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We’ve all made mistakes. I’ve made my fair share. And in the spirit of total honesty, this one is on me. I didn’t stop to look at the full date of Iowa’s game against Northern Iowa. To my defense, a 10 day stretch without a game seems fairly ludicrous. But since writing the original UNI prediction, some things have happened.
The Panthers played a couple more games and seem to have found their offense. Iowa toppled the Cyclones and made it look easy. So how does this change the outlook for Saturday? The answer: not much, but enough to warrant revisiting things.
The Panthers
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UNI added a couple of wins for themselves in the month of December, toppling South Dakota State and North Dakota en route to scoring their highest and third highest point totals of the season. But what did we really learn about the Panthers? Well, we learned that they are exactly the same team they were two weeks ago, focusing on quick transition three-point shooting. They’re not wasting a lot of time trying to find open shots, but they’re also not able to compete inside against bigger opponents.
That said, they have been quite able on defense and have very active hands, forcing a lot of turnovers from their opponents. Expect a bit slower-paced game than we saw against ISU or Stetson. The key to this game for Iowa is to contest the early possession threes and limit UNI’s percentages on the perimeter.
Prediction
Iowa 74 - UNI 69