Cedar Falls, Iowa — The Fighting Sioux men's basketball team fell victim to a late surge by Northern Iowa as the Panthers pulled out a 65-52 victory on Saturday in non-conference action at the McLeod Center. Sophomore Jake Koch scored 19 of his game-high 20 points in the second half to lead Northern Iowa to its third straight win over UND.

True freshman Aaron Anderson (Brooklyn Park, Minn.) scored 18 points off the bench to lead the Sioux in scoring. Anderson went 7-for-9 from the floor and made all four of his 3-point attempts, while the rest of the team managed to make just 4-of-20 from beyond the arc.

The Panthers used an 18-2 run midway through the second half to pull away and push their home-court winning streak to 17 games. The home team was ahead by just one at the time of the game-clinching run after a driving layup by Jamal Webb (Buffalo, N.Y.) made it a 43-42 contest with 12:08 to play.  

“I could not be more proud of the effort and toughness we showed tonight,” UND head coach Brian Jones said. “We have come a long way since last year and that is what we have to continue to build on. We had a shot though and that was our goal coming in. We just had a bad five-minute stretch there in the second half that did us in.” 

Koch scored the first nine points of that spurt after being held to just one point in the first half as the Sioux went cold from the field. The scoreless drought would reach just over seven minutes before redshirt freshman Josh Schuler (Urbana, Ohio) made a jumper with 4:37 on the clock. Schuler scored all seven of his points after the break.

The Sioux could not overcome the run by Koch and company in the closing minutes as last year's Sweet 16 participant evened its record at 2-2, while the Sioux dropped to 2-3.

 

The opening 30 minutes of the contest were tightly contested as Webb buried a 3-pointer with 9:26 to play in the opening half  to give UND its first lead at 13-12, but the Panthers responded with a 7-0 run as a four-minute field goal drought ensued for the Sioux.  

The last four field goals of the half for UND all were from beyond on the arc as Anderson hit two of those, including one in the final minute of play, to put the Sioux within five points at the half at 29-24.

The second-half started out well for UND as the Sioux had closed to within a point of the two-time defending Missouri Valley champions, but Koch caught fire as UNI made it a point to get the sophomore involved after he had just one field goal attempt in the early going. 

Sophomore Spencer Goodman (Jackson, Mo.) grabbed a career-high eight rebounds and added six points for the Sioux. Webb finished with seven points.

UND will return to action next weekend at the Basketball Travelers Classic in Moscow, Idaho. The Sioux will play in a four-team, round-robin tournament with their opening game against host Idaho on Friday at 10 p.m. CT.

– Go Sioux –