Toure’ Murry scored a game-high 24 points, including a no-look spinning lay-up with 1:38 remaining in regulation to lead Wichita State University’s men’s basketball team to a three-point victory over the University of Northern Iowa Wednesday night in the McLeod Center.
Murry’s circus shot gave WSU (16-3, 7-1 MVC) their first lead over the Panthers since halftime, when the Shockers led 32-30. Wichita State would build that one-point lead to three on a pair of free throws from Joe Ragland with 1:11 remaining. After UNI and WSU traded buckets, the Panthers had a chance to tie the game with 12 seconds left, but Marc Sonnen’s 3-pointer was off the mark, making the final score 71-68 in favor of the Shockers.
“That was quite a see-saw affair and I’m just proud of our guys,” said WSU head coach Gregg Marshall. “They were down eight here at UNI… it was just a gutty win for the guys on the road. They were tough. I don’t just mean muscle tough, physically tough, I mean mentally tough.
“It was a timely game for (Murry) because we had some other guys not play particularly well. I didn’t ask him to take over the game, but he didn’t tell me either, he just kind of went out and did it. He really felt it tonight,” said Marshall.
With the loss, the Panthers (13-7) fall to 3-5 in Missouri Valley Conference, which puts them in a tie for seventh place in the MVC. However, the Panthers are just two games behind third-place Drake University, whom they host on Sunday at 7 p.m. The Bulldogs have won four straight games since losing to the Panthers 83-68 on Jan. 7 in Des Moines.
UNI struggled against zone defense in the game against Bradley University last Sunday, in which the team blew a 16-point second half lead, and the Shockers took note of it. The Panthers had built an eight-point lead at 56-48 with 9:13 remaining in the game before the Shockers started switching up their defense.
“For a while we couldn’t guard and we couldn’t stop them and keep them off the foul line,” said Marshall. “We just didn’t do a good job of guarding them… it was obvious that we needed to (switch to zone defense). We needed to get them out of rhythm.”
“They went into a 2-3 zone and they really forced us to shoot jump shots. Tonight we just couldn’t get them to fall, but I think what really hurt us was their 2-2-1 or 1-2-1-1 press which slowed us up and we couldn’t find the shots that we were looking for,” said UNI freshman center Seth Tuttle. Tuttle scored 15 points on perfect six-for-six shooting.
The Panthers have led in all five of their MVC losses, including leads of eight points or more in four of the five losses. Despite UNI’s inability to close out games, Jacobson still feels the team is playing well.
“If we make one or two plays go our way in all five of our losses right now, maybe our record looks a lot different. The challenge is just to get onto the next game … That challenge just gets harder when you have had a couple (close losses) in a row like we’ve had,” said Jacobson. “Our guys will continue to stay together and on game night they will battle their tails off.”
Aside from Tuttle’s 15 point performance, UNI was led in scoring by junior guard Anthony James’ 16 points. Juniors Marc Sonnen and Jake Koch also reached double figures with 13 and 10 points respectively.
Although UNI has lost two games in a row and sit in a tie for seventh place in the MVC, the Panthers can still use their last six games as a motivational tool. Despite a head-scratching loss to Bradley, UNI has proved they can hang with any team in the MVC, coming within three points of knocking off first-place frontrunners Creighton University and Wichita State.
“Other than the last 15 minutes at Bradley, that’s five and a half games where we have played good basketball,” said Jacoboson. “If you play good basketball and you try and you fight hard enough, those one or two plays will start to go your way.”
