DeKALB – NIU women’s basketball (13-15, 6-10 MAC) mounted a 15-point fourth-quarter comeback, fueled by graduate student guard Chelby Koker, for a thrilling 84-77 double-overtime victory against Bowling Green State University (16-12, 9-7 MAC). 

“I think there’s been times this year where we’ve seen that fight, but not to the degree we saw it today,” NIU women’s basketball head coach Lisa Carlsen said. “I keep reflecting back on this senior group that wants to play basketball as long as they can together. And I think all of them stepped up in a big way today and gave us an opportunity to stay alive and in the hunt.”

With Saturday’s win over Bowling Green, NIU now sits just one game back of the final spot in the MAC tournament, snapping a three-game losing streak. 

The Huskies have two games remaining on their schedule, facing off against the University of Toledo and Miami University (OH) to finish the season. Both Toledo and Miami are in the top-five in the MAC standings. 

“It’s March,” Carlsen said. “College basketball in March is pretty magical. Maybe we start our ‘survive and advance’ a little bit early, but this group understands what’s on the line. They understand the goals we set at the beginning of the year. We have made it difficult on ourselves, but this is a huge step in the right direction.”

Koker delivered a fourth-quarter takeover to help the Huskies to a double-overtime win, scoring 10 of her 28 points in the fourth. Koker also delivered a game-tying buzzer beater at the end of regulation to force overtime. 

“In the timeout, with the play we were running, I said, ‘wings be ready to shoot,’ because I knew that they were really going to crash in the paint,” Koker said. “And I thought Sidney (McCrea) had an amazing look and that was a great shot and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

The graduate guard iced the game with six consecutive free throws after Bowling Green head coach Fred Chmiel was assessed a technical foul and was ejected from the game late in the second overtime period. 

Koker’s final statline for the game included 28 points on 8/18 shooting from the field, 1/1 from three and 11/12 from the charity stripe while also picking up 5 rebounds and 4 assists. 

“I think they (Bowling Green) did a good job defensively, trying to take away what we wanted to do,” Koker said. “I think they had a really good guard guarding me and a lot of times, they were putting two on the ball. So, I think just being able to find my teammates and they were able to hit shots.”

Freshman guard Lexi Carlsen also played an important role in the Huskies’ late comeback, totaling a career-high 19 points in the contest. Carlsen had 8 points in the Huskies fourth-quarter comeback. 

The freshman guard shot a team best 53.8% (7/13) from the field while also shooting 50% (4/8) from three-point range.

“My teammates were finding me, when 

they (Bowling Green) were putting two on Chelby (Koker) she found me a lot,” Lexi Carlsen said. “And I think shooting with confidence is all I can do at this point.” 

Aside from Lexi Carlsen and Koker’s heroics in the fourth quarter on Saturday, the Huskies shot 10/13 in the fourth and had their highest-scoring quarter of the game with 23 points. 

The Huskies entered the fourth quarter shooting just 30.2%, 13/43, from the field. 

Redshirt senior guard Sidney McCrea also turned in a key performance in Saturday’s win. McCrea totaled 13 points on 4/8 shooting from the field and 3/6 from three. 

McCrea also had 7 rebounds, 1 assist, 3 steals and 1 block. McCrea had a key steal late in the fourth quarter that led to Koker’s game-tying shot to end regulation. 

“We have seen that from Sid (McCrea) a lot,” Lisa Carlsen said. “People want to talk about the struggles over the last few games but that’s the Sid we know and love. The confidence that she came out and played with early really kind of set the tone in the first quarter and then she hit some big shots down the stretch, playing a lot of significant minutes.”

UP NEXT

The Huskies next game will be at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Convocation Center in DeKalb against Toledo. The game will be livestreamed on ESPN+ and live stats will be available via SIDEARM Sports.