CEDAR FALLS, Iowa--Wichita State led all but seconds of the first half, but could not stop a hot-handed Northern Iowa offense in the second as the Panthers took the game, 78-54.

Junior guard Clevin Hannah paced the Shockers' offense on Saturday night. Hannah scored 14 points, including the first 11 for his team, on a 5-of-9 shooting effort. Freshman guard Toure' Murry follwed Hannah with nine points.

The Panthers used a 58 percent three-point shooting average to overpower the Shockers. Three Panthers ended the night in double digits. Junior guard Ali Farokhmanesh led all scorers with 17 points, 15 of which came from beyond the arc.

After falling behind for the first time in the game on a Panther buzzer beater heading into halftime, the Shockers took too much time to reverse the trend in the final 20 minutes. The Panthers used the end of the first and the start of the second half to build an 18-2 run, and take a 37-28 lead.

Freshman Reggie Chamberlain nailed his first three of the game to close the Shockers' deficit, 37-31. Unrelenting, the Panthers offense immediately responded with a trio of threes of their own from Farokhmanesh to open the Panthers' lead, 51-31.

WSU answered with threes from junior guard Clevin Hannah and senior forward Mantas Griskenas to chip away at Northern Iowa's lead, 54-38. But no sooner had Griskenas scored, the Panthers knocked down another. Twelve minutes into the second half, UNI was hitting a dominating 59 percent from behind the arc. They finished the night 11-of-19 from three-point land.

Unfortunately for the Shockers, their numbers didn't fair as well. Despite a 4-of-7 three-point shooting performance from Hannah, WSU hit 39 percent as a team and 36 percent from the floor Saturday night. A complete turnaround from the Shockers' first-half performance.

Eleven-straight points from Hannah?including nine points from behind the arc? put the Shockers up early, 11-7. The team's scoring leader stayed true to form, leading the Shockers through the first half with 14 points on the evening.

The Shockers shot 64 percent from the floor through the first eight minutes of the opening half. Redshirt Sophomore J.T. Durley joined in with back-to-back buckets of his own to stretch the Shockers early lead, 17-14.

WSU's first-half defensive pressure proved potent, as well. With five minutes remaining in the first, the Shockers held the Panthers' shooting percenage to just under 29 percent while out-rebounding the Panthers, 20-14. Despite cooling from its red-hot start of 64 percent accuracy from the floor as a team, freshman Toure' Murry knocked down a three-point play to bring his team to its largest lead of the half, 22-16.  

Less than two minutes remained in the first half when Panther guard Kwazdo Ahelegbe drilled a three to close the gap, 26-24. His buzzer-beating jumper gave the Panthers their first lead of the game as they headed into the break, 28-26. A lead the Panthers would never surrender.

-Wichita State-