Hot shooting from Central Michigan ended all hopes for a Northern Illinois tournament victory.

After a failed comeback attempt, NIU lost 83-71 in the first round of the MAC tournament to the Chippewas.

“We had a good stretch where we had a run and got ourselves into good position to chip away at the lead,” NIU head coach Ricardo Patton said. “But then we missed free throws and had a couple of missed layups that allowed them to come back down and get the lead back up.”

The game started with a basket from Central Michigan (13-17 overall, 8-8 MAC), and the Chippewas never looked back. CMU was able to keep the lead by raining threes, shooting 52.2 percent from behind the arc.

Huskie (6-21, 3-12) defenders tried to stick with their men, but CMU’s Giordan Watson hit 5–of–7 3-point attempts to lead CMU in scoring with 20 points. Guard Robbie Harman also found ways around defenders to score 4–of–6 3-point attempts. Harman notched 16 points in the CMU victory.

“We didn’t have enough firepower from the perimeter to match their threes,“ Patton said. “Anytime you exchange threes for twos, the threes are always going to beat you.”

Though Central Michigan’s shooting was hot from the field, the Huskies outrebounded the Chippewas 36-29. NIU grabbed 19 offensive boards, to give several second-chance scoring opportunities.

However, the team was unable to capitalize, and missed big shots, Patton said.
“Offensive boards is an area that I think we can improve on,“ Patton said. “We didn’t score on enough of those second-chance opportunities.”

A bright spot for NIU came through the play of freshman Jake Anderson. The guard led the team in both scoring and rebounding, tallying 22 points and seven boards. Though the tournament was a new atmosphere, Patton said Anderson continued to play consistently for the team.

Senior Shaun Logan and junior Sean Smith also scored 12 points each.

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