Evidence that there is no such thing as a sure win in college basketball was provided at Chick Evans Field House Monday night, courtesy of Illinois Benedictine College.

The Division III Eagles (14-4) took the heavily favored Huskies (13-2, 4-1) to the wire before succumbing 69-65. It took clutch play from NIU’s Donald Whiteside (14 points in 37 minutes) and Donnell Thomas (24 points, 10 rebounds) in the final minutes to hold off IBC, but not before the visitors put a final scare into the Huskies by hitting a three-pointer to pull within 67-65 with five seconds left.

After an IBC timeout, Thomas took NIU’s inbounds pass, was fouled and coolly hit the clinching free throws.

“There’s no such thing as a moral victory,” said IBC coach Tony LaScala, who was nonetheless pleased with his teams’ effort. “They came out and played hard and when you do that, I’m satisfied.”

“Let’s give credit to (IBC), they’re a very good team,” NIU head coach Jim Molinari said. “They out-fought us in crucial situations. We fought, but we’re a tired basketball team.”

That tiredness is at least partly due to NIU’s first game of the weekend.

Saturday, the Huskies faced a showdown with the preseason Mid-Continent Conference favorites, Wisconsin Green-Bay. A sellout crowd of 6,060 was on hand at NIU to watch the Huskies attempt to win their 12th straight at home and 12th straight overall, both which would be NIU records.

Wisconsin-Green Bay (11-4, 4-1) had other ideas. The Phoenix came out on top with a hard-fought 63-57 victory.

Neither team held more than a six-point lead in the entire game and with 1:40 left, NIU’s Brian Molis hit two free throws to knot the contest at 57.

But W-GB’s stellar guard Tony Bennett took the game into his own hands. His driving, twisting layup with 1:14 left gave W-GB a 59-57 lead. The Huskies tried to respond with a Whiteside three-pointer, but the shot bounced off the iron and W-GB’s Dean Vander Plas hit two free throws with 25 seconds left to seal the win.

A Phoenix dunk put the icing on the cake for the visitors. “I would have been proud in defeat,” said W-GB head coach Dick Bennett, Tony’s father, “because it could have gone the other way.

“Every shot was hard-fought, every shot was contested. Eight guys were after every rebound,” Bennett said. “There wasn’t any slack out there.”

Molinari singled out W-GB’s three-point marksmanship as the deciding factor. “The difference in the game was (W-GB) hitting six of 10 from three-point range,” Molinari said. “It (the loss) is hard to take because we lost at home before a big crowd and I wanted these kids to get the record.”