Part I: Confidence bred lofty expectations for Northern Iowa ahead of the 2009-10 season

Final. Four.

When it came time to set the expectations for its 2009-10 season, the Northern Iowa men’s basketball team set its sights on the kind of success never seen before in the history of the program.

“I remember us saying our goal was the Final Four,” Adam Koch, a senior forward on the 2009-10 UNI team, told Lee Enterprises. “… We got a taste of it. We wanted more. I think our expectations were we were going to get back (to the NCAA Tournament) and win some games.”

Ali Farokhmanesh, a senior guard for the program in the 2009-10 season, said part of the high expectations came from the expectations the team set the prior season.

"That was just the goal," Farokhmanesh said. "Of course you want to play in the Sweet 16, but it was kind of past that. We felt like we were good enough to do that.

"... We felt like the pieces to be able to do it. You just had to build some belief. And, the year before that, I still remember this probably more vividly than saying the Final Four was the (goal) the year before. I remember us saying we wanted to make a postseason tournament.

"That did not sit well with me. Like, I did not come here to go to the NIT or the CBI or the CIT. I only here to go to the NCAA Tournament. ... I think that is where it all started from. We said postseason originally that first year (2008-09) and we were like, 'No, like NCAA Tournament.' I think that kind of stemmed into the next year."

In 2009, the Panthers dropped a 61-56 contest to fifth-seeded Purdue, which advance to the Sweet 16. It was UNI’s fifth all-time March Madness appearance as a Division I program and fourth since 2004.

Nerves got to the Panthers when UNI returned to the tournament in 2009 after missing the tournament in the first two years under head coach Ben Jacobson.

"We were all super nervous when we played Purdue," Farokhmanesh said. "It had been a few years since we had been there. It was brand new — the pageantry of it, all the stuff around the NCAA Tournament, the media, the attention from your fan base, national news. All of that combined can be overwhelming."

Though the program failed to win a tournament game in each of those four appearances in the 2000s — and had not won a tournament game since 1990 — Jacobson, who entered his fourth year as head coach of the Panthers in 2009-10, said he did not flinch when his players set their expectations high.

“I felt that the guys had earned it with the way we had played the year prior," Jacobson said. "We had everybody back with the exception of Travis Brown and a couple that redshirted. So, yeah, the Final Four was something that the guys talked about going into the season. I was 100% behind them with that. It was realistic.

“The guys felt like they belonged.”

The big expectations resulted from a confidence that exuded from each member of the team. According to UNI play-by-play broadcaster Gary Rima, confidence was not miscast with those Panthers.

“It goes back to that success in ’09," Rima said. "It raised the stakes. They got beat in the first round in ’09 by Purdue, but they came back even more confident.”

The Cast of Characters

Confidence and high expectations fit the cast of characters UNI brought into the 2009-10 season, starting with its veteran starting five, which all returned from the previous season.

Here's a look at each (with descriptions from Rima):

Jordan Eglseder — "Big Jordan, the seven-footer. I loved his game ... He was a mountain of a man out there. Played physical, played strong"

Adam Koch — "He was really good his junior year, but he was even better his senior year. He was the Larry Bird MVP, Player of the Year."

Kwadzo Ahelegbe — "Kwadzo Ahelegbe was kind of the inspirational leader — him and Johnny Moran.

Johnny Moran — "I called him Jonny ‘Moranimal.’ He was just a really good defensive player. (He) got after it. ... The way he played defense. His nickname kind of came from that defense."

Ali Farokhmanesh — "The shooter. He could just fill it up. I do not think Ali ever saw a shot he did not like. He thought he could score from everywhere.”

Behind its returning starters, a group of role players off the bench provided an equally valuable piece to the team.

Lucas O’Rear — “Lucas O’Rear was another great player on that team. He was the sixth man. He was the ‘Fear the Beard’ guy — the enforcer. ... Lucas would come in a little undersized at that inside position, but (he was) physical and crafty and smart and knew how to use his strength."

Kerwin Dunham — "Kerwin Dunham, I thought, had a great senior year. ... He was a guy that played 20 plus minutes a game his senior year. He was like a starter, good shooter, good player and you had to have guys like that.”

Jake Koch — "One player I would not forget about on that team was redshirt freshman Jake Koch, Adam's younger brother. ... He played some really good minutes that year."

Marc Sonnen — "That was Marc Sonnen's first year, too. (Marc and Jake are) some other guys that I thought were really important in big times."

Anthony James, Adam Rodenberg, Brian Haak and Austin Pehl rounded out the end of the Panthers bench.

