ST. LOUIS - Wichita State (25-9) had a three-point halftime advantage but couldn't hold off Northern Iowa (28-4) in the second half, falling, 67-52, in the championship game of the State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Tournament.

Clevin Hannah led WSU with 12 points while Garrett Stutz added 11 points. For their efforts in the three tournament games, Hannah and Stutz were both named to the all-tournament team.

Kwadzo Ahelegbe led the Panthers with 24 points.

Both teams set a defensive tone early, as the combined to hit just two of their first 17 shots. But the Panthers started to heat up from behind the arc, rattling off a 10-0 run thanks, in part, to two 3-pointers from Jake Koch.

The Shockers came back using the same strategy. Graham Hatch hit back-to-back 3-pointers to start an 11-0 run that was capped by a basket inside from Stutz for a 16-12 lead. UNI quickly erased the deficit and the teams traded leads for much of the final four minutes of the half.

With the score tied at 28 and just 21 seconds on the clock, Hannah raced down the floor and drove inside before kicking out to a wide-open Demetric Williams. Just as he did yesterday against Illinois State, Williams calmly drained a 3-pointer just before the buzzer and the Shockers headed to the locker room with a 31-28 lead.

After a slow start, WSU shot 42-percent and held UNI to just 39-percent from the floor. The Shockers had a huge rebounding edge, 22-9, but turned it over nine times while forcing just one UNI turnover in the half.

Stutz provided a spark to start the second half, driving around Jordan Egleseder on the baseline for a dunk. Hannah and Stutz each connected from downtown to give the Shockers their largest lead of the game, 39-33, with 15:59 to play. The Shockers held UNI without a field goal for five minutes but couldn't extend their lead and an old-fashioned three-point play by Eglseder cut the lead to one.

Back-to-back 3-pointers from Ali Farokhmanesh and Jake Koch reclaimed the lead for UNI, 46-42, and forced WSU to call a timeout with 9:30 on the clock.

The UNI defense clamped down while the Panther offense heated up, as the 3-pointers by Farokhmanesh and Koch were part of a 23-3 run that stretched the lead to 56-42.

The Shockers could get no closer than 10 points the rest of the way, falling 67-52.

WSU struggled in the second half offensively, dropping its shooting percentage to 32.7 percent for the game.

"We held our own for most of the game," head coach Gregg Marshall said. "All along I thought we had a chance to win this game. We just had some guys not have great shooting nights."

The Shockers will await their postseason fate this week as brackets and matchups for the NCAA Tournament and NIT will be announced on Sun., March 14.

"We're not done with this season," Marshall said. "I want to get 28, or 29, or who knows how many more wins."