CEDAR FALLS - Baseball or basketball?

For the past six weeks, the University of Northern Iowa's Lucas O'Rear has been wrestling with that choice.

"It's been pretty rough, not a whole lot of sleep going on and a lot of conversations with my dad and coach (Ben) Jacobson," O'Rear said.

After UNI eliminated its baseball program this spring for financial reasons, the Missouri Valley Conference's sixth man and hard-throwing right-hander seriously considered transferring to another school to concentrate on baseball.

Recently, O'Rear decided he'll return to UNI for his junior basketball campaign.

"I've got a full-ride here, so that's hard to turn down," he said. "It would be difficult for someone who played (23) minutes last year to be up and gone. When we figured it all out, we thought it would be best if I come back here."

O'Rear had plenty of interest from other schools.

Missouri State and Indiana State offered O'Rear approximately 60 to 70 percent of a full scholarship for baseball, but UNI officials refused to release him from his scholarship to either one of those Valley schools.

"When we talked with Lucas, we made the decision to release him to four or five baseball schools to gather information and see where he was at," Jacobson said. "At the same time in making that decision, we made the decision not to let it be to another Valley school. That was our decision."

Eastern Illinois would have paid for O'Rear's tuition fees and books.

Kansas, meanwhile, was high on the Nashville, Ill., native's radar. UNI granted Kansas permission to speak with O'Rear, who took a visit to the campus in Lawrence.

In fact, O'Rear might have became a Jayhawk if this year's draft turned out differently.

One of Kansas' incoming pitching recruits was projected to go in the 12th round. If that would have happened, the Jayhawks were willing to pay for tuition, books and "a little more," O'Rear said.

However, the recruit fell to the 23rd round and didn't sign, leaving Kansas with limited financial help for O'Rear.

The 6-foot-6 and 240-pound O'Rear, who compiled a 4.67 ERA in 17 1/3 innings this spring for UNI, had two 10-day contracts with the Northwoods League's Rochester Honkers this summer, in hopes of becoming more visible to college baseball programs.

O'Rear said his dad's prior experience in minor league baseball factored into his decision. Mike O'Rear played in the Cardinals organization, but didn't have a lengthy career.

"He knows it better than I do," Lucas said. "If you don't cut it, you're cut. There's 200 people just like you or better than you."

O'Rear witnessed that first-hand with Rochester. Despite a fastball in the low 90s and a solid slider, he didn't stand out from the other pitchers on the staff.

"I was one of the harder throwers at UNI, but up there I was an average joe," he said.

That said, he hasn't completely closed the door on baseball. After the 2009-10 basketball season, O'Rear could transfer to another school and still have two years of eligiblity remaining for baseball.

"Down the road, hopefully I can get into baseball and make that a career," O'Rear said. "It's just not the right time to do it. I've got a good thing going here. The atmosphere, the fans are awesome and we've got a good team coming back.

"It'd be really hard to leave."

O'Rear averaged 5.2 points and 5.5 rebounds per game last season for UNI, which captured the school's first Valley regular-season championship and reached the NCAA tournament for the fourth time in six years.

With O'Rear returning, the Panthers bring back nine of their top 10 players from a year ago.

"We're all really excited," senior forward Adam Koch said. "We really didn't know what he was going to do. It was a neat opportunity for him with baseball. It worked out great for us to have him back this next year."

Because of that, it allows UNI redshirt freshman Austin Pehl and Jake Koch another year to develop. O'Rear joins a frontcourt with Adam Koch, Jordan Eglseder and Adam Rodenberg.

"I'm sure Rodenberg or Pehl could have picked it up," O'Rear said. "You've got your puzzle, though, and if a piece is missing, it's going to be hard to patch that up.

"If I was going to make this decision six months ago, (Jacobson) could have recruited somebody. It's just bad timing on my part. It's best if I stay here."

That said, he'll have to shave his "summer goatee." Jacobson doesn't allow his players to have facial hair during the season.

"As soon as he got away from coach Jake, I think he just let it go," Koch said. "He can get away with it in baseball."