Featuring two bigs, three guards who were "not afraid to get physical and play tough" and a supporting cast to match, UNI thrived off physicality and defense.

"The defense that team played as a unit is as good as it has ever been under Coach Jacobson," Rima said. "It was just a great defensive team. They are a team that only averaged giving up 55 points a game the entire season. That is just a tremendous defense effort. It was a big part and the physical play was a big part of how that team got it done."

From outside the program, the cast of characters made following the program all the more exciting according to Panther fan Nicole Ubben.

"When you think about the personalities that were part of that team, I mean Jordan Eglseder and Ali Farokhmanesh and the toughness and the mentality and the Kwadzo Ahelegbe's — there was personality to that team, not just skill," Ubben said. "There was a personality there. There was a swagger to that team. That is what made it special."

Different Era

To Rima, memories of the 2009-10 team and its perfect collection of talent feel like products of a bygone era in college basketball — one before the transfer portal or name, image and likeness policies revolutionized rosters across the country.

“(They were) a lot of guys, maybe in this day and age, would not have stuck around for that senior year,” Rima said. “Know you are coming off the bench behind all those great players, but Kerwin stuck right with it.”

A product of a bygone era, the roster also reflected the state of the program in the late 2000s.

After NCAA tournament appearances in 2004, 2005 and 2006 under current Creighton men's basketball coach Greg McDermott, UNI started expanding its reach in recruiting and brought in the players who shaped the 2009-10 season.

“You think about the guys that were on the team in 2009 and the team in 2010, those guys would have been recruited during those NCAA Tournaments,” said Jacobson, who served as an assistant coach under McDermott before taking over as the Panthers’ head coach in 2006. “Our recruiting ticked up. That is, in my mind, the most important part of it — who is on the roster. … We had a great roster.”

As Ben “Benny” Jacobson, John Little and Erik Crawford departed the program after three straight tournament appearances, the core group of the 2009-10 team joined the program.

“They had been a big part of all three NCAA Tournament teams,” Jacobson said. “They graduated. The recruited guys were good, but they were young, so those first two years, we were a little bit younger than what we had been in ’05 and ’06.”

Ubben, whose parents — Bob and Nancy Justis — both worked for the UNI athletic department, attended the university during the final three years of McDermott's tenure in Cedar Falls. Her senior year also marked Jacobson's first as the head coach of the men's program.

She got a first-hand look at the team during those foundational tournament appearances and the early stages of the Jacobson era as both a student and a nanny for Jacobson's family.

"He (Jacobson) was trying to establish himself as a new head coach," Ubben said. "We did not make the tournament several years in a row. And, I just remember how much he wanted that. He wanted to build off that success."

Unstoppable Chemistry

After back-to-back fifth place finishes in the Missouri Valley Conference and two 18-win seasons to begin Jacobson’s tenure, the Panthers surged to a 21-11 record during the 2008-09 season and claimed the 2009-09 regular season and 2009 MVC Tournament titles.

Through the first three seasons of the Jacobson era, the Panthers developed an unstoppable chemistry. The addition of Farokhmanesh out of junior college in the 2008 recruiting class put the program over the top.

“We had a group who grew together and played together,” Koch said. “That was the second year (2009-10) of that group being together. That continuity helps. I do not know if you see that as commonly today, but a lot of us were there for four years together. It was a lot of time spent together. That matters when you get to the end of the season and it is time to win a game. Having that continuity together is a big deal.”

The coaching staff reflected the togetherness of the team. From the top to the bottom, UNI forged a bond few could match around the country and one few could beat. The belief and confidence started with Jacobson and bled down to assistant coaches PJ Hogan, Ben Johnson and Kyle Green, which bled down to the players.

Rima saw it firsthand traveling with the team throughout the season.

“There was just a togetherness — a tightness — about that team,” Rima said. “You have to have that if you are going to have the kind of success UNI basketball did.

“That team, when they talk about, ‘Final Four is our goal,’ it was legitimate for that team for all of (those) reasons,” Rima said.

Yet, despite its confidence, chemistry and characters, UNI suffered a “shock to the system” that no one around the program expected in just the second game of the season. Before the season ever got off the ground, The Panthers faced one of three pivotal turning points at the Paradise Jam.

"We felt good going into the season," Farokhmanesh said. "We started out well the way we were playing. It was a kind of a humbling moment for us. Like, you have to show up every night. We were talented and good, but we were not talented and good enough to just show up. That kind of hit us square in the face that game."