Northern Iowa ends Wichita State’s nation’s-best home winning streak (+videos)

A 43-game win streak is no match for a scoreless drought of 7 minutes, 42 seconds and 46 missed shots, 24 from behind the three-point line.

No. 25 Wichita State is no longer the owner of the nation’s longest home win streak, courtesy of Northern Iowa, Koch Arena’s No. 1 irritant. The Panthers road-blocked the Shockers into a miserable shooting performance in a 53-50 win at Koch Arena on Saturday.

Like at least two other of Northern Iowa’s six wins at Koch Arena, the loss could possess far-reaching implications for WSU, now losers of two of its past three games. It will certainly knock the Shockers (18-7, 12-2 Missouri Valley Conference) out of the national rankings. More painfully, it saddles their NCAA Tournament resume with a home loss to the Valley’s fifth-place team.

WSU cleaned up November’s injury-induced defeats with a 12-game win streak. Losses at Illinois State and to UNI are reopening that case against the Shockers as being worthy of an at-large berth. A team with one win of importance (Utah) can’t afford losses on the order of Saturday.

“We’re putting ourselves in a tough situation,” WSU senior Fred VanVleet said. “We all understand that, or at least us seniors do. There’s no next year for us.”

Northern Iowa (16-11, 8-6) won its sixth straight game and improved to 6-7 at Koch Arena since the 2003 renovation. Those are more wins than any other school. The Panthers can add this dagger to the 2005 win that likely cost WSU an NCAA bid, a 2006 14-point win over the eventual MVC champions and one the next season that helped push the 16th-ranked Shockers out of the rankings.

“We stuck together,” UNI guard Matt Bohannon said. “Tough environment. You’ve got 10,000-plus fans screaming at you. We fought really hard and proved to ourselves just how good we can be.”

The Shockers are fighting plenty hard. That level of confidence, however, may be missing after shooting less than 40 percent for the third time in five games.

They wasted a superb defensive effort by missing 15 of their final 17 shots, including three-pointers by Ron Baker and Conner Frankamp in the final seconds with a chance to tie. They wasted 10 possessions — two turnovers, eight missed shots — with a chance to take the lead midway through the second half.

“We had some really good looks and just couldn’t put the ball in the basket, WSU coach Gregg Marshall said. “Layups that were just rimming off. Post feeds where we didn’t get a great move. I knew that if we could take the lead, the place would really support another run for us. We just couldn’t get one to go down.”

WSU’s backcourt scoring largely disappeared during the crucial points of the second half. Baker scored all 12 of his points in the first half. VanVleet scored all eight of his in the second half, six in a 50-second stretch. Frankamp missed all five of his shots, three from three-point range.

“You’ve got make them,” VanVleet said. “It’s as simple as that. The majority of shots we’re getting are pretty good looks.”

Together, WSU’s top three shooters went 8 for 36 from the field, 4 for 19 from three-point range. Especially late in the game, the Shockers failed to get many shots driving to the basket and those that were in the lane the Panthers often altered. In a 74-55 win at Northern Iowa in January, WSU scored 30 points in the lane and made 26 of 46 shots.

“They’re forcing you to kick it to three and then they’re trusting their closeouts and contesting our shots pretty heavily,” Baker said. “We didn’t do a good job of taking advantage of their defense like we did at their place. As the numbers show, we didn’t shoot the ball very well, including myself.”

The Panthers took away most other scoring avenues for the Shockers, who made three free throws and rarely enjoyed fast-break opportunities. Even 20 offensive rebounds only netted nine second-chance points.

“We’ve got to execute better and I’ve got to put them in positions to get better looks,” Marshall said. “You’ve got give them credit with a great defensive game-plan.”

WSU’s edge in depth never came into play. It had a chance to exhaust the Panthers when it rolled out a 17-2 run in the second half to tie the game 44-all with 11:32 to play. The Shockers, through 10 possessions, didn’t score again until 3:50 remained. The Panthers continued to play patiently and never had to scramble or rush.

UNI’s Wyatt Lohaus broke the tie with a jump shot and made another for a 48-44 lead. Bohannon’s three put the Panthers up 51-44 with 5:22 to play.

“We were running our motion offense and getting good looks out of that,” Lohaus said. “Any player wants to take those shots in that situation.”

Zach Brown ended WSU’s drought of 7:42 with a three. After UNI’s Wes Washpun blew through the defense for a layup, Shaq Morris dunked to cut the lead to 53-49. Morris made one of two free throws to cut the lead to three points and the Shockers forced a miss by Washpun with 12 seconds to play.

Marshall opted not to call timeout and Baker missed a three-pointer from the top of the key. WSU kept possession after the ball went out of bounds and ran a play to get Frankamp, shuffling back behind the arc, open for a three that missed.

“I thought we had two really good looks,” Marshall said.

This story was originally published February 13, 2016 at 1:00 PM with the headline "Northern Iowa ends Wichita State’s nation’s-best home winning streak (+videos)."