Nov. 15: Northern Iowa Panthers (0-0) @ Cal Poly Mustangs (0-0)
Jody Hedde, 2nd Assistant Coach (scouting)
I’m glad we’re beginning the season at home. The Panthers’ PG Nick Nelson is a senior and is very experienced as is senior PF Teppo Jarvilehto who averaged about 8 ppg and 8 rpg last season. SG Sylvester Faulconer averaged nearly 13 ppg in his freshman season last year. Northern Iowa has seemed to have alternating up and down seasons. If the pattern persists, this will be a good year for them. While we’re starting the same guys we did last season, we have a bunch of new guys who have shown in practice that they should provide outstanding depth. So let’s see how things go:
Good start. We force the Panthers to take a bad shot. Ivelitsch rebounds and Small hits a 3. Then the Pathers get called for travelling. Collier makes a put-back. Northern Iowa throws the ball away. After a couple nice offensive rebounds, Preston hits a short jumper on which he was fouled and converts the free throw to make it 8-0 after 2-1/2 minutes of play. At the middle of the first half we’re up 22-12 and getting scoring from both our starters and subs, although our 3 point shots aren’t going down. Coach Aura is working the entire bench into the fray. We stretch our lead to 17 with 3 minutes to go but then go into a scoring drought and finish the half ahead by a 37-24 score. Estell Luton topped our scoring with 10 points. We outshot the Panthers 48% to 36%.
Northern Iowa’s SF Tom Thomas scores their first 11 points of the 2nd half as they trim our lead to 42-35. With the Panthers defense stiffening, we’re having a tough time making shots and our lead drops to just a single point with 8 minutes remaining. The game is tied at 57-all with 6 minutes to go. But our defense clamps down at that point allowing us to pull away to gain a 73-62 victory. Good to get a win under our belts, but unimpressive due to how we let them back into the game in the 2nd half. We need to improve since our next game is on the road against a stronger team. Coach Aura said some of the fault was his since he played our entire bench extensively to see how they would do and therefore cut the playing time for our starters.
11 of our players scored with PF/C Estell Luton hitting all but one of his shots to score 13 points and SG Nikolos Ivelitsch finishing with 10 points, 6 rebounds, and 3 assists. I was impressed with Luton and also SG Damien Harris who hit all 3 of his shots (including 2 from outside the arc) to finish with 8 points, 3 rebounds, and a block in 11 minutes of floor time.