On the surface, Northern Iowa’s Saturday afternoon meeting with Wichita State was set to determine the top of the Missouri Valley Conference standings, with the Panthers sitting a game behind Wichita State in league play. From the moment the game tipped in Cedar Falls, though, you could tell this was so much more symbolic than just another conference game to Northern Iowa and its fans.
Northern Iowa thumps Wichita State in battle of MVC titans
Seth Tuttle was the star for the Panthers on Saturday.
Jeffrey Becker-USA TODAY Sports
Ricky O'Donnell has covered basketball at all levels for more than a decade at SB Nation. He’s currently the Associate Director of Programming.
This was a mid-major spotlight game in every sense, with two top-20 teams doing battle on ESPN2. Wichita State entered as the team with the 27-game MVC winning streak, the one with so much postseason success and an undefeated regular season record just last year. All that meant to Northern Iowa was that this was an opportunity to show there’s more than one great team in the Missouri Valley.
Northern Iowa clamped down on defense all afternoon long and used an incredible game from star big man Seth Tuttle to come away with a 70-54 victory.
Wichita State began the day with the No. 20 offense in the country, per KenPom, but Northern Iowa's No. 17 defense had no problem shutting the Shockers down. Wichita State shot just 35.4 percent on the night, as the Panthers limited the Shockers' star backcourt of Ron Baker and Fred VanVleet to just 7-of-22 shooting.
Tuttle was a force for the Panthers in the front court. He finished the game with 29 points and seven rebounds on 9-of-13 shooting from the floor. He also shot 10-of-13 from the line, accounting for over half of the Panthers’ free throws, both in terms of makes and attempts. As a team, Northern Iowa shot 60 percent from the field.
Wes Washpun added 16 points off the bench, including this incredible dunk in the second half:
Wes Washpun throws a dunk down with authority on Wichita State. https://t.co/moT2XaTMz4 #PantherNation #UNIPanthers
— Jon Kruse (@jon_kruse) January 31, 2015 Best of all? We’ve still got (at least) one more game between these two teams, on Feb. 28 in Wichita. Both of these squads have been mighty impressive this season, but Northern Iowa showed on Saturday that no one can assume the Shockers are the best of the mid-majors anymore.
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