NCAA Tournament - UNI vs Texas A&M game thread

[SubGod22]

I like the pic I saw on FB the other day. Said something like, "Jordan prevented great players from winning championships" and had pictures of Gary Payton, Patrick Ewing, Reggie Miller and Karl Malone. Then said something like "Lebron allows them" and had Duncan, Nowitzki (sp) and Curry.

I thought it funny. I've never been a big Lebron fan.

[uniftw]

I don't know if this article was posted but I thought I'd share it.

From the Fort Dodge Messenger
http://www.messengernews.net/page/conte ... l?nav=5017

The Northern Iowa men's basketball team did this to themselves.

By "this," I mean reaching the NCAA Tournament the year after losing their All-American forward and three of the team's top four scorers to graduation.

By "this," I mean emerging from the shadows of what was once a 2-6 Missouri Valley Conference record to win the league's tournament championship.

By "this," I mean defeating the likes of Top-25 heavyweights North Carolina, Iowa State and Wichita State -- in Wichita -- during the regular season.

By "this," I mean winning consecutive last-second postseason games on improbable buzzer-beating shots that will be included in every March Madness highlight reel for years to come.

Sunday's unprecedented -- I use that word literally, because according to NCAA research, we've never seen anything like it in the history of college basketball -- loss to Texas A&M in the second round of the Big Dance was a painful, emotional, dysfunctional mess. Fans were perplexed. Coaches were bewildered. Players were despondent.
There's no way to sugarcoat losing a 12-point lead in 35 seconds. I watched it live, I re-watched the recording, I saw the highlights over and over again, I combed through the play-by-play, and I'm still trying to convince myself -- or better yet, deny -- that it actually happened.

I'd rather not dwell on the gory details now. We could armchair quarterback this thing to death, asking why head coach Ben Jacobson did this or why star point guard Wes Washpun did that. I'm sure they're asking themselves the same questions today times a thousand.

It's always easy to speak with the benefit of retrospect, especially from the comforts of our own living rooms. We're not making physical, split-second decisions in real time. And trust me, no one would like a do-over more than the Panther players and staff. They'd gladly trade all of the disappointment and the frustration and the "teachable moments" in for one more minute on the court.

Here's what I do know in the aftermath of this monumental moment: the world was introduced to the character and class of Matt Bohannon, Paul Jesperson and Washpun in the postgame press conference. Jacobson went against the wishes of the media, who had requested underclassmen Jeremy Morgan and Klint Carlson. The three seniors -- who all had a hand in the chain of events that led to the devastating outcome -- calmly, quietly and professionally answered questions with their coach instead.

Locally speaking, most of us have known all along that Jacobson runs a first-class program led by quality student-athletes. The rest of the country got to see it up close and personal under the most challenging of circumstances.

Until that point in time, Washpun was recognized for his late heroics on the court. Jesperson banked in the buzzer-beating half-court shot to sink Texas. They were on a relatively long list of talented players who had magical moments in a postseason full of them.

The unexpected, inexplicable adversity -- and how the program handled it -- suddenly became the story. Not only did it put a face to the names, but a heart, too.

To some, UNI's legacy will forever be defined by what happened on Sunday night in Oklahoma City. To others, they'll be remembered just as much for the thrilling MVC tourney title run and the opening-round Texas miracle.

I will always picture Jacobson, Bohannon, Jesperson and Washpun in that press room, fielding questions they didn't want to answer and trying to explain emotions that words simply couldn't capture.

Yes, the Northern Iowa men's basketball team did this to themselves. They reached the ultimate highs before hitting a devastating low. Unexpected success, followed by unimaginable failure. And they owned it -- all of it -- for the world to see.

Like men. Like leaders. Like champions -- in a way no tournament bracket could ever define.

[uniftw]

Finally, a facebook post KCRG (an area news station that carries almost all UNI football and basketball games) News anchor, Chris Earl

https://www.facebook.com/chrisearlkcrg/ ... =3&theater

Four Days Later... Thanks, Northern Iowa.

* * *

I locked eyes with John Campbell, the legendary former sports anchor here at KCRG-TV 9, who in his "retirement" is still here quite often.

"I couldn't sleep Sunday night," he told me.

"Yeah, me neither."

We were reliving a little bit of the end of the Northern Iowa-Texas A&M game from Sunday night. The game where, yes, UNI led by 12 points in the final minute before losing in double overtime to the Aggies 92-88.

Yet we didn't go through too much of the collapse. We didn't have to.

