2009 NCAA Tournament Cinderella Northern Iowa

Northern Iowa won the automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament by defeating Illinois State in the Missouri Valley Conference Championship game. The Panthers finished the season 23-10 (14-4 MVC) and shared the MVC regular season championship with Creighton. Led by MVC coach of the year Ben Jacobson, the Panthers should cause a very tough matchup for any team. UNI is likely to receive a 12 or 13 seed come selection sunday.

Notable Wins: At Creighton, Auburn, At Illinois State

About the Team: Northern Iowa resembles a Big Ten team; not pretty to watch, but they get the job done. Jacobson has done an excellent job recruiting great players for his system. They have incredible size for a MVC team. 7'1 Center Jordan Eglseder averages 10.1 PPG, 1.3 blocks, and leads the team with 6.5 rebounds per game. Their leading scorer is 6'8 Junior Adam Koch (pronounced Cook) who averages 12.3 PPG and just over 5 rebounds per game. One other player to watch is Ali Farokhmanesh who is a very scrappy guard who loves to shoot the three (38% on the season).

I have been able to watch Northern Iowa 5 times this season and every game I have watched has ended in victory for the Panthers. Three of those victories have been against my Bradley Braves. In one of those games Bradley had a 10 point lead with 8 minutes left, only to lose to UNI. Northern Iowa is a tough road team at 8-4, and is 4-2 on neutral courts. They have handled very athletic teams such as Illinois State and Bradley, and aslo been able to overpower teams like Auburn from the SEC.

Prediction: The Northern Iowa Panthers are headed to the Sweet 16. It's near impossible to predict a Cinderella's run without first seeing the Tournament pairings, but I am going with a Sweet 16 berth for UNI.