Muss: Northern Iowa better than record suggests
FAYETTEVILLE — Don’t let the record fool you: Northern Iowa is a quality mid-major program and has Eric Musselman’s full attention ahead of Wednesday’s game.
Picked to finish third in the Missouri Valley, a quality basketball conference, the Panthers are just 1-2 and have lost both of their games against Division I opponents this season, with their lone win a blowout over DIII in-state foe Dubuque.
Even with disappointing home losses to Nicholls State and Vermont, Northern Iowa - which Sports Illustrated ranked 76th in the preseason - is still sitting at No. 138 on KenPom through Monday’s games.
Speaking to the media Monday afternoon, Musselman stressed that No. 16 Arkansas (2-0) better take the Panthers seriously.
“They’re an NCAA Tournament-caliber team,” Musselman said. “They were banged up injury-wise their first two games. They’re now back healthy. … We better bring our A-game (because) this is a very good and dangerous Northern Iowa team.”
Under veteran coach Ben Jacobsen, Northern Iowa has reached the NCAA Tournament four times in 15 years - including a famous run to the Sweet 16 in 2010, when it knocked off 1-seed Kansas in the second round.
Those players are long gone, but seven of the 10 Panthers averaging double-digit minutes this season were on the team two years ago that won the MVC regular-season title.
“They’re one of the oldest, most veteran teams that we will play all season long,” Musselman said. “They’re smart, they cut hard, they cut from the corners hard, they run a lot of elbow (dribble-handoff) actions. We’re going to have to guard that.”
Northern Iowa’s roster is made up nearly entirely of in-state products, with four players from Minnesota sprinkled in.
The team’s undisputed star is AJ Green, who won MVC Player of the Year honors as a sophomore in 2020 - when he averaged 19.7 points and shot 39.1 percent from beyond the arc. The 6-foot-4 guard is picked to win the award again this year after missing most of last season with a hip injury.
“Great scorer, crafty, can score it off the bounce, can shoot threes,” Musselman said. “He comes off hard on dribble hand-offs, and then they got guys cutting from the corners.”
Another key player for the Panthers is fifth-year forward Austin Phyfe, a two-time all-conference honoree who landed on the MVC’s preseason second team before this season.
Musselman said the 6-foot-9, 250-pound big man is “as good a passer as I’ve seen” and the numbers back it up, as he has a team-high 10 assists through three games this year and was second on the team last season.
One reason the Razorbacks’ third-year coach believes Northern Iowa is better than its record indicates is because it was without starting point guard Bowen Born during its back-to-back losses to start the season.
The reigning MVC Freshman of the Year, the 5-foot-11 Bowen is coming off a season in which he averaged 11.2 points, 2.3 rebounds and 2.3 assists. He knocked off the rust by playing 16 minutes off the bench against the DIII school Sunday.
Getting its point guard back is important because Northern Iowa is a team that relies on ball movement.
“They look like they have a .5-type rule where they can only hold the ball for a short amount of time, and then they spin it around to each other,” Musselman said. “They like to play East-West and get the game going side to side.”
The other player Musselman mentioned by name is Noah Carter, a 6-foot-6 forward who doesn’t always start, but is dangerous from 3-point range. A 28-point effort in which he made 9 of 13 shots from deep against Western Kentucky last season caught his eye.
Despite finishing with a losing record last year, Northern Iowa has the pieces to contend in the Missouri Valley - alongside the likes of Drake and Loyola-Chicago - and turn into a quality non-conference opponent for the Razorbacks.
“Just like last year with the Abilene Christians and the Oral Roberts, we'll see how this all unfolds,” Musselman said. “This team is really good. We scheduled them because we thought they were a team that could win their conference. Obviously, they've got some other good schools in their conference, but that's what we think of them.”
Tip off is scheduled for 7 p.m. CT Wednesday and the game will be streamed on SEC Network-Plus, meaning it can be watched online on ESPN3.com or the ESPN app.