I consume lots of sports talk radio, largely a result of my years as a sports anchor and also a radio gabber for a couple of our years in Duluth. It's decent background as I run errands or clean the house.

On Monday, I had to avoid it all because Northern Iowa's collapse was on everywhere. ESPN. Dan Patrick Show. FOX. KGYM, of course. Even WHB 810 out of Kansas City, where I usually go to get my Royals fix.

Every time the talk shifted to Northern Iowa, I moved to something else. I spotted articles online that detailed the collapse, one agonizing play at a time. Couldn't click on any of them. Didn't want to. Didn't need to.

When you've been in this business long enough, you think that you've seen just about everything that could happen -- in news, in sports, in life.

Northern Iowa's loss on Sunday tore my heart apart because of the student-athletes who have represented UNI with such class and dignity for so many years.

So many of those young men I had the opportunity to cover when I would call the play-by-play on high school basketball for KCRG 9.2.

Many of these players were never the first choice of a "big school" or they eventually had to find their way to Cedar Falls.

Wes Washpun - the Cedar Rapids Washington point guard who was in the show choir program before starting at Tennessee and then transferring for his last three years at UNI. His enthusiasm on the court was addicting to watch. Dunks against Wichita State. Jumpers at the buzzer to win conference titles.

Matt Bohannon - the Linn-Mar gunner who is one of the Fabulous Bohannon Brothers, the incredible shooters who have rained three-pointers all over college basketball (as a Wisconsin alum, I'd personally like to thank two of the FBB for their shooting range at my old school) for the past decade.

Jeremy Morgan - the Iowa City West guard who helped lead West to 2012 and 2013 state titles. On Sunday, Jeremy played a "man's game" as someone needed to do the scoring in the Texas A&M game. This picture of Jeremy and Wes in the locker room captures the heartbreak of a team that has given every ounce it had within.

Paul Jesperson will forever have a soft spot in UNI basketball lore, a Farohkmanesh-like legacy with his half-court shot to beat Texas back on Friday night. The central Wisconsin native who transferred to UNI after starting at Virginia provided outside shooting range and veteran leadership.

We're supposed to be somewhat neutral in this business yet I've always been an unabashed Northern Iowa men's basketball "homer" since we moved here eight years ago. It's a program that doesn't get $32 million a year from its conference yet UNI has been committed to offering a winning product in the sport, where the best players of Eastern Iowa (and we do produce some excellent players) often play for four years, earn their degrees and start out in life on a positive path.

For 2016-17, the good part is that UNI only loses three players - Wes, Matt and Paul. Jeremy Morgan has one more year, Wyatt Lohaus two more years. Klint Carlson, the Waverly-Shell Rock power forward who turned into a version of Seth Tuttle, has two more years. Bennett Koch, the youngest of the highly influential "Koch Brothers" from Ashwaubenon, Wisconsin, has two more years.

Yet I'll never forget this team. I'll never forget these young men. I'll never forget their victories, even as so many will remember those final 44 seconds from Sunday night.

They deserved a better ending.

I just hope, more than anything else, that whenever a college basketball team is up by 10 points, for years to come, that the announcers won't constantly reference the Panthers' collapse.

When I think of Northern Iowa, I'll think of beating Wichita State in three different arenas over the past two years. I'll think of the North Carolina upset. I'll think of this mid-major taking down Iowa State this year and Iowa two winters ago.

I'll think of Wes Washpun's million-watt smile as he would feed off the crowd.

Or simply hit another game winner in St. Louis.

Thanks, Panthers, for an incredible ride. Now I know why play-by-play announcer Gary Rima says what he says after every last-second win. I don't blame him. I love this team, too.

[Ricardo del Rio]

I don't know if this article was posted but I thought I'd share it.

From the Fort Dodge Messenger
http://www.messengernews.net/page/conte ... l?nav=5017

The Northern Iowa men's basketball team did this to themselves.

By "this," I mean reaching the NCAA Tournament the year after losing their All-American forward and three of the team's top four scorers to graduation.

By "this," I mean emerging from the shadows of what was once a 2-6 Missouri Valley Conference record to win the league's tournament championship.

By "this," I mean defeating the likes of Top-25 heavyweights North Carolina, Iowa State and Wichita State -- in Wichita -- during the regular season.

By "this," I mean winning consecutive last-second postseason games on improbable buzzer-beating shots that will be included in every March Madness highlight reel for years to come.

