Winner take all between UNI, WSU for MVC title

WICHITA, Kan. - For close followers of college basketball, the number of times a Missouri Valley Conference game has had stakes as high and the national attention that No. 10 Northern Iowa and No. 11 Wichita State have can be counted on one hand.

The Panthers and the Shockers will have the eyes of the basketball world on them on Saturday at 1 p.m., and before that for College GameDay, which is easily the most popular pregame show in college sports.

Neither team may have had this specific scenario as a goal before the season, but anyone can be certain they all relish the opportunity to play for the regular season MVC title on ESPN and go into next week's MVC Tournament as the top seed.

'I'm pretty comfortable saying it's the best game going in college basketball on Saturday,” said Coach Ben Jacobson. 'There's a lot of reasons that you put in the kind of time that the guys do. This would be toward the top of the list or at the top of the list to have yourself in a position where you're lining up for a conference championship and you're doing it at a place that's going to be sold out. And you're doing it on ESPN and you're doing it with GameDay there. It's terrific.”

The stakes are plain for the coaches and players involved.

There's a 31-game home winning streak on the line for Wichita State (26-3, 16-1 MVC) and a 16-game winning streak overall for UNI (27-2, 16-1). There's pride. There's bragging rights.

There's shutting up the chatter from social media experts who believe the Panthers are ranked too high because they don't play a Big Ten or Big 12 schedule.

'It's big time. Now that it's our next opponent, it's the biggest game of the season - for multiple reasons,” said senior forward Seth Tuttle. 'One, it's for the conference title. Two, it's on the road at Wichita State - that's pretty simple. Three, it's their Senior Night. Four, it's on College GameDay. I could keep going.

'It's a big time game and we're excited about it. After getting a win here, we know they're going to be ready to go. We know that place is going to be a madhouse. I've played there for three years now, and I know how it's going to be. It's going to be like that and maybe more.”

UNI coaches and players obviously know what they're getting into going to Wichita, where they haven't won since 2011.

They've played in hostile environments before, but to man, each of them put Charles Koch Arena at the top of their lists as the toughest place to play for them. After mixed results in hostile environments in the non-conference part of their schedule - an overtime win at Stephen F. Austin and a double-overtime loss at Virginia Commonwealth - plus playing through their road schedule in MVC play, the Panthers feel battle-tested when it comes to entering an environment like they'll see Saturday.

'It's as good as every place I've been and as good as every place I've seen on TV,” Jacobson said. 'It's as good as every place I've ever been to that are very loud. Without question, it's one of the top 10 places to play in the entire country. It's as crazy as it gets.”

Tuttle agreed, saying the challenge of going on the road with the things they have on the line obviously ramp up the difficulty level.

But this team has shown over its last eight games that it's come into a nice groove, winning by double digits in each - starting with the 70-54 win against Wichita State. This isn't the team that lost to VCU and Evansville in a span of four games. They're playing together and in a way that Jacobson couldn't be more confident in what to expect in Wichita.

'There's a different feeling about the team, for sure, from January 1st until today,” Jacobson said. 'They've got so much confidence in each other. And it's one thing to have confidence in what you're doing, but to have the trust they have in each other right now, they've grown a lot in the (last) two months. When that happens, you've got to be able to count on each other to get things done. I think the guys do that better now than they did two months ago.”

UNI and Wichita State tip off at 1 p.m. Saturday on ESPN. College GameDay goes live on ESPN at 10 a.m.

l Comments: (319) 368-8884; jeremiah.davis@thegazette.com