Arch Madness is one of the best tournaments in the country, and this year, the Missouri Valley Tournament went crazy. The top 4 seeds all lost before the semifinals, leaving the door open for Northern Iowa to make a run to the championship before ultimately winning Arch Madness and claiming the Missouri Valley Conference Automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament.Â
The Northern Iowa Panthers are heading to their first NCAA Tournament since the 2015-2016 season and their 9th appearance total. Some will tell you that Northern Iowa was the best team in the Valley, but dropped some games they shouldn’t have. Whether that is true or not is to be determined, but what is true is that the Panthers are going to be a very tough matchup on the 13 line. They are going to be a trendy upset pick, and here are three reasons why.
Smothering Defense
This is something you can say about most teams in the NCAA Tournament, but for Northern Iowa, the defense is the reason they are in this year. The Panthers play at one of the slowest paces in the country on offense and slow it down even more on the defensive end. Northern Iowa kills all transition opportunities by getting back and forcing teams to play in the half-court, working for everything.
Northern Iowa, as a result of its defensive schemes, is currently allowing only 61 points per game, the best mark in the country. The Panthers contest everything, and finding open looks isn’t easy, but the most impressive thing about the Northern Iowa defense is the discipline; they never foul and rarely give up offensive rebounds. I told you scoring was hard to come by for Northern Iowa.
Diving deeper into the numbers of just how good this defense is. Northern Iowa is going to make a 4 seed pull their hair out. They don’t allow many open threes, and the ones teams do take are contested. Teams shoot under 50% from inside the arc and 40% overall from the floor, and they force turnovers. They will give teams nightmares after the matchups are released. The defense is that good.
Stay Hot!
True Cinderellas are the teams that get hot in the conference tournament and then continue to stay hot in the NCAA Tournament. The tournament is mainly about matchups, but teams that are on a heater also have a lot of confidence, and it's that confidence that allows a team to stay on the heater. In the case of Northern Iowa, they are going to have to continue to play with confidence and respond to the adversity that will arise in the NCAA Tournament.
The Panthers' head coach, Ben Jacobson, has been around for a long time and has seen just about everything in this game. He was the coach on the sidelines for the Panthers when Paul Jesperson hit the half-court shot to beat Texas. There is zero doubt that he will have his guys ready to roll wherever the committee decides to send them.
The underrated factor in all of this is that Northern Iowa has almost 70% of its roster back from last year, which is rare in the portal era. Still, the older your team is, the better; then throw in that the team has all played together, which makes the chemistry immaculate. The Panthers trust each other to make the right play; they know how to win games, and I can promise the lights won’t shell-shock you. They are going to be a very trendy upset pick.
Panther Basketball
One of the things that makes Northern Iowa so hard to play is their ability to play a style that not many people play, and they play it well. Sure, there are teams out there who play and thrive on low-possession basketball, just look up the road at Ben McCollum at Iowa, but the Panthers play an elite brand of low-possession basketball.
The Panthers are consistently among the most efficient teams in the country, and they are again this year. Coach Jacobson takes a heavy volume of threes, maybe not in total numbers of about 21 per game, but when that accounts for 40% of your offense, it is a heavy volume. Once again, Northern Iowa makes a high percentage of their threes, efficiency again. Even at a slow pace, the Panthers still put constant pressure on their opponents because of their efficiency.Â
The turnovers are never very high, which is yet another feature of Panthers basketball that makes them so hard to beat. The defense is aggressive and deliberate; the offense is slow-paced and forces players to get to their spots, where tough shots are constantly made. Any of those higher-seeded teams better bury Northern Iowa when they have the chance, because letting them hang around isn't going to end well.