Big-game James breathes life into Panthers

Anthony James hit the final shot as Northern Iowa defeated the Missouri Valley Conference men’s basketball leaders on Saturday.

The shot set off a wild celebration at the McLeod Center.

Now in what has been an up-and-down 2011-12 for the Panthers (16-9, 6-7), they look to stay on the upswing with Wednesday’s trip to Wichita State (20-4, 11-2).

First let’s look back, the final minute of Saturday’s UNI-Creighton game was great basketball to watch.

James hit a 3-pointer as the shot clock was winding down with 24 seconds left to put the Panthers ahead by five, 61-56.

The Bluejays answered with Jahenns Manigat connecting on a trey, 61-59, at the 15-second mark.

After James made 1-of-2 from the foul line to extend the lead back to three, Creighton took a timeout and Antoine Young was the next to bury a 3-pointer to knot the score at 62-62.

Cue James.

“I took a quick glance at the clock and saw that if we had time to dribble the ball up court and get a decent shot, “ James said in the postgame press conference. “The shot went down. It was a good celebration for our team and also for the fans.”

“It felt good as soon as I let it go,” he added.

With 4.6 seconds on the clock, there was no thought of calling a timeout at that point, UNI head coach Ben Jacobson said, especially with Creighton having no timeouts remaining and not wanting them to have a chance to set up a defense fresh.

“(James) was calling for it. I looked up at coach, thinking he was going to call a timeout and he was waving his hand, push it,” said UNI’s Jake Koch. “I got it to AJ and just watched him do the rest.”

James dribbled down to just inside the 3-point line, stepped back and drained his shot at the buzzer.

“When AJ got across halfcourt along that right sideline my thought was I hope he doesn’t shoot it from there,” Jacobson said during his weekly press conference. “He had enough space, but he was still 35 feet away from the basket. He could have shot it from there, but made a great decision to get himself closer to get himself a lot better shot.”

Now the challenge for UNI is to keep the momentum that it has built with back-to-back wins after losing four of five.

Winning at Wichita State would be a great step. The Shockers now are in the Valley lead by themselves after Creighton lost 65-57 at Evansville on Tuesday.