Jacks upset bid at No. 23 UNI comes up short

Sunday, December 28

Cedar Falls, Iowa

2:00 PM

South Dakota State University

Northern Iowa

12/28/2014 6:35:00 PM | Men's Basketball

By: SDSU Sports Info

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa – For the second time in as many games, South Dakota State squared off against a ranked opponent, and for the second time in as many games, the Jackrabbits hung with that opponent for a good chunk of the game, but came up on the losing end as SDSU fell at No. 23 Northern Iowa on Sunday, 74-63.

The loss in the Jacks final non-conference game of the season drops them to 9-5, while the Panthers enter Missouri Valley play with an 11-1 mark.

“My feeling is that the players are the ones who need to decide what they want. My feeling is that we're playing with no vision, not that we're not playing hard, I can't say that we're not playing hard, but I don't see a vision, I don't see a belief like I believe in them,” head coach Scott Nagy said. “It's frustrating, but they're the ones that are going to have to figure that out.”

The Jacks won the tip and scored first, but UNI quickly answered from the free throw line, with ties at 4 and 6 to follow before a Nate Buss 3-pointer from the right corner with 13 minutes, 23 seconds left in the first half put Panthers up 9-6.

UNI held the lead until Deondre Parks hit a 3-pointer with 8:38 left in the first half to tie the game at 18, but UNI responded with a 13-0 run to regain the lead, which it extended to 14 points at 34-20 before taking a 39-30 lead into the locker room at halftime.

The Panthers opened the second half on an 8-2 run to extend their lead to 15 points, and led by as many as 16 points on three occasions in the second half.

The Jacks got 6-0 spurt, capped by a pair of Parks free throws with 9:44 left, to cut the lead to seven at 56-49, but the Panthers would push the lead back to 11, only to see Reed Tellinghuisen sink but back-to-back triples that cut the lead to 60-55 with 6:11 left, drawing a timeout from the UNI bench.

The Panthers answered with a three of their own after the timeout, the first of six straight UNI field goals in its next six possessions. Unable to keep pace, the Panther lead grew back to 13 points before Parks scored the final points of the game on a layup with 1:08 left.

George Marshall led four Jackrabbits in double figures with 16 points, with Parks adding 15 and Zach Horstman 13. Tellinghuisen scored all 10 of the SDSU points off the bench.

Buss led four Panthers in double figures with 14 points off the bench, as UNI's bench scored 45 of its 74 points. Wes Washpun scored 12 off the bench and Paul Jesperson 10 in a reserve role. The only Panther starter in double figures, Seth Tuttle finished with 11 points.

The non-conference schedule in the books, SDSU opens Summit League play on Friday, Jan. 2, 2015 at Denver. The Jacks and Pioneers tip at 8 p.m. MT, 7 p.m. CT.

NOTES: SDSU leads the all-time series with Northern Iowa 51-36 … Sunday's game marked the third meeting at the McLeod Center in Cedar Falls, where the teams played in front of a crowd of 6,333 fans … SDSU played consecutive games against ranked opponents for the first time in its Division I history (at No. 14 Utah on Dec. 23, at No. 23 Northern Iowa on Dec. 28) … SDSU lost for the first time this season when outrebounding its opponent (5-1) … the Jacks did not block a shot in a game for the first time this season … Cody Larson made his second-career 3-pointer in the game, and made it from the same spot on the floor as the first, which he hit at Utah on Dec. 23 … Horstman scored in double figures in back-to-back games for the first time in his career (10 at Utah, 13 at Northern Iowa) … Ian Theisen played a career-high 12 minutes in the game