CEDAR FALLS – UNI women’s basketball is primed for a McLeod Center return for a matchup with the Drake Bulldogs on Saturday evening. The Panthers and the Bulldogs have a storied history dating back to their first matchup in 1975. Since then, the squads have met on 97 occasions with Drake holding a commanding lead on the series record with 70 wins. Last season, the Panthers took home victories in both meetings in a very similar fashion. In both victories, guard Maya McDermott drained buzzer-beating jumpers to take down the Bulldogs in the final seconds of each matchup. In the last contest between these two teams, Maya McDermott and Emerson Green were the lone Panthers to record double-figure nights with 12 points from McDermott and 11 from Green. Grace Boffeli brought down a game-high 11 rebounds in the game.
UNI is coming off its seventh straight victory over UIC with a 65-43 win in Chicago on Wednesday. In that matchup, Grace Boffeli led the UNI scoring and rebounding efforts with 13 points and eight rebounds. UNI allowed just four points in the second quarter. That is the lowest mark all season and the lowest since a March 3, 2022 matchup at Indiana State when UNI also allowed just four points in a quarter. The Panthers held the hottest team in the Valley at the time to 43 points. The last time the Flames failed to score 50 or more points was in the first round of the Women’s Basketball Invitational when they scored 41 in a loss to New Mexico State last season. UNI tied their season high with seven blocks against the Flames. Both Shateah Wetering and Ryley Goebel finished with a pair of blocks.
Forward Grace Boffeli recorded eight rebounds in the game against the Flames. Her 742 career rebounds are just one 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 six points away from becoming the 30th player in UNI history to cross the threshold. Maya McDermott leads both the conference and the nation in free throw percentage. Her 95.6% from the stripe has seen all 21 free throws go down inside the McLeod Center and all 22 in conference play. She also leads the conference with 3.11 assists per turnover. That mark is the eighth-best in the nation.
As a team, UNI leads the conference with a league-low 12.5 turnovers per game. The Panthers continued their streak of matchups with a three-pointer against UIC with five three-pointers against the Flames. They are now sitting with an active, 498-game streak which began in December of 2008. As a program, the Panther women’s basketball team is eight conference wins away from 500.
Tanya Warren needs one MVC victory to break the 200-conference-win threshold and two Valley wins to tie Cheryl Burnett (Missouri State 1988-02) for the MVC’s all-time conference coaching wins top spot.
Drake is coming off its first conference loss of the season to a red-hot Illinois State Redbirds team. That matchup saw the Bulldogs fall by a score of 79-70 which saw a trio of Bulldogs in double figures. Katie Dinnebier continued her stellar season with 23 points while Grace Berg and Anna Miller finished with 17 and 11 points respectively.
This season, Dinnebier has been a force for the Drake offense, scoring 19.2 points per game on 54.2% shooting from the floor. Not too far behind her is Grace Berg who is averaging 17.2 points per game on 50.4% shooting so far this season.
Drake leads the Valley in a number of categories including assists per game (19.6), field goal percentage (48.8%), rebound margin (7.6), and free throw percentage (80%). Junior guard Katie Dinnebier sits atop the MVC in multiple categories including assists per game (6.2), Points per game (19.2), and total free throws made (118).
Due to the Mizuno JVA UNI-Dome Classic volleyball tournament being held in the UNI-Dome over the weekend, fans are encouraged to plan parking ahead of time. Please see the PARKING MAP for this weekend’s game.
UNI (7-11 / 6-3 MVC) vs. Drake (15-5 / 8-1 MVC)
6 p.m. CT | Feb. 3
McLeod Center | Cedar Falls, Iowa
ESPN+
Panther Sports Radio Network (Chris Kleinhans-Schulz: Play-by-Play)
