CEDAR FALLS, Iowa -- Northern Iowa had hoped to cap its 34-year run in the UNI-Dome with a night for the record books. It did, but not the way the Panthers had imagined.
Patrick O'Bryant scored 18 points and Bradley pounded No. 25 Northern Iowa 71-49 Wednesday night in the final scheduled game at the UNI-Dome.
For Northern Iowa, it was the worst home loss in conference play since it joined the Missouri Valley Conference in 1991, and denied the Panthers a shot at the regular season title.
Tony Bennett added 13 points for the Braves (17-9, 10-7), who swept the season series with Northern Iowa for the first time in five years and picked up its first win over a ranked opponent since beating UTEP 83-65 in the 1986 NCAA Tournament.
"I'm just ecstatic and happy for this group," Bradley coach Jim Les said. "To a guy, they laid it on the line for 40 minutes and I'm just proud of them."
The Braves pushed a nine-point halftime lead into a 61-43 advantage with 6:00 left by hitting 11 of their first 16 shots to open the second half. Bennett highlighted that stretch with two 3-pointers and by making defender Ben Jacobson slip with a crossover, then burying an 18-foot jumper.
Marcellus Somerville - who finished with 11 points and eight rebounds -- pushed Bradley's lead to 65-46 on a jumper with 3:53 to go. The Panthers never got within single digits over the final 10 minutes.
The win gave the Braves' slim hopes for an at-large NCAA Tournament bid a major boost.
"It was definitely our intensity on defense. We really played our scouting report well," O'Bryant said. "They were taking a lot of contested shots they didn't want to take."
Jacobson led Northern Iowa (22-7, 11-6), which has lost three of four, with 16 points and Erik Crawford added 15.
The Panthers will move into the new 7,000-seat McLeod Center next season. School officials said Wednesday that they still might use the UNI-Dome, a 17,000-seat football stadium configured for basketball, for hosting teams such as Iowa.
Northern Iowa was once considered a lock for the NCAA Tournament, but its play over the last two weeks has coach Greg McDermott worried.
"Obviously I'm concerned. Normally we play our best basketball this time of year," McDermott said. "For whatever reason we're not clicking on all cylinders right now."
The Panthers went on a 9-2 run midway through the second half to pull within 41-37, only to watch Bradley respond with a 9-2 run of its own that pushed the lead back to 11 with 11:42 to play.
Somerville followed a 3-pointer by Daniel Ruffin with two quick baskets to put the Braves up 17-5 less than six minutes into the game.
The Panthers got within 28-23 late in the first half, but Bradley scored the last four points of the half. O'Bryant scored nine of the Braves' final 15 points in the first half.
The Braves shot 60 percent from the field and outrebounded the Panthers 33-23.
"We weren't very good tonight. That's a fact," McDermott said. "But I'm not sure that even if we were good tonight it would have been good enough to beat Bradley the way they played tonight."
