The Siena Saints hit the road to face the University of Northern Iowa Panthers at the McLeod Center in Ceder Falls, Iowa at 7:05pm CT on Saturday, December 12th.

The contest is a return game from the Saints after hosting the Panthers in last year’s Bracketbuster event at the Times Union Center, which Siena won 81-75.  Siena is 6-3 so far this year.

The Saints ran out to a 40-19 halftime lead last year led by balanced scoring and some key three pointers, four of which came from then sixth man Clarence Jackson.   The Panthers tried to make a game out of it late in the second half, when just about every three point basket they put up found the bottom of the net.  The win for the Saints, one of the featured pairings on Bracketbuster Saturday, was one step on the way to their current 24 game home winning streak.

Fast forward ten months and things have changed, but much has also stayed the same.  The Saints are led in scoring by the now starting junior shooting guard Clarence Jackson.  He has done everything he can to fill the empty shoes of graduated Kenny Hasbrouck, from scoring to defense, but unfortunately has missed as much as he’s made.  Jackson will need to continue to find the bucket, but if the Saints want to improve even more and have a chance to win on Saturday he’ll need to be more selective and improve his field goal percentage.  While the leading scorer in last year’s game was Hasbrouck, the front line tandem of Edwin Ubiles, Ryan Rossiter, and Alex Franklin did much to put points on the board and grab rebounds while stymieing the front court size and prowess of Northern Iowa.  Franklin and Rossiter have been dominant this year and have proven themselves against more athletic and bigger frontcourts (see Ohio State and Louisville last year) and they will need to step up again on Saturday.

Northern Iowa, meanwhile, is 6-1 on the season, with out of conference wins against ACC conference member Boston College and in-state rivals Iowa and Iowa State, members of the Big 10 and Big 12 respectively.  They return all five of their starters, and are led in scoring by 6’2 junior G Kwadzho Ahelegbe who is averaging almost 16 points per game.  The other two main scoring threats are 6’8, 260 pound senior F Adam Koch, who is averaging 15 points a game, and 7′, 290 pound senior C Jordan Egselder, who is averaging 12 points and 8 rebounds per game.  Ahelegbe and Koch are also averaging 57 percent and 53 percent from three point range on the season, respectively.  The team is battle tested and by their results this year ready to contend as the main threat in the always competitive and strong Missouri Valley Conference.

What the Saints should feel fortunate about is the possibility that wing-man Edwin Ubiles is starting to feel healthy and ready to lead his own possible MAAC Player of the Year campaign.  Ubiles began feeling discomfort in his knee during the Northeastern game earlier this year, and his results have been less than characteristic.  Ubiles, though, led a strong second half at Iona Monday night with 14 points, finishing with 19 to help the Saints to a 13 point opening MAAC Conference win on the road.  If Ubiles is even at 90% Saturday, and Jackson is scoring, the Saints will have a legitimate shot to take down a mid-major team who could be a strong contender to make a run in the NCAA tournament in March.

While Siena has not performed that well on the road this year, with losses at Temple and Georgia Tech and a neutral court loss to St. John’s, they oftentimes find a way to pull out big wins on the road, evidenced last year with brutal tests at Holy Cross and St. Joseph’s, and exemplified by the Bracketbuster pummeling laid out two years ago at Boise State which started a late run in to the NCAA tournament.

The Saints have not been able to pull out a win against ‘up’ competition so far this year, even though they took leads late in to the game in a couple and had chances to win all of them.  A win on the road at UNI would go a long way to setting the tone for the rest of the year for the seasoned squad who is looking to win the MAAC for the third time in a row, the first time a team would do it since LaSalle in the late eighties.

While Northern Iowa’s resume is as gaudy as its non-conference record to date, Siena has managed to make some missteps early each season which is characteristic of their history under coach Fran McCaffery.  What has become evident in the last four years is that McCaffery’s teams have had difficulty getting out of the gate, possibly indicative of the fact that his motion offense doesn’t start clicking with the players until mid-way through December or early January.  This isn’t unique among programs, in that many of Bob Knight’s Indiana teams did the same thing year in year out trying to rotate in new players and get veteran leadership to mesh in the motion offenses he instilled.

Siena has beaten every team they should beat so far this season, averaging almost 20 point margins in the six wins they have this year.  They will need all the offense they are capable of on Saturday against a veteran, and now tested, Northern Iowa squad.

KEYS OF THE GAME

Defense, not offense, has been the catalyst for success for Coach McCaffery’s Saints in the last four years.  While he has instituted an offensive scheme that runs through the Maestro, Ronald Moore, who is leading the country in assists, the three point shooting of the team is often eschewed for high percentage shots in the paint created by the point guard Moore.

While Northern Iowa has big size and scoring ability in their frontcourt, they actually rely on one of them to make three point shots.  The Saints will need to guard the perimeter, and if they are able to shut it down Franklin and Rossiter will need to do what they do best in the paint – shut off the passing lanes, score, and rebound.

The Saints are long and quick – as long as they are able to force some turnovers and create some offense in transition they will have a shot at getting a valuable road win at Northern Iowa.