GAME NOTES: A couple of Missouri Valley Conference teams with identical league marks hit the floor of the Qwest Center tonight as the Creighton Bluejays host the Northern Iowa Panthers. On Saturday, the Bluejays finally managed to snap a three-game slide with a narrow 65-63 win over Wichita State at home. The victory took the team back over .500 in conference play at 6-5, which is where the Panthers now find themselves after they defeated Southern Illinois at home three nights ago, 68-63. UNI has now won back-to-back games and four of the last five. Creighton came into this season holding a 23-11 advantage over the Panthers in the all-time series and added to that edge with a 68-59 victory in the first meeting of the season on the road back on January 15th.

UNI scored the first points of the game on Saturday versus the Salukis and never looked back, leading by as many as 14 points before holding on for the five-point win. Travis Brown tallied 14 points, as did Adam Koch, with the latter shooting 10-of-13 at the free-throw line. Jordan Eglseder came off the bench to offer up another 11 points in 20 minutes of action for a team that shot 66.7 percent from the field. Heading into this week the Panthers possessed the top scoring defense in the conference, allowing only 58.1 ppg, with opponents converting just 37.5 percent from the field, again the best mark in the MVC. In terms of UNI offense, Eric Coleman is responsible for a team-high 12.2 ppg and is also first on the glass with better than eight and a half rebounds per game. Eglseder and Jared Josten chip in 10.7 and 10.4 ppg, respectively.

A basket by Dane Watts brought the Bluejays back and gave them a lead over Wichita State and Cavel Witter sealed the deal with a pair of free throws in the final moments. Witter finished the contest with 14 points in 20 minutes off the bench, followed by Watts who tallied 11 on a perfect 3-of-3 shooting behind the three-point line. P'Allen Stinnett and Booker Woodfox tacked on 10 points apiece as well as the squad survived with just 11-of-19 shooting at the stripe and a total of only 19 rebounds. Over the course of his 21 starts, Watts has been the top scoring threat for the program and is now averaging a team- best 12.0 ppg on 40.4 percent shooting from three-point range. Stinnett kicks in another 10.9 ppg for the second-best scoring team in the conference with 72.0 ppg.

The Bluejays had a close call over the weekend and the squad has to be concerned with how tight the UNI defense is playing these days. With not much room for error, this might be a game that the Panthers can steal on the road.