NIU men’s basketball (2-4) dropped its third straight contest in a 98-52 blowout against the DePaul University Blue Demons (6-0) on Saturday.
“We didn’t play well,” NIU men’s basketball head coach Rashon Burno said. “We’re struggling to shoot it, score it, defend it. So we’re not a good ball club at this juncture. I thought we had the right intentions coming out of shoot around, coming out of practice, but you know, we’re shooting below 30% and 20% for the last two ball games.”
The Huskies went into halftime trailing the Blue Demons by a score of 51-15. DePaul outscored the Huskies 26-2 in the paint in the first half and finished the game outscoring 42-18 in the paint.
The Blue Demons led the rebounding battle 30-11 at halftime and finished the game leading 55-30 in the rebound battle.
Sophomore guard Layden Blocker outscored the Huskies by himself in the first half. Blocker totaled 16 points on 6-for-8 shooting in the first half for the Blue Demons.
Blocker finished as the game’s leading scorer with 21 points and grabbed 8 rebounds.
Sophomore guard Quenton Jones was the Huskies leading scorer at halftime with 5 points and 4 rebounds. Jones led the Huskies with 16 points, also contributing 6 rebounds.
Jones followed up a 9-point game Wednesday against Elon University and continues to lead the Huskies in scoring, averaging 14.7 points per game in his first season in DeKalb.
Junior guard Dominic Gooden scored a career- high 10 points in the game, scoring eight of his 10 points from the free throw line, going 8-for-8.
Redshirt freshman forward Tsvet Sotirov also finished the game with a career-high, logging 11 points whileshooting 3-for-9 from three and 4-for-12 from the field.
Junior forward Ethan Butler left the game early with an apparent leg injury in the second half. Butler finished the game with 5 points behind 2-for-10 shooting from the field and 1-for-6 from three.
Senior guard James Dent Jr. came into Saturday’s contest as the Huskies second-leading scorer but finished the game with 0 points, dropping his points per game by 2.3 points. Dent contributed 6 boards and 4 assists, though.
The Huskies shot an abysmal 18% from the field in the first half and 17% from three-point range. NIU finished the game shooting 25.4% from the field and 20.7% from beyond the arch.
This was the Huskies’ worst shooting game of the season after a dreadful shooting performance against Elon University Wednesday.
“We gotta soak in what just happened to us over the last two games and figure out how to get these guys’ confidence back going,” Burno said.
UP NEXT
The Huskies next contest will be at 3 p.m. Wednesday against Valparaiso University, in Valparaiso, Indiana. The game will be aired on ESPN+, with listening available through WDKB 94.9.
