Iowa State (6-0) at Northern Iowa (4-1)
Media Relations
Nov. 29, 2006 • 7 p.m. • UNI-Dome (10,000) • CRN/Fox 28/17
Radio: John Walters (pxp) and Eric Heft (color)
Television: Fox 28/Fox 17 KDSM, Rob Brooks (pxp) and Mac McCausland (color)
Gameday Quick Facts
Iowa State (6-0) travels to Northern Iowa (4-1) in
ISU head coach Greg McDermott’s homecoming to Cedar Falls...it will be
ISU’s first of three consecutive games against its instate rivals...McDermott, who played for the Panthers from 1984-88, resurrected the UNI program in his five years as head coach (2001-06), leading them to three consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances...McDermott is just the second coach in school history to win his first six games, trying to tie Wayne Morgan’s first-year coaching start of 7-0...the Cyclones are one of nine teams in school history to win their first six games...Cyclone junior center Jiri Hubalek will be eligible to play in his first game on Wednesday after serving a six-game NCAA suspension...
ISU has won 10 consecutive games vs. non-conference schools dating back to last season.
Cyclone-Panther Quick Facts ISU leads the all-time series against UNI at 34-7...
ISU also leads in games played in Cedar Falls at 10-4...
ISU has won 6-of-the-last-7 meetings in the series...its last loss was a 99-82 defeat two years ago in the UNI-Dome...the Cyclones downed the Panthers, 68-61 in Hilton Coliseum last year, helping
ISU claim the mythical state title...
ISU has won the mythical state title (wins over Drake, UNI and Iowa) three of the last four seasons (2002-03, 2003-04 and 2005-06)...obviously, the connections between these two teams are plentiful...for starters, Iowa State head coach Greg McDermott is a 1988 graduate of Northern Iowa where he was a 1,033-point scorer for the Panthers from 1984-88...McDermott later become head coach at his alma mater in 2001, compiling a five-year 90-63 mark from 2002-06...McDermott took over a program that had won seven games the season before and made them perennial Missouri Valley Conference contenders...his final teams at UNI (2004, 2005, 2006) all qualified for the NCAA Tournament...McDermott brought two of his former assistants at UNI with him to Iowa State...Ron Smith, who is
ISU’s director of basketball operations, was an assistant at UNI in all five of McDermott’s years as head coach...Smith was actually at UNI from 1998-2006, serving on former head coach Sam Weaver’s staff for three seasons...he was retained by McDermott when he took over in 2001...
ISU assistant coach Jeff Rutter was on staff with McDermott at UNI in his last three years (2003-06)...
ISU graduate manager Erik Crawford is a 2006 UNI graduate...Crawford was a three-year starter for UNI, scoring 985 career points and leading the Panthers to three consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances...UNI head coach Ben Jacobson’s ties with McDermott date back to the late 1980s...Jacobson was a star player for North Dakota from 1989-93 when McDermott was an assistant coach at NDU from 1989-94...when McDermott took over the head coaching duties at North Dakota State in 2000, he brought Jacobson in as his top assistant...the pair spent one season at NDSU and then moved to UNI together when McDermott was named head coach in 2001...he succeeded McDermott in 2006 when he took the
ISU job...UNI assistant coach Rich Glas is in his first season with the Panthers after directing the North Dakota program from 1988-2006...Glas gave McDermott his first assistant coaching job in 1989 at North Dakota...the pair coached five seasons together at North Dakota, compiling a 126-37 record and earning five NCAA Division II Tournament berths...UNI assistant coach Kyle Green is in his second stint as an assistant with the Panthers...Green was an assistant for McDermott at UNI in his first two seasons with the Panthers (2001-03)...UNI assistant coach P.J. Hogan is in his fourth season on the Panther staff...he was a graduate manager at UNI for McDermott from 2003-05 and was promoted to assistant coach with the Panthers in McDermott’s final season (2005-06) at the helm...he also was McDermott’s assistant in his only season at North Dakota State (2000-01)...UNI’s director of basketball operations Chris Foster is a 2005 Northern Iowa graduate...he played for McDermott from 2002-05, amassing 1,027 career points...he served as a graduate manager last year in McDermott’s final season at UNI.
Cyclone Update
Iowa State remains unbeaten (6-0) after a 90-61 win over Lake Superior State Saturday night...the win gives
ISU a 6-0 start on the season, marking just the ninth time in school history where
ISU has won its first six games out of the gate...the Cyclones once again rode the hot hand of junior Mike Taylor, who scored 22 points and dished out a career-high seven assists, all in the first half...Taylor, who played just five minutes in the second half because of the rout, made his first six 3-point attempts against LSSU, giving him a streak of nine consecutive 3-point makes dating back to his last game at Minnesota, where he scored 25 of his career-high 33 points in the second half...in back-to-back halves (second half vs. Minnesota; first half vs. Lake Superior State), Taylor scored 47 points (23.5 points per half), shot 16-of-25 from the field (64.0 percent) and made 12-of-16 from 3-point range (75.0 percent)...
ISU shot a season-high 53.3 percent from the field against the Lakers, led by Jessan Gray, who made his first six shots from the field en route to a career-high 14 points...Gray, who was 2-for-2 from beyond the arc, was key in
ISU’s 14-2 run to close the first half to put the game out of reach...
ISU recorded a season-high 11 3-pointers, the 15th time in school history where
ISU made 11 or more 3-pointers in a game...the Cyclones have made 20 treys in their last two games...
ISU dished out a season-high 19 assists and committed 11 turnovers, marking the second game in a row where
ISU had a positive assist/turnover ratio.
Northern Iowa (4-1)
Northern Iowa is off to another fast start under first-year head coach Ben Jacobson...the Panthers are 4-1 with their only loss coming at nationally-ranked Washington (70-61)...UNI is fresh off a 69-56 win over South Dakota State on Friday...UNI’s all-star frontcourt continues to dominate, as Eric Coleman posted 16 points and seven boards and Grant Stout tallied 11 points and eight caroms against the Jackrabbits...Coleman, a 6-6, 240-pound junior, and Stout, a 6-8, 240 pound senior, form one of the best frontcourts in the Missouri Valley Conference...Coleman leads UNI in scoring (14.4 ppg) and has a team-high 59.6 percentage (28-47 FG) from the floor...Coleman, who averages 8.0 rpg, had 24 points and 10 rebounds against
ISU the last time the two teams met in Cedar Falls (2004)...Stout, who was a first-team all-MVC selection last year, is averaging 10.8 points and 8.0 rpg...Stout has 896 career points and is UNI’s all-time leading shot blocker with 180 blocks...he is currently averaging 1.6 bpg...four-year starting guard Brooks McKowen is averaging 7.6 points and leads the squad in assists at 7.4 apg.