Sunday's unprecedented -- I use that word literally, because according to NCAA research, we've never seen anything like it in the history of college basketball -- loss to Texas A&M in the second round of the Big Dance was a painful, emotional, dysfunctional mess. Fans were perplexed. Coaches were bewildered. Players were despondent.
There's no way to sugarcoat losing a 12-point lead in 35 seconds. I watched it live, I re-watched the recording, I saw the highlights over and over again, I combed through the play-by-play, and I'm still trying to convince myself -- or better yet, deny -- that it actually happened.

I'd rather not dwell on the gory details now. We could armchair quarterback this thing to death, asking why head coach Ben Jacobson did this or why star point guard Wes Washpun did that. I'm sure they're asking themselves the same questions today times a thousand.

It's always easy to speak with the benefit of retrospect, especially from the comforts of our own living rooms. We're not making physical, split-second decisions in real time. And trust me, no one would like a do-over more than the Panther players and staff. They'd gladly trade all of the disappointment and the frustration and the "teachable moments" in for one more minute on the court.

Here's what I do know in the aftermath of this monumental moment: the world was introduced to the character and class of Matt Bohannon, Paul Jesperson and Washpun in the postgame press conference. Jacobson went against the wishes of the media, who had requested underclassmen Jeremy Morgan and Klint Carlson. The three seniors -- who all had a hand in the chain of events that led to the devastating outcome -- calmly, quietly and professionally answered questions with their coach instead.

Locally speaking, most of us have known all along that Jacobson runs a first-class program led by quality student-athletes. The rest of the country got to see it up close and personal under the most challenging of circumstances.

Until that point in time, Washpun was recognized for his late heroics on the court. Jesperson banked in the buzzer-beating half-court shot to sink Texas. They were on a relatively long list of talented players who had magical moments in a postseason full of them.

The unexpected, inexplicable adversity -- and how the program handled it -- suddenly became the story. Not only did it put a face to the names, but a heart, too.

To some, UNI's legacy will forever be defined by what happened on Sunday night in Oklahoma City. To others, they'll be remembered just as much for the thrilling MVC tourney title run and the opening-round Texas miracle.

I will always picture Jacobson, Bohannon, Jesperson and Washpun in that press room, fielding questions they didn't want to answer and trying to explain emotions that words simply couldn't capture.

Yes, the Northern Iowa men's basketball team did this to themselves. They reached the ultimate highs before hitting a devastating low. Unexpected success, followed by unimaginable failure. And they owned it -- all of it -- for the world to see.

Like men. Like leaders. Like champions -- in a way no tournament bracket could ever define.

Two thumbs up. Way up.

[Ricardo del Rio]

Finally, a facebook post KCRG (an area news station that carries almost all UNI football and basketball games) News anchor, Chris Earl

https://www.facebook.com/chrisearlkcrg/ ... =3&theater

Four Days Later... Thanks, Northern Iowa.

* * *

I locked eyes with John Campbell, the legendary former sports anchor here at KCRG-TV 9, who in his "retirement" is still here quite often.

"I couldn't sleep Sunday night," he told me.

"Yeah, me neither."

We were reliving a little bit of the end of the Northern Iowa-Texas A&M game from Sunday night. The game where, yes, UNI led by 12 points in the final minute before losing in double overtime to the Aggies 92-88.

Yet we didn't go through too much of the collapse. We didn't have to.

I consume lots of sports talk radio, largely a result of my years as a sports anchor and also a radio gabber for a couple of our years in Duluth. It's decent background as I run errands or clean the house.

On Monday, I had to avoid it all because Northern Iowa's collapse was on everywhere. ESPN. Dan Patrick Show. FOX. KGYM, of course. Even WHB 810 out of Kansas City, where I usually go to get my Royals fix.

Every time the talk shifted to Northern Iowa, I moved to something else. I spotted articles online that detailed the collapse, one agonizing play at a time. Couldn't click on any of them. Didn't want to. Didn't need to.

When you've been in this business long enough, you think that you've seen just about everything that could happen -- in news, in sports, in life.

Northern Iowa's loss on Sunday tore my heart apart because of the student-athletes who have represented UNI with such class and dignity for so many years.

So many of those young men I had the opportunity to cover when I would call the play-by-play on high school basketball for KCRG 9.2.

Many of these players were never the first choice of a "big school" or they eventually had to find their way to Cedar Falls.

Wes Washpun - the Cedar Rapids Washington point guard who was in the show choir program before starting at Tennessee and then transferring for his last three years at UNI. His enthusiasm on the court was addicting to watch. Dunks against Wichita State. Jumpers at the buzzer to win conference titles.

