PORTLAND, Ore. - Call it the "five-point curse."

Despite a new head coach and only two players on its roster from the school's last NCAA Tournament appearance, the result remained the same.

The University of Northern Iowa basketball program made another first-round exit Thursday, and once again the difference was five points.

After clawing back from a 13-point deficit in the second half, UNI couldn't get over the hump in a 61-56 setback to fifth-seeded Purdue at the Rose Garden.

"We're going to have to get that fixed one of these times, and I don't mean getting beat by a different number," said UNI head coach Ben Jacobson, who was an assistant under Greg McDermott in the program's five-point losses to Georgia Tech (2004), Wisconsin ('05) and Georgetown ('06). "We're going to win a game. I don't have any questions about that."

"This group is proof that we're going to have an opportuity to play in the tournament again."

UNI, which hadn't played in 12 days since winning the Missouri Valley Conference tournament, was overwhelmed by Purdue in the opening 10 minutes.

Taking advantage of turnovers and second-chance opportunities, the Boilermakers (26-9) reeled off a 14-0 flurry to snare a 20-8 advantage.

"It helped that we had played about four days ago," Purdue's Robbie Hummel said. "(Twelve) days is a long time. So I thought that was to our advantage."

The Panthers were forced to play catch-up the rest of the way.

"There were so many new things for us," UNI junior Adam Koch said. "We had never played against them before, and the past few months we've been playing against teams that we know all about and how they play.

"That, with a new arena and how big of an event this is, played a factor. We had to settle down."

Purdue, which has won 11 consecutive first-round games dating back to 1993, scored 12 of its first 18 points off UNI turnovers.

The Boilermakers also capitalized on seven offensive rebounds in the opening half.

"Our defense hurt us in the first half," senior Travis Brown said. "Once we got the butterflies out of our system, we did a good job of settling down and doing what we do best."

UNI trailed by 12 at halftime and by as many as 13 with 16 1/2 minutes left, but Ali Farokhmanesh buried two 3-pointers to trim the deficit to seven.

"We've been resilient all year," Farokhmanesh said. "We knew we still had a run in us."

Jacobson said, "We just started to play a little bit. It just took us a little while to settle in."

However, Purdue always seem to have a response.

UNI trimmed the deficit to six points on six occasions, but either JaJuan Johnson, E'Twaun Moore or Hummel swung the tide back in Purdue's favor with a critical shot.

The Panthers, meanwhile, missed three consecutive 3-pointers that would have made it a one-possession game.

"We missed some opportunities," Farokhmanesh said.

Moore finished with a game-high 17 points, while Johnson finished with 14.

Finally, with 90 seconds left, UNI's Kerwin Dunham knocked down a 3-pointer to shave the margin to five.

Dunham canned another triple to draw UNI within two with 17.4 seconds left.

The Panthers quickly fouled, but Chris Kramer made both free throws with 16.7 seconds left to all but seal UNI's fate.

"Overall, we stepped up and made some shots today from the free throw line," Purdue coach Matt Painter said. "That was encouraging."

Jordan Eglseder paced UNI (23-11) with 13 points. Kwadzo Ahelegbe finished with 11 points and Farokhmanesh had 10.

The Panthers, who were 6-6 in late December, return their entire starting five next season, but that was of little consolation afterward.

"It's going to be great to look back on it two months from now, but right now it's going to hurt for a while because this isn't where we wanted to be," Farokhmanesh said. "It's great to be here, but we don't want it to end right now."

Contact Matt Coss at (319) 291-1468 or matt.coss@wcfcourier.com