University of Northern Iowa Athletics
University of Northern Iowa
North Texas
Panther men’s basketball begins 2023-24 season at North Texas
11/5/2023 1:31:00 PM | Men's Basketball
UNI faces critical first against reigning NIT champions on the road.
UNI men's basketball (0-0 / 0-0 MVC) at North Texas (0-0 / 0-0 AAC)
- Nov. 7, 2023 | 7 p.m. CT
- Denton, Tex. | The Super Pit (9,797)
- ESPN+ (Kyle Youmans: Play-by-Play / DJ Draper: Analyst)
- Panther Sports Radio Network (J.W. Cox: Play-by-Play)
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa --- UNI men's basketball will tip off its 122nd season of play on Tuesday night as the Panthers head south to the Lone Star State to take on the North Texas Mean Green in non-conference action.
Northern Iowa got its first chance to compete on the floor this past Wednesday in a 103-65 exhibition win over Coe College at home. Tytan Anderson led five Panthers scoring in double-digit figures with a 17-point double-double with ten rebounds, while Bowen Born and Jacob Hutson both scored 14 points and Landon Wolf dropping 13 points.
The Panthers, facing off against the 2023 NIT champions, look to build off a 14-18 season a year ago in which they finished 9-11 in Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) play in eighth place. The Panthers defeated Illinois State in the opening round of the MVC Tournament (commonly known as Arch Madness) before falling to regular season champion Bradley in the quarterfinals.
Tuesday's matchup will be only the second all-time meeting between the Panthers and Mean Green, who last took to the court together in November 2015 in a 93-70 UNI win in Cedar Falls. UNI is 13-7 all-time against teams from the state of Texas, looking for their first win against a Texas-based program since beating UT Arlington in 2017.
Returning 12 players from the 2022-23 roster with the addition of three freshmen and one transfer, the Panthers were tabbed to finish second in the MVC's annual preseason poll as voted on by the league's head coaches, sports information directors and media with 19 first-place votes, second only to Drake.
Born, who earned Second Team All-MVC recognition last season, was named to the conference Preseason First Team All-MVC list, looking to build after a breakout season last winter. Born led UNI with 573 total points (17.9 points per game), the tenth-highest total in a single-season in program history while shooting 40.8% from the field.
Anderson, the MVC's leader with 11 double-doubles last season and captain of the MVC Most Improved Team, was named to the league's Preseason Second Team. A force off the glass, Anderson led the Panthers and the MVC with 273 total rebounds (8.5 per game), the most by a Panther in a single-season since Eric Coleman in 2007-08.
2023 MVC All-Freshman Team forward Michael Duax also returns after a breakout first season on the court, as does MVC All-Bench Team guard Landon Wolf, who shot 36.2% from beyond the three-point arc as a redshirt freshman. This season will also see the return of guard Nate Heise, who only played in two games before suffering a season-ending hand injury last November.
In addition to the return of big men Cole Henry and Chase Courbat, and guards Drew Daniel and Ege Peksari, the Panthers are expected to debut Loyola-Chicago transfer center Jacob Hutson this season. In his time with the Ramblers, Hutson backed up 2021 MVC Player of the Year Cameron Krutwig, averaging 3.4 points and 1.4 rebounds a game.
Head coach Ben Jacobson begins his 18th season on the Northern Iowa sidelines with 335 career victories with the Panthers, three wins shy of passing Eddie Hickey for second on the MVC's all-time wins list. Jacobson will also have a chance this season to surpass the legendary Henry P. Iba as the league's all-time leader in conference wins, sitting five wins shy of moving ahead of the former Oklahoma State coach.
NORTH TEXAS MEAN GREEN
Coming off a 31-7 season a year ago that was capped by a NIT championship win over UAB, the Mean Green begin a new era in multiple areas. Ross Hodge begins his first season as head coach following Grant McCasland's departure to Texas Tech in his first Division I head coaching job, while North Texas kicks off its first year in the American Athletic Conference (AAC) after a ten-year run in Conference USA (C-USA).
On the floor, the Mean Green return seven members of last year's roster, including their fourth-leading scorer in Aaron Scott, who scored seven points a game while also leading UNT with 5.5 rebounds a game. North Texas also returns all-conference defender Rubin Jones, its leading distributor with 68 assists and ball stealer with 46 takeaways last year. The Mean Green also bring in five new faces to their 2023-24 roster including five transfers, with three coming from the Division I level.
