Box Score Records
 
Upper Iowa (2-5, 0-1 NSIC) || Winona State (5-2, 1-0 NSIC)
 

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Recap
 
The Upper Iowa Men's Basketball team posted a frantic comeback on Saturday night in their Northern Sun Conference opener. The Peacocks outscored the Warriors of Winona State 42-26 in the final 14 minutes of regulation, but it wasn't enough. The Warriors' 25-point lead, which had dwindled to just six with 1:46 remaining, was a large enough cushion to help the Warriors escape Fayette with a 93-86 victory.
 
Despite a hot start from Josh Weeber, who scored 12 points in the opening period, the Peacocks had one of their slowest starts of the season. The Warriors jumped out to a 21-point lead at halftime, 52-31, thanks to 22 points in the paint and a 57-percent shooting clip from the floor, which included an 8-of-12 mark from beyond the arc.
 
WSU wasted no time expanding its lead to a game-high 25 points less than a minute into the second half and held that lead five minutes later. Trailing 67-42 at the 14:20 mark, the Peacocks hunkered down and made a run. Grant Lang gave the Peacocks a spark with an assist to Kierre Ogbonna before adding a steal and another layup. After two free throws from the Warriors, Ogbonna hit a pair of his own. Jordan Hay and Joey Woods each found the net before Weeber cut the lead to just 19-points with a turnaround jumper at the 8:52 mark. 
 
Jace Hanna – who finished with 11 points on 3-of-3 shooting and three rebounds – added the Peacocks' next bucket thanks to an offensive rebound and put-back, but WSU still led by 20 points, 78-58. Not to be outdone by his fellow freshman, Jimmy Roth got in on the action with his second steal of the game. Roth found a wide-open Woods for the fast-break layup cutting the Warrior lead to 18 with 6:27 left.

Before the Warriors could make a run, Roth slammed home a dunk in transition thanks to a steal from Hanna. WSU bounced right back with a 4-0 run, but the Peacocks didn't falter.
 
At the 4:31 mark, Lang subbed back into the game and began a 14-point swing for UIU as he hit his only three-pointer of the game – a momentum-changing trifecta from the corner. On the next possession, Hay was fouled while shooting a three and the Stanwood, Iowa native drained all three of his ensuing free throws to pull UIU within 14 points, 85-71.

After a layup from Woods, Hay would get back to the line at the 2:45 mark to make it an 11-point game after a flagrant foul from the Warriors.
 
UIU cut the lead to single-digits after another offensive rebound and two big free throws by Hanna. The Warriors headed to the charity stripe hitting two of their own before UIU made it just an eight-point game thanks to a three from Roth. The freshman's trey gave WSU a 87-79 lead with just two minutes to play.
 
Playing press defense, the Peacocks forced the 13th Warrior turnover of the game thanks to Roth's third steal of the game. His outlet pass to Woods pulled UIU within 6 points, 87-81, as the redshirt-senior finished with a right-handed layup off the glass. That was as close as the Peacocks came though.

WSU ended the game hitting four-of-eight free throws and held on to a 7-point lead as time expired.
 
In all, WSU shot 52-percent from the floor and 64-percent from beyond the arc, while the Peacocks shot 43-percent overall and just 35-percent from deep.
 

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Stat of the Game

In a span of 2:39, the Peacocks outscored the Warriors by 14 points in the second half of Saturday's game going 3-for-4 from the floor and 6-for-7 from the free throw line during that stretch. After trailing 85-65 at the 4:31 mark, UIU cut the Warrior lead to just six-points, 87-81, with 1:42 left in regulation.
 

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UIU Standouts
 
Weeber (team-high 16 points), Hay (14 points, 4 rebounds, 1 block), Woods (12 points, team-high 6 assists), Hanna (11 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists), Roth (11 points, team-high 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals), Lang (9 points, 3 steals).
 

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Sounding Off
 
Head Coach Brooks McKowen After the Game…
 
Thoughts on the Loss… "I give Winona a lot of credit. They have a very effective offense – if you make one mistake, they will take advantage of it and get a wide-open layup. You can't give a team like that confidence early in the game in your own gym.  They got a couple open layups as they beat our press defense and that really got them going. We didn't come back to the press until the final 11 minutes when things started to turn around. Our guys deserve a lot of credit though. They played very hard tonight and they never gave up. They kept working and gave us a chance to win it at the end, but it was just too little, too late."
 
UIU Standouts… "Josh had a good game offensively, but the matchup just wasn't there defensively. He was going up against some solid posts and we decided to give someone else a run at it. We're going to score some points and we have a bunch of guys who can do that. Josh and Joey are two of those guys. Even though Joey was pretty stagnant early in the game, he turned it on and started attacking the basket late. Jimmy is another guy who was solid tonight. He can score the ball almost at will and he was very aggressive tonight. He doesn't force any of his shots – he takes what the defense gives him and he can finish in a handful of ways."
 
On the Defense… "The biggest thing tonight was the amount of layups we gave up early on. Any time you let a team get to the rim for uncontested layups, they're going to gain some confidence. Shooting can be contagious and they took advantage of a couple of our mistakes to get going early."
 
The Week Ahead… "It doesn't get any easier for us. We know we have to get better as a team because we are in a very tough conference. If you don't bring it for a full forty minutes – this is what happens. We need to learn from our mistakes and get better as a team and as a coaching staff in order to give ourselves a chance to win next week."
 

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Up Next
 
The Peacocks will take the next six days to prepare for their second conference game of the season as they head to Mankato, Minnesota to face the Mavericks of Minnesota State. Tip-off for that game is scheduled for 8 p.m.