The UNI men’s basketball team will take on UW Milwaukee on Thursday at the McLeod Center in Cedar Falls. After an offseason filled with players transferring away and just as many transferring in, the team is borderline unrecognizable from last season.

With players such as Nate Heise transferring to Iowa State and Bowen Born now playing at Colorado State, the Panthers will try to fill their absence with the younger and new players on the team. Furthermore, returning players such as Tytan Anderson, Trey Campbell and Jacob Hutson will try and build off their successful 23-24 season and help the team get a conference championship in 2025. With a lot of new faces and up-and-coming players, here are all the storylines to watch for the UNI Men’s basketball team this year. 

The Panthers fell in the semifinals of Arch Madness (the MVC tournament) last season to Indiana State which placed them tied for 4th overall in the conference in 2024. The team went 19-14 overall and 12-8 in conference play. Expectations are high amongst the team this season with three starters returning in Anderson, Campbell and Hutson, and look to sophomores RJ Taylor and Kyle Pock to step up after showing promise in their true freshman campaigns. The team also benefited from the transfer portal in the offseason, with two Division One transfers in Ben Schwieger (Loyola) and Leon Bond III (Virginia), as well as Division two stand-out Max Weisbrod (Northern Michigan) and Coe College’s second all-time leading scorer Cael Schmitt. With fresh talent coming to the Panthers, building chemistry will be vital with almost half the team being new to campus.

The Panthers made their regular season debut last Monday with a dominating performance over Dubuque, winning with a score of 96-54. “Selfless” was the word of the game that night as seven different Panthers scored 9 or more points and all of them under 14. The debuts of  Bond  and Schwieger who had a pair of dunks that electrified the Mcleod Center. Bond showed off his talents even further with a reverse layup that made many in the crowd turn their heads in the first half. Returning starter Tytan Anderson and sophomore RJ Taylor had a team-leading 13 points, with Taylor also leading the team in assists with four. The quartet of Anderson, Bond, Weisbrod, and Hutson all finished with five or more rebounds, with Bond leading the team picking up seven. By the end of the game, 13 different Panthers had come out to the court and saw at least four minutes of action before time expired.

With nine returners and seven transfers and freshmen, the new-look UNI Panthers look to find their identity fast going into the new season. The big question with all the new faces will be how they mesh well as a team going forward. A common question in the new age of NIL and Transfer Portal, to be sure, and just as relevant to the UNI Men’s basketball program.

“It’s something that is a lot more common now with the transfer portal playing a bigger role for teams”  junior transfer Schwieger said, “With half of the team being first-year teammates you would think we aren’t as close as other teams, but this is the tightest team I’ve been apart of.”

Taylor was given a similar question after Monday night’s victory.

“It is pretty amazing how fast it took for us to gel together,” Taylor responded. “If we didn’t have a game tonight, we’d be at one of our houses watching Monday Night Football … what we do off the court to what we do on the court really shows.”

Coach Ben Jacobson also weighed in Monday, citing it was a team effort to bring this group together.

“It’s been the entire group,” Jacobson stated. “The comradery and the chemistry has been all of them … the nine guys we have back have been terrific.”

As for the newcomers, Jacobson believes “We got the right guys.”

The confidence the team and the coaching staff have in the UNI Men’s basketball team is evident but will be put to the test in 2025 with a constantly competitive Missouri Valley conference. That being said, the new and returning talent showcased this past Monday is enough for anyone to come out and watch them play.