Wichita State Shockers: Win And Take All
By Grant Cohen
The 11th ranked Wichita State Shockers have, what Gregg Marshall called it during an interview with ESPN.com, the biggest game in school history against the 10th ranked Northern Iowa Panthers. The winner takes the Missouri Valley Conference championship and will be the one seed in the MVC tournament next week.
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UNI beat the Shockers in Cedar Falls 70-54, making it Wichita State’s only conference lost. As mentioned above, Northern Iowa is ranked above the Shockers and proved why with that victory. The Shockers will have to pull out all the stops in order to take this one from the Panthers.
The story is completely different come Saturday
Head Coach Ben Jacobson and the Panthers know that in order to win at Koch Arena, they need to do something that no opponent has been able to do in Wichita since February 27, 2013: Beat the Shockers on their home floor. Evansville was the last team to accomplish that feat, and now Northern Iowa will look to do the same in front of a huge Wichita State crowd.
Not only are the Shockers incredible on their home turf, but with College Gameday rolling into town, Shocker nation will be loud and the Charles Koch Arena will be rocking for sure.
How is UNI going to do that?
Not only do you need to shut down Fred Van Vleet (12 points, five assists per game) and Ron Baker (15 points per game), but they must make Wichita State beat them from the outside. The Shockers only shot 20% from three point range in the loss at Northern Iowa.
Other than Baker, Wichita State is not a team that can hit a contested three point shot on a consistent basis and they are one of the most efficient scoring teams inside in the country.
How does Wichita State win this game?
That question can be answered in three words:
Stop Seth Tuttle
While the six foot eight inch senior averages 15 points per game, he nailed Wichita State in the win a month ago, scoring 29 points and grabbing seven rebounds. Other than Tuttle, Northern Iowa does not have a guy that averages ten points a game (Wes Washpun has eight points).
Northern Iowa has a lot of talent and they are an excellent basketball team. No one has been able to stop them for 16 straight games.
The Shockers, however, are looking to not make that streak 17 and get their second straight MVC championship in front of a Koch Arena crowed rallied by a College Gameday experience.
Next: Joe Lunardi Has Kansas Jayhawks As Two Seed in NCAA Tournament
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