Slow start leads to 87-83 loss at Northern Illinois
Chippewas drop to 0-2 in MAC play
Following a 85-63 loss at Eastern Michigan on Tuesday, the Central Michigan men’s basketball team traveled to DeKalb, Illinois on Saturday looking for its first win in Mid-American Conference play.
The Northern Illinois Huskies had other plans.
Behind a well-rounded scoring attack, NIU (9-6, 1-1 MAC) defeated the Chippewas (10-5, 0-2 MAC) 87-83 at the Convocation Center to give CMU their second straight loss.
The Chippewas were down by 17 late in the second half and rallied to cut it down to 3. With two seconds left, senior Josh Kozinski appeared to steal the inbounds pass, but stepped out of bounds to clinch the victory for the Huskies Saturday night.
“You never feel good coming off of a loss. It’s all about the way you respond," Head Coach Keno Davis said. "Earlier in the season, that could have been a 20-point loss, but I felt we brought the energy needed for a comeback and fell one play short."
Like most of its losses this season, the Chippewas were dominated on the boards and struggled shooting. CMU shot 27 percent from the field and was out-rebounded 53-42.
Senior Braylon Rayson led the Chippewas with 29 points on 6-of-18 shooting, including 13-of-17 from the free throw line. The Dallas, Texas native added 5 assists.
Marcus Keene, the nation’s leading scorer (31.2), had his lowest scoring effort of the season. Keene finished with 14 points on 4-of-11 shooting. Keene shot only 4-of-10 at the free throw line as well where he averages 84 percent.
The transfer from Youngstown State picked up his fourth foul late in the second half and had to sit for a large portion of the contest. Big men Luke Meyer and DaRhon Scott also got into foul trouble, which forced Davis to go to his bench.
Freshman David DiLeo picked up the slack with a career-high 22 points on 6-of-14 shooting, including five 3-pointers.
“We had a lot of young guys who had to step up with Luke and DaRhon getting in foul trouble,” Davis said. “Unfortunately, sometimes to make those strides, you have to take some losses.”
The Huskies had four players score 16 points or more and led for 73 percent of the game.
NIU shot only 4-of-20 on 3-pointers, but grabbed 23 offensive rebounds which led to 20 second chance points.
“The schedule makers did not do us any favors,” Davis said. “There is a part of our schedule that isn’t as demanding, but you have to know that in this conference, anybody can beat anybody. I know our guys will be excited about the opportunities we got coming up.”
The Chippewas will return to McGuirk Arena on Tuesday to play Akron at 7 p.m. before taking on Toledo on Friday at 7 p.m.
