UNI TO FACE PURDUE IN NCAA TOURNAMENT FIRST ROUND

The University of Northern Iowa men's basketball team (23-10, 14-4 Missouri Valley Conference), seeded 12th in the West Region, will face fifth-seeded Purdue (25-9, 11-7 Big Ten Conference) on Thursday in the first round of the NCAA tournament in Portland, Ore. The winner will face the winner of the Washington-Mississippi State game on Saturday. Game time has yet to be determined.

UNI received an automatic berth to the NCAA tournament by virtue of capturing the 2009 State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Tournament championship. This is the fifth NCAA tournament appearance for the Panthers, and fourth in the last six years. UNI also qualified in 1990, 2004, 2005 and 2006.

Quotes from UNI head coach Ben Jacobson and select UNI players:

UNI head coach Ben Jacobson“It's been a great week knowing we were in the tournament. But there is still excitement when you see your name come up - it's just neat to see your name. It's a great, great feeling.”

"I've seen part of four of five games Purdue has played. I haven't watched a full 40 minutes, but I've seen enough to see what they are about and what they do. We know how they'll play because of coach Matt Painter's experience at Southern Illinois. Purdue is talented and they'll play hard.”

“We'll need to play tough defensively and hopefully we'll hold up our end of the deal. We've been able to win games because our team defense has been good.”

Senior guard Travis Brown“It means a lot for us to earn a spot in the tournament. It's a huge accomplishment and it means a lot for the University of Northern Iowa. I still got butterflies when I saw Northern Iowa show up on the screen. Seeing our name show up there is special and something I'll never forget.”

"It's the beauty of the NCAA Tournament - the 12-5 matchup. It always seems like they produce exciting games.”

“Our goal going into the season was to make the NCAA Tournament and win a game in the NCAA Tournament. Now that we have qualified, we have to focus on playing a great game.”

Junior guard Ali Farokhmanesh (who grew up in Pullman, Wash.)“All of my friends are back there and they didn't take long to start asking me for tickets - it was like 10 seconds after we saw Northern Iowa on the board that they started texting me. It's going to be really exciting to go back out West.”

“It doesn't matter who you play, we knew it was going to be a tough matchup.”