Matt Bohannon - the Linn-Mar gunner who is one of the Fabulous Bohannon Brothers, the incredible shooters who have rained three-pointers all over college basketball (as a Wisconsin alum, I'd personally like to thank two of the FBB for their shooting range at my old school) for the past decade.

Jeremy Morgan - the Iowa City West guard who helped lead West to 2012 and 2013 state titles. On Sunday, Jeremy played a "man's game" as someone needed to do the scoring in the Texas A&M game. This picture of Jeremy and Wes in the locker room captures the heartbreak of a team that has given every ounce it had within.

Paul Jesperson will forever have a soft spot in UNI basketball lore, a Farohkmanesh-like legacy with his half-court shot to beat Texas back on Friday night. The central Wisconsin native who transferred to UNI after starting at Virginia provided outside shooting range and veteran leadership.

We're supposed to be somewhat neutral in this business yet I've always been an unabashed Northern Iowa men's basketball "homer" since we moved here eight years ago. It's a program that doesn't get $32 million a year from its conference yet UNI has been committed to offering a winning product in the sport, where the best players of Eastern Iowa (and we do produce some excellent players) often play for four years, earn their degrees and start out in life on a positive path.

For 2016-17, the good part is that UNI only loses three players - Wes, Matt and Paul. Jeremy Morgan has one more year, Wyatt Lohaus two more years. Klint Carlson, the Waverly-Shell Rock power forward who turned into a version of Seth Tuttle, has two more years. Bennett Koch, the youngest of the highly influential "Koch Brothers" from Ashwaubenon, Wisconsin, has two more years.

Yet I'll never forget this team. I'll never forget these young men. I'll never forget their victories, even as so many will remember those final 44 seconds from Sunday night.

They deserved a better ending.

I just hope, more than anything else, that whenever a college basketball team is up by 10 points, for years to come, that the announcers won't constantly reference the Panthers' collapse.

When I think of Northern Iowa, I'll think of beating Wichita State in three different arenas over the past two years. I'll think of the North Carolina upset. I'll think of this mid-major taking down Iowa State this year and Iowa two winters ago.

I'll think of Wes Washpun's million-watt smile as he would feed off the crowd.

Or simply hit another game winner in St. Louis.

Thanks, Panthers, for an incredible ride. Now I know why play-by-play announcer Gary Rima says what he says after every last-second win. I don't blame him. I love this team, too.

Two thumbs up, way up.

[Red]

I like the pic I saw on FB the other day. Said something like, "Jordan prevented great players from winning championships" and had pictures of Gary Payton, Patrick Ewing, Reggie Miller and Karl Malone. Then said something like "Lebron allows them" and had Duncan, Nowitzki (sp) and Curry.

I thought it funny. I've never been a big Lebron fan.

Randomly came across this post. I assume lots of LBJ detractors are changing their tunes today.

[glm38]

I like the pic I saw on FB the other day. Said something like, "Jordan prevented great players from winning championships" and had pictures of Gary Payton, Patrick Ewing, Reggie Miller and Karl Malone. Then said something like "Lebron allows them" and had Duncan, Nowitzki (sp) and Curry.

I thought it funny. I've never been a big Lebron fan.

Randomly came across this post. I assume lots of LBJ detractors are changing their tunes today.

I include myself in that category. I was pulling for the Warriors. I'm a big Steph Curry fan. Never really been an LBJ fan. But LBJ showed some "jordanesque" attributes in this last finals.

LBJ has made some mistakes but he has a lot of admirable qualities too. How many 19 year olds could have entered the NBA as an instant star and handled things as well as he has over the years?

[Stickboy46]

I like the pic I saw on FB the other day. Said something like, "Jordan prevented great players from winning championships" and had pictures of Gary Payton, Patrick Ewing, Reggie Miller and Karl Malone. Then said something like "Lebron allows them" and had Duncan, Nowitzki (sp) and Curry.

I thought it funny. I've never been a big Lebron fan.

Randomly came across this post. I assume lots of LBJ detractors are changing their tunes today.

I include myself in that category. I was pulling for the Warriors. I'm a big Steph Curry fan. Never really been an LBJ fan. But LBJ showed some "jordanesque" attributes in this last finals.

LBJ has made some mistakes but he has a lot of admirable qualities too. How many 19 year olds could have entered the NBA as an instant star and handled things as well as he has over the years?

I agree with the last statement. I'm not a huge LBJ fans, but I respect him for who he is. He's been a true professional on and off the court throughout his career. Never hear about him doing dumb things, yet still manages to do a lot of positive things off the court.