UNI’s Ben Schwieger

Taking a Leadership Role

(St. Louis, MO) – UNI’s Ben Schwieger is glad to be back in the Missouri Valley Conference. After landing on the 2023 Atlantic Ten all-freshman team at Loyola and an injury plagued sophomore year, he transferred to Northern Iowa.

Schwieger was originally recruited by Porter Moser when the Ramblers were still in the Valley. During his redshirt season the Ramblers won the MVC Tournament and advanced to the NCAA’s Big Dance. .

He moved to Cedar Falls on the encouragement of former LUC teammate Jacob Hutson. Now Ben Schwieger is back as a rising star. After scoring in double digits during his team’s final five regular season games, he finished the season with a 9.9 point-point per game average. Eighteen times, Schwieger reached at least the ten-point mark.

Journey to Cedar Falls

After his time at his home town Loyola program, Schwieger transferred to UNI. Hutson’s role was huge in that decision and so was coach Ben Jacobson’s winning reputation.

 

Jacobson has great confidence in his senior forward and believes he can be a Missouri Valley star. The twenty-year head coach thinks Schwieger believing in himself is the key him becoming the star he can become. During this offseason, Schwieger is working on his shot, ball-handling and becoming a more vocal leader.

He is working on growing in confidence.

 

Teammates and Newcomers

UNI (20-13, 14-6) nearly won the Valley’s regular season title last season and returns eleven players from that team. Coach Jacobson is entering his twentieth head coaching season and is closing in on 400 career victories. Gone is all-conference performer Tytan Anderson. He and big man Hutson have graduated.

But ‘Coach Jake’ has plenty of proven players to draw from. We asked Schwieger to talk about Trey Campbell, Leon Bond III and rising sophomore Will Hornseth.

 

While Jacobson is blessed with an unusual amount of returners, including guards R.J. Taylor and Max Weisbrod, he hit the recruiting trail. Division 1 transfers Ismael Diouf and Marino Dubravcic, NAIA all-American Tristan Smith and several prep players bolster an already strong lineup.

Schwieger says Smith is one of the most explosive players he has ever seen and that all of the newcomers are impressive. Diouf (NC State) and Dubravcic (Baylor) are big men that played limited minutes at their previous stops. Three rookies, Jalen Wilson, Geon Hutchins and Levi Valdo are all three-star recruits with good guard size.

 

UNI’s Ben Schwieger seems poised for one of those proverbial ‘break out seasons’ and Northern Iowa will be among the Valley’s preseason favorites. The Panther depth, experience and coaching cache make this team look like one of the conference’s top contenders.

Jacobson has his team plugged into the Acrisure Series in Palm Desert, California where they will play quality opponents like Nevada, Schwieger’s former mates at Loyola and Tulsa.

Head to YouTube to watch our entire conversation or to Valley Hoops Insider Podcasts for the audio only version.

Do Good

 

Editor: Cover photo of Ben Schwieger, courtesy of unipanthers.com.