle finished with nine points, eight rebounds, two assists, two steals and a blocked shot. It's fair to say he impacted a game in which the other team admitted to doing everything in its power to eliminate him.

'This is as good of a case for Seth being an all-American as any game he's played this year,” UNI coach Ben Jacobson said. 'For him to know he wasn't going to get the ball, that he was going to have to get some rebounds and defend and transition and do all that in a game where he knows he's not going to touch the ball 90 percent of the time, I think today was every bit the case for him being an all-American.”

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