CEDAR FALLS – UNI heads to Peoria, Illinois to take on the Bradley Braves in the second of a three-game road stand. The Panthers and the Braves have matched up on 86 other occasions with UNI holding the series record with 49 wins and 37 losses. The last time these squads matched up, the Panthers took home a 76-50 victory. In that matchup, Grace Boffeli led the UNI offense with 17 points. Maya McDermott was close behind with 16 with Kayba Laube the third Panther to record double-digits with 10 points.
UNI is coming off a 77-88 loss at Illinois State. Maya McDermott led the Panther offense in that matchup with 29 points. Grace Boffeli recorded a double-double with 20 points and 10 rebounds. Grace Boffeli became the 29th Panther to cross the 1,000-point mark in the fourth quarter of the Illinois State matchup. She is the 11th member to join in the Tanya Warren era. UNI had players record their 1,000th point in back-to-back contests for the first time in program history. Maya McDermott scored her 1,000th point in a matchup against Belmont and Grace Boffeli followed that up with her 1,000th point at Illinois State.
Forward Grace Boffeli recorded 10 rebounds in the game against the Redbirds. Her 725 career rebounds are just 18 short of Erin Brocka’s (2007- 11) no. eight spot with 743 rebounds. Guard Emerson Green is nearing the 1,000-point mark in a UNI uniform. She is 29 points away from the milestone.
Maya McDermott leads both the conference and the nation in free throw percentage. Her 95.5% from the stripe has seen all 21 free throws go down inside the McLeod Center and all 21 in conference play. She is second in the conference with 2.88 assists per turnover. That mark is the fifteenth-best in the nation.
As a team, UNI leads the conference with a league-low 12.6 turnovers per game. The Panthers continued their streak of matchups with a three-pointer against Illinois State with five three-pointers against the Redbirds. They are now sitting with an active, 496-game streak which began in December of 2008. As a program, the Panther women’s basketball team is just one win away from crossing the 700-win mark. They are also 10 conference wins away from 500.
Tanya Warren needs three MVC victories to break the 200-conference-win threshold and four Valley wins to claim the MVC’s top spot for conference coaching wins.
Bradley is coming off a 65-77 loss to Drake on Thursday. That matchup saw two Braves score in double-figures when freshman guard Halli Poock put up 19 points and senior forward Isis Fitch finished with 14 points.
This season, junior guard Kaylen Nelson has led the offense for Bradley scoring 15.6 points per game. Poock is the only other Brave to average double-digits with 12.4 points per game. Halli Poock is one of the top three-point shooters in the conference this season and has shot a league-high 108 total three-pointers. She is shooting at a 35.2 three-point percentage which is third-best in the MVC and has knocked down 38 or two per game, both the third-best in the Valley this season.
Bradley is hosting Camper’s Day and Women in Sports Day against the Panthers.
UNI (5-11 / 4-3 MVC) at Bradley (5-14 / 1-7 MVC)
2 p.m. CT | Jan. 27
Renaissance Coliseum | Peoria, Illinois
ESPN+
Panther Sports Radio Network (Chris Kleinhans-Schulz: Play-by-Play)
