Ben Jacobson now atop MVC men’s basketball all-time wins list after UNI holds on to beat Southern Illinois

CEDAR FALLS — Northern Iowa outlasted Southern Illinois at McLeod Center Saturday night, 61-57, moving Coach Ben Jacobson past Naismith Hall of Fame coach Henry Iba of Oklahoma State with 188 Missouri Valley Conference men’s basketball wins, the most in league history.

Jacobson was presented with a commemorative basketball at midcourt by interim director of athletics Bob Bowlsby and treated to a video that featured former players, coaches and friends congratulating him on becoming the all-time wins leader of the country’s second-oldest basketball conference.

“Since the game ended there’s been two or three times, whether it was with the team, even on the radio just now or with Bob at halfcourt and seeing some of the people in the video where it’s been pretty emotional,” Jacobson said. “It’s that way because it means so much for me that our program is in this place.

“There’s some really close friends that have made this happen and they know who they are. I wish (with) a deal like this they could put either the program’s name or staff (on the record). I know you can’t do that. I get it. But, I just wish you could. The last thing I’ll tell you is (my wife) Dawn and (sons) Hunter and Tanner — they’ve done a lot. They’ve been here for all the good stuff and all the stuff that’s been a little bit harder.”

Jacobson’s historic win nearly didn’t happen Saturday, though, as UNI (11-8, 5-3) made just six of its 14 free throws in the final 2:42 while SIU’s Xavier Johnson hit a 3-pointer to make it a 60-57 game with 16 seconds remaining.

After a Johnson missed 3 resulted in a jump ball, the Panthers got the inbounds pass to Bowen Born, who made one of his two free throws to seal the history-making win.

“We’ve got a handful of guys on the team that have played against Southern (before),” Jacobson pointed out. “All (Coach Bryan Mullins’) teams are physical and they guard you. But this team is doing it, I think, at an even higher level than what they were doing a year ago. I thought they played a great game. I thought our guys played a good game.”

A 9-2 run by UNI in the second half proved pivotal.

The run began after SIU’s Jarrett Hensley hit a 3 that was answered by Born with a step-back 3 on the following possession. After a defensive stop, Born scored again, crossing over Hensley and driving for a right-handed layup that provoked a Salukis (12-7, 4-4) timeout. UNI then ran a set play to perfection as Tytan Anderson found Nate Heise on a backdoor cut for a two-handed dunk and a 55-49 lead with 3:36 to play.

“In a game like this you only need maybe a two-possession stretch — like (Born’s) 3 and (layup),” Jacobson said. “Or, for Tytan it was stretched out a little bit, but you don’t need a lot in a game like this.”

Around the run was a stretch longer than five minutes in which SIU scored just once.

Heise and Trey Campbell took turns defending Johnson — the MVC’s leading scorer — and held the graduate senior to 17 points, his second-lowest point total of the season.

“I really liked what Trey did with Johnson in the first half,” Jacobson said. “He was in front of him a lot. I thought (Hutson) and (Henry) did a good job (helping) in the first half. Those two guys, (Campbell and Heise), have a lot of confidence in themselves to guard good players.”

UNI trailed 30-29 at halftime, but 10 second-half points from both Heise and Born along with stingy defense proved too much for the Salukis to overcome.

Born led UNI with 16 points. Heise finished with 15 and eight rebounds while Anderson also reached double figures with 13 points.

The Panthers’ win was their eighth in their last nine games and Born said there still are strides the team can make.

“In the road (trip), obviously won two big games, but even in those games it felt like we’re still not playing our best basketball yet,” Born said. “Even tonight we missed some free throws — they’re obviously a really good defensive team — but you feel like there’s still some strides that we can make. It feels really special. It feels like we’re really playing much better team defense.”

UNI returns to action Tuesday night at home against Evansville (11-8, 2-6) at 7 p.m. (ESPN+).

“I think that was the best (the crowd) has been this year,” Jacobson said. “You could feel the emotion. It matters. Really appreciate everybody that was here. There’s more room in our building. These guys are playing great basketball. In mid-November to mid-December I wouldn’t have been able to say you need to spend some of your hard-earned money to watch these guys play — we weren’t guarding anybody. We are now.”