Northern Iowa's 2015 team pulled one of the biggest upsets in the history of the Value Add Basketball Game behind the All-American and most valuable player in the country that year in our ratings - Seth Tuttle as Northern Iowa shot all the way up to 43rd in our game to sneak past Larry Bird's 1979 Indiana State as the Missouri Valley Conference representative in our all-time NIT tournament between one team from 20 non-power conferences. The best team from all 21 non-power conferences was the ASun's Jacksonville with Artis Gilmore, so they played in our higher NCAA tournament.
If you look at our all-time game log, you will see that preseason we actually had Bird's Indiana State ranked as the 48th greatest team in the game and the 2015 Northern Iowa team as 159th, but a great 2-1 start including that upset moved them way up and to the No. 1 seed in this NIT. Tuttle may not look at impressive at 15 ppg, but the Value Add rating system calculated that him shooting over 60 percent from the floor and being part of a defense that allowed less than 55 points per game made those points valuable and explain why voters picked him as All-American and we calculated him as No. 1.
However, they went from the hunter to the hunted in this game, as 11-point underdog Morehead State 2011 representing the Ohio Valley Conference (we only count where current colleges play, so none of the great Belmont or Murray State great OVC teams were considered). That meant a match-up of two 6'8 centers among the greatest non-power conference players this century as Tuttle had to face the great Kenneth Faried.
Faried not only grabbed an astounding 14.5 rebounds per game, but he went onto an 8-year NBA career that included coming in No. 3 in Rookie of the Year voting the next year and then finishing in the top 20 in defensive player of the year voting the year after, as Bleacher Report picked him as one of the top 10 Mid-Major players in the NBA.
This one was a thriller until the end as Terrance Murray his a 3-pointer to put Morehead State ahead 77-76 with less than a minute to go. Jerry Morgan then drew a 5th foul on Faried and completed a 3-point play to give Northern Iowa back a 79-77 lead with each team only have one possession left (this would have been the end of the game if he had just scored and was not fouled - so a 78-77 win - but a foul or steal and fast break create and extra possession, so Morehead State had another chance.
Lamont Austin, only in the game because both Faried and Ty Proffitt had fouled out, then hit a 3-pointer to give Morehead State the 80-79 lead.
This game down to the last trip and the ball went to 3-point specialist Matt Bohannon on the 8-sided die roll of "2." The 20-sided die roll of 15 would have been a miss, but the defensive die roll of "53" was within the "dunk" range meaning the offense creates a defensive rebound, Northern Iowa had two choices in the game. Since Bohannon has an almost unheard of 1-6 three-point made range, he normally would take the "try 3-point shot" option in the dunk range which would have meant in the rules a 1-15 was a made 3-pointer while a 16-20 would have been a missed 3-pointer. However, because the option in the dunk range is to take an automatic two points, and Northern Iowa only needed two points to win, for one of the only times in his life Bohannon took the sure thing game-winning lay-up at the horn and our No. 1 seed Northern Iowa avoids the massive upset to advance to the NIT Elite 8. They face 8-seed Winthrop, which looked very good in their debut blowout of South Dakota State.
Besides 1-0 Winthrop 2017, the only undefeated teams besides UCLA 1972 and 1975 (tied in 1st of 258 teams) are Texas Southern, which stunned Niagra but will now face Bob Cousy and Holy Cross 1950 from the Patriot League, and UNC Wilmington 2003, which upset Wofford to improve to 2-0 and now has a chance to make it 3-0 since they draw the other big NIT Sweet 16 upset winner in 2016 Stephen F. Austin.
Below is the box score, scoresheet and updated bracket. This was the NIT prelim for the NCAA showdown between Bill Walton and Bill Russell.
| Pos | Morehead St. 2011 | Pts | 3pt | 2pt | FT | Att | Reb | Stl | Blk | Fl | Ht | Actual Season |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-PG | Demonte Harper | 13 | 0 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 6'4 | 15.5 Pts, 5.0 ^ 3.4 Ast |
| 2-SG | Terrance Hill | 21 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 6'1 | 10.7 Pts, 2.3 ^ 1.4 Ast |
| 3-SF | Sam Goodman | 8 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 6'2 | 8.3 Pts, 4.0 ^ 1.7 Ast |
| 4-PF | Ty Proffitt | 14 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 6'4 | 7.9 Pts, 2.1 ^ 1.7 Ast |
| 5-C | Kenneth Faried | 14 | 0 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 8 | 0 | 4 | 5 | nba,6'8 | 17.3 Pts, 14.5 ^ 1.1 Ast |
| 1-PG | Lamont Austin | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 5'11 | 2.9 Pts, 0.9 ^ 1.9 Ast |
| 2-SG | Arthur McMillan | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6'6 | 1.7 Pts, 1.2 ^ 0.1 Ast |
| 3-SF | Drew Kelly | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6'6 | 5.0 Pts, 4.1 ^ 0.7 Ast |
| 4-PF | Only 8 Player Cards | |||||||||||
| 5-C | Only 8 Player Cards | |||||||||||
| Turnovers 12 | 80 | 6 | 23 | 16 | 20 | 29 | 6 | 4 | 22 | |||
| Pos | Northern Iowa 2015 (MVC) | Pts | 3pt | 2pt | FT | Att | Reb | Stl | Blk | Fl | Ht | Actual Season |
| 1-PG | Deon Mitchell | 6 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 6'1 | 7.5 Pts, 2.0 ^ 2.5 Ast |
| 2-SG | Matt Bohannon | 11 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 6'4 | 5.7 Pts, 1.7 ^ 0.9 Ast |
| 3-SF | Jeremy Morgan | 7 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6'5 | 5.6 Pts, 3.1 ^ 0.9 Ast |
| 4-PF | Marvin Singleton | 9 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6'6 | 4.7 Pts, 4.9 ^ 0.7 Ast |
| 5-C | Seth Tuttle | 20 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 6'8 | 15.3 Pts, 6.9 ^ 3.3 Ast |
| 1-PG | Wes Washpun | 5 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 6'1 | 7.6 Pts, 2.5 ^ 2.6 Ast |
| 2-SG | Wyatt Lohaus | 6 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 6'2 | 3.8 Pts, 1.2 ^ 0.7 Ast |
| 3-SF | Paul Jesperson | 5 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 6'6 | 5.9 Pts, 2.3 ^ 0.3 Ast |
| 4-PF | Nate Buss | 10 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6'9 | 7.7 Pts, 2.7 ^ 0.1 Ast |
| 5-C | Bennett Koch | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6'9 | 1.4 Pts, 0.6 ^ 0.0 Ast |
| Turnovers 13 | 81 | 5 | 27 | 12 | 16 | 33 | 3 | 1 | 21 |
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And here is the scoresheet.
