Last Friday, in St. Louis, Missouri, the UNI men’s basketball team was invited to the Scottrade Center to compete in the Missouri State Conference (MVC) tournament. UNI’s efforts in the regular season earned them the No. 3 seed in the tournament.

The No. 6 seed was earned by Missouri State and the Bears would be UNI’s first opponent in the MVC Quarterfinals. The Panthers fell just short of the Bears that night with a final score of 70-64, making them 0-3 at the No. 3 seed throughout the tournament.

The score remained close throughout the entire game and the Panthers were only down 31-29 going into halftime, after Jordan Ashton went 2-4 at the free throw line during the last minute of the half.  The biggest (and most reoccurring) problem for UNI would be their rebounding; the Bears doubled the Panther’s total number of rebounds, 25-50.

UNI was able to stay in the game by scoring 18 points off of Missouri State turnovers; the Bears recorded 17 total turnovers compared to UNI’s five.

Alize Johnson would be deemed player of the game for the Bears, after putting up some big numbers to help Missouri State secure their victory.  Johnson had 20 points, 17 rebounds and two assists.

Top performers for UNI include Jeremy Morgan, who had 18 points, five rebounds, two blocks and three steals. Bennett Koch had 15 points, five rebounds, one block and two steals. Spencer Haldeman had 11 points, four rebounds and one steal. Finally, Klint Carlson had 10 points, four rebounds, three assists and a steal.

The 2016-2017 season has officially reached its end for UNI. The Panthers finished 14-16 in the regular season and 9-8 in the MVC. At the beginning of the season the Panthers went on a seven game losing streak. After learning from their mistakes, UNI went on a 9-1 run that lasted for exactly a month, then finished the season with another four game losing streak.

The team has a lot of young potential and it will be exciting to see what the future holds for this Panther basketball squad.