Northern Iowa Panthers
It’s hard to watch a loved one see a beloved pastime fall apart before their eyes. As the son of a Kansas Jayhawk and brother of a perennially upset Georgetown Hoya, I’ve had my share of the experience. And in 2010 I learned the only thing I would ever know about the University of Northern Iowa that I would until they became a Nonconfriend: They beat Kansas. In thrilling fashion, the now-Terps Nonconfriend upset the No. 1-seed Jayhawks in the second round of the NCAA tournament. Props.
A LOOK BACK: The Terps righted the ship among the Virgin Islands, turning in a strong defensive performance and holding — an albeit weak 0-5 Nonconfriend — Marist to 26 percent from the field. Defensive focus led the Terps to create points in transition as players such as goateed guard Varun Ram worked to force turnovers and easy buckets. After a tight first 18 minutes, the Terps strung together several runs and came away from the first round of the Paradise Jam with a 68-43 win and a day off Saturday to snorkel and catamaran-ride.
COMING INTO THE CARIBBEAN: The Northern Iowa Panthers are beating the teams they should. They trounced the mighty 2-1 Kohawks of Coe College and beat down Loyola Marymount in a 90-81 outburst in their first-round game that struck a nerve for coach Mark Turgeon and the Terps the other night. They’ve also lost to fellow March spoilers George Mason and Ohio. Oh, and they played an exhibition with Minnesota’s Bemidji State, aka the greatest Nonconfriend there ever once was, also apparently a bottled water company.
STRENGTHS: The Panthers can score in bunches. In their wins, they’ve scored 86 and 90 points. Stick them with a half-competent defense though, and that number plummets. Do the Terps have a half-competent defense? Seems Oregon State would have a different answer than Marist. The Panthers have four players averaging in double figures: guard Deon Mitchell, forward Chip Rank, guard Matt Bohannon and forward Seth Tuttle, so the Terps will need to be guarding the perimeter and the paint to limit the Panthers’ options.
WEAKNESSES: Long gone are the boys who shocked the world against the Jayhawks in 2010. The last players from that team — which won Northern Iowa’s second and third NCAA tournament games that year — graduated last year. And in their places are seven new players: five freshmen and two transfers, including a former Hoo from Virginia, guard Paul Jesperson. The Panthers only returned two starters this year, and have one senior on their entire roster. As was clear in a back-and-forth affair with an upperclassman-laden George Mason squad that eventually snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, it doesn’t seem the Panthers have the mettle just yet.
CAMPUS CONNECTION: The Panthers have Mark Turgeon’s number. The corn-fed boys of Cedar Falls, Iowa, racked up a 9-5 record against Turgeon’s Wichita State Shockers in the seven seasons Turgeon was at the helm, or atop the silo I guess. The Missouri Valley Conference foes traded blows for the first nine games in Turgeon’s tenure, as the Shockers went 4-5. But after a Jan. 24, 2005 win in Cedar Falls, the Shockers went on to drop four straight games to the Panthers over two seasons.
FUN FACT: When we Terps grow bored of Looney’s Pub and Cornerstone Grill & Loft, we can hop on the Metro or zip up to Baltimore. New York’s a Chinatown bus ride away and Baltimore-Washington International Airport is always at our beck and call. For the Panthers of Cedar Falls? There’s always the Ice House Museum. It’s America’s only museum “that combines an original ice house with an extensive collection of ice harvesting artifacts and archives” about the days when Cedar Falls used to store thousands of pounds of frozen Cedar River in a brick circular building to keep dead animals from rotting. Sure it’s a 3-mile trek down busy Walnut Street from the campus, but being able to get a rare glimpse into the pre-refrigerated age of warm drinks and curdled milk is the kind of magic that’s well worth the half-hour walk on Friday nights. Sadly the museum is closed for the season, but we’re all champing at the bit for that May reopening. It’s just so chill.
TERP CONFIDENCE LEVEL: Eight out of 10. Center Shaquille Cleare is getting into the swing of things a little closer to his Bahamas home; Director of Basketball Performance Kyle Tarp is putting something in the Terps’ water. The boys are loose. The time is ripe for a win.
NEXT NONCONFRIEND: Either my long-beloved hometown Friars from Providence College or the LaSalle Explorers in the Paradise Jam championship in the third-place game. And for the sake of all that’s holy, I’m begging for the former. Until then though, keep your friends close and your Nonconfriends closer.
