fayette, iowa - the concordia university men's basketball team led by as many as 13 points on the road but upper iowa was able to defend their home floor at dorman gymnasium to defeat the golden bears 80-77 on saturday afternoon. Concordia the loss puts concordia at 10-10 to close out nsic play while uiu improves to 9-11. Concordia awaits their final seed in the nsic sanford health men's basketball tournament. They are currently sixth, but based on how the final tie-breakers fall could be either seventh or eighth. Check www.northernsun.org this evening for official tournament brackets, times and locations for wednesday, march 3rd's opening round games. box score
concordia led for 36 consecutive minutes until upper iowa took their second lead of the game with just over two minutes to play and out-executed concordia down the stretch. Concordia senior craig heiman (marshall, wis.) missed a go-ahead three-pointers with 13 seconds to play and junior andrew kuderer (eden prairie, minn.) missed a game-tying three-pointer with six seconds left.
prior to the two misses, heiman had drilled a long three-pointer to put cu ahead 77-76. At that time, concordia had made seven of their 12 three-point attempts before finishing 7-14 from long range.
heiman finished with 16 points and five rebounds while shooting 7-12 from the floor.
the golden bears shot nearly 50% from the floor (27-57, 47.4%), hit half of their three-pointers and 76.2% (16-21) from the free throw line - out-performing uiu from three-point range and the foul line while nearly matching them from the field (uiu 30-59, 50.8%). They also only committed six turnovers and out-rebounded uiu 33-31.
those factors usually add up to victories. But upper iowa only committed four turnovers in the game and turned concordia's six miscues into 13 points while concordia only scored four points off of the peacock mistakes.
sophomore post brent barz (johnston, iowa) played well in his home state leading all scorers with 18 points and eight rebounds. He converted eight of his 10 free throws but only made 5-14 from the field and missed his last four shots. He also had a pair of blocked shots down low.
the golden bears head into the nsic tournament reeling, having lost four out of their last five games and three consecutively. They finish the year with a 5-5 road record and will have to defeat a nationally ranked opponent on their home floor regardless of their seed on wednesday.
