Panthers hope to match best start ever in bout with Rams

Richmond, VA (SportsNetwork.com) – The 23rd-ranked Northern Iowa Panthers are hoping to match the best start in school history when they pay a visit to the Rams of VCU on Saturday evening.

Northern Iowa comes in at 9-0, its best start as a Division I program, and a win tonight would tie the program record for the best opening to a season with the 1963-64 squad that won its first 10 games en route to a 23-4 overall record. The Panthers were most recently in action at Denver on Wednesday night, and they used a record-setting shooting performance to knock off the Pioneers, 65-55.

VCU had begun the season as a member of the Top-25, and after opening with three straight wins, the team has lost three of five, with the most recent being a 74-57 setback to a ranked Virginia squad last Saturday. The Rams’ other defeats came against another Top-25 foe in Villanova (77-53), as well as to regional rival Old Dominion (73-67). This is the first of two straight, and four of the next five VCU will play at home.

The series between these two teams is knotted at 1-1, with both meetings taking place over the last two years. VCU won at home in 2012, 77-68, while UNI returned the favor last year with the identical score.

Northern Iowa set a Missouri Valley Conference record for shooting percentage in a half in Wednesday’s win at Denver, as it knocked down 15-of-17 (.882) field goal attempts in the opening 20 minutes en route to a 70 percent shooting effort for the entire game. The Panthers also impressed at the foul line (19-of-23, .826), while logging a 21-13 edge on the glass. Seth Tuttle paced UNI with 12 points, Deon Mitchell and Wes Washpun added 11 each, and Paul Jesperson pitched in with 10.

Tuttle has been a man possessed for the Panthers here in the early going, as he is netting 64 percent of his total shots in averaging a team-best 15.9 ppg. He also is among the club leaders in rebounds with 6.4 rpg, trailing only Marvin Singleton (6.6 rpg) in that department. Washpun (10.6 ppg, 3.3 apg) is the only other double-digit scorer for a team that is putting up 67.4 ppg while doing a masterful job at the defensive end in yielding only 55.2 ppg. Mitchell is averaging just 6.4 ppg, but he is just three points away from reaching 1,000 for his career.

Poor shooting and a lack of effort both on the glass and at the defensive end proved to be the Rams’ undoing in their recent loss to Virginia. VCU hit only 38.3 percent of its total shots, while the Cavaliers were successful on a gaudy 68.3 percent of their’s. The Rams suffered a 35-21 rebounding deficit, and had only two players score in double figures. Trevon Graham hit for 17 points thanks to a 5-of-9 showing from 3-point range, while Melvin Johnson added 15 points. Briante Weber only finished with five points, but he handed out five assists and was credited with five of the team’s 12 steals in the game.

Graham continues to pace the Rams in scoring with his 17.4 ppg, but Johnson is right there at 16.9 ppg. The team as a whole is netting 74.8 ppg, but the defensive stance, which has been a mainstay of VCU’s stellar effort in recent years, hasn’t performed up to par as foes are generating 70.2 ppg in hitting close to half of their field goal attempts (.473), and better than 40 percent of their 3-point tries (.408).

Categorized in: NCAA Basketball