Northern Iowa basketball's Bowen Born on return from injury to win Sixth Man of the Year

Northern Iowa guard Bowen Born’s basketball career has been on an upward trajectory for years.

The 5-foot-11 Born led Norwalk boys basketball to three state tournaments, and he won the state championship with the Warriors as a senior. Born finished his high school career with 2,494 points – sixth all-time among Iowa scorers – and was named the All-Iowa boys basketball player of the year as a senior.

Born followed up a successful high school career with a breakout freshman season with the Panthers. With AJ Green sidelined for most of the season, Born jumped into a starting role for UNI, and he excelled. He was named the Missouri Valley Conference Freshman of the Year.

This season has been littered with health issues. It started with a hand injury. Born said he needed to sit out 4-5 weeks while his hand was healing. He spent his time conditioning, like biking and running.

Those workouts helped Born stay in shape, but they exacerbated other issues. Once his hand felt good enough to get back on the court, Born dealt with persistent shin splits.

“After my hand was healthy, I was still dealing with my legs not being under me, playing limited minutes, not really being able to do a whole bunch in practice,” Born said. “It was difficult to find my groove because I missed a pretty important part of the season, where everybody kind of (finds) their roles.”

Born missed the Panthers' first two games, losses against Nicholls State and Vermont. He returned against Dubuque on Nov. 14 – which UNI won – but was limited to just five points in 16 minutes played.

Born found he had a new role — coming off the bench. He went from starting all 25 of UNI’s games last season to just one start in 2021-22.

“He (has) just been great about being patient,” head coach Ben Jacobson said. “Having been a full-time guy last year, starting every game for us, being freshman of the year, just really proud of him for having some patience as he got healthy.

“And then really digging in and taking pride in being the guy that’s going to come off the bench and let that be the way that he impacts our team the best way that he can. So just really proud of him after a tough start with the injuries.”

Born has responded well to his new role. He was averaging 3.4 points per game in late December but finished the season scoring 7.6 per matchup. He scored in double digits in UNI’s last three games and stepped up when it mattered.

Born dropped 20 points against Loyola Chicago on Saturday – with the MVC regular-season championship on the line. He played 35 minutes against the Ramblers and scored five points in overtime to help the Panthers to a victory. The win propelled UNI to the No. 1 seed heading into Arch Madness.

Born earned a spot on the league’s all-bench team in addition to being named the MVC Sixth Man of the Year.

Born is the first to admit that, yeah, individual awards are nice. But there’s a lot of work behind that recognition, and a lot of support from his teammates.

“A lot of credit to my teammates,” Born said. “All these guys are just so fun to play for and they helped me thrive and helped me get these individual awards. But I definitely just want to go out there and try to win tournaments.”

Alyssa Hertel is a college sports recruiting reporter for the Des Moines Register. Contact Alyssa at ahertel@dmreg.com or on Twitter @AlyssaHertel.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: UNI basketball's Bowen Born overcomes injury to win MVC Sixth Man award