Box Score CEDAR FALLS, Iowa – No. 14 UNI made 11 three-pointers and shot 64.1 percent to defeat the Drake University men's basketball team, 69-53, at the McLeod Center Saturday evening.
The loss was Drake's (7-17, 4-8 MVC) first in its last four games as UNI's (22-2, 11-1 MVC) torrid shooting earned the Panthers their 11th straight win. UNI led by 16 points in the opening half and the Bulldogs, pace by freshman Reed Timmer's (New Berlin, Wis.) 10 points, kept pace in the second half to match UNI's 33 second-half points.
“That's a really good basketball team that's extremely efficient offensively and defensively they are focused as five people working as one,” Drake head coach Ray Giacoletti said of the Panthers. “We had to try a lot of different things to get a look, but I was proud of our guys. We fought our way back in the second half, but they [UNI] just have so many offensive weapons.”
UNI had three players score in double figures with Matt Bohannon connecting on all four of this three-point attempts to finish with 14 points. Seth Tuttle added 16 points and four assists.
Drake faced a 16-point, 36-20, halftime deficit and trimmed that margin to nine points, 51-42, with 9:25 left. Drake's freshman scored five straight points to pull the Bulldogs within striking distance on a night in which the class, led by Timmer's 10 points scored 26 of the Bulldogs' 53 points.
“He's done a great job the whole year and we've played him in some bad situations,” Giacoletti said of Timmer. “We had four freshman running around out there a lot tonight and I think they, collectively as a group, played their best game of the year. It was good to see the group continue to get better.”
However, the Panthers answered that flurry with back-to-back-to-back three-pointers in 103 seconds to extend the lead to a game-high 18 points, 60-42. Those three-pointers were the first of the half for UNI after connecting eight times in the opening period.
Freshman Ore Arogundade (Chicago, Ill.) pulled Drake back within 13 points, 62-49, with three minutes remaining, but the Bulldogs could not muster a final charge as UNI skillfully killed the clock for the remaining moments of the contest. Arogundade finished with seven points.
In the first half, Karl Madison (Springfield, Ill.) tried to help the Bulldogs open the game with momentum by hitting a pull-up jumper on Drake's first possession of the game, but UNI immediately responded with back-to-back three-pointers as part of an 11-0 run that lasted two minutes. Four minutes later, Drake drew within five points, 14-9, on an Jacob Enevold Jensen (Lunderskov, Denmark) layup but that would be as close as the Bulldogs would get in the period.
UNI continued to drain three-pointers, sinking eight in the first half to build up a 29-13 lead with 4:54 left in the half. Timmer tried to quell that spurt, scoring the Bulldogs' final seven points of the half to account for the 36-20 halftime deficit.
Drake returns to the court on Wednesday evening in search of a season sweep of Bradley and its fourth win in five games. Tipoff at the Knapp Center is scheduled for 7:05 p.m.
