Nate Heise scored all 15 of his points in the first half and grabbed six rebounds and Northern Iowa notched a resounding 73-51 victory over Stanford on Friday night in the seventh place game of the Battle 4 Atlantis at Paradise Island, Bahamas.
Jacob Hutson added 12 points, Bowen Born had 11 and Tytan Anderson contributed 10 points and eight rebounds for the Panthers, who went 1-2 during the tournament. Northern Iowa (2-4) lost to No. 14 North Carolina and Texas Tech before playing its best game of the season on Friday.
Maxime Raynaud had 12 points and eight rebounds for the Cardinal (3-4), who went 0-3 in the tournament and lost their fourth overall game. Stanford also fell to No. 20 Arkansas in double overtime and Michigan in the tourney.
Cardinal forward Spencer Jones (wrist) sat out the contest.
Northern Iowa shot 45.6 percent from the field, including 6 of 19 from 3-point range. The Panthers committed six turnovers.
Stanford connected on just 36.5 percent of its shots and was a feeble 5 of 26 from behind the arc. The Cardinal committed 14 turnovers.
Heise (15) and Hutson (10) combined for just more than half the points as Northern Iowa led 49-27 at the break.
The contest was tied at 6 before the Panthers went on a 22-4 burst. Landon Wolf and Heise hit back-to-back 3-pointers to culminate it and give Northern Iowa a 28-10 advantage with 9:35 left in the first half.
Heise capped the impressive first-half display with a three-point play with 1.3 seconds left to account for the 22-point halftime lead. Northern Iowa shot 54.1 percent and didn’t commit a turnover in the first 20 minutes. The Cardinal had 10 first-half turnovers.
Stanford was unable to make a run in the second half as the Panthers continued to lead comfortably.
Trey Campbell knocked down a long jumper to give Northern Iowa a 63-39 advantage with 9:54 left in the game and the Panthers continued to cruise the rest of the way.
–Field Level Media