During Jim Molinari’s brief tenure as NIU men’s basketball head coach, the prevalent message he has tried to impress upon his team is the importance of defensive pressure.

If Tuesday’s 89-57 victory over the Sydney Kings is any indication, Molinari’s message has come in loud and clear.

The Huskies managed to force the Kings into 31 turnovers, thus enabling them to hold their opponent 30 points under their scoring average.

“That’s (defense) going to be our trademark,” Molinari said. “I think that we played good defense, but we fouled to much,” he said. “Our motto is still to go to war on every possession.”

Though Molinari was pleased with the play of his team’s defense, he refused to get overly excited by the win.

“Before we get too excited, this team (Kings) has played four games in five nights,” Molinari said.

“We’re not going to play teams that play four games in five nights,” the second-year coach added.

Despite Molinari’s guarded optimism, he was openly impressed with the play of his freshmen. “I’m pleased with the play of all of them,” Molinari said.

“But it’s not the freshmen who are going to be the key to this team, it’s the seniors,” he said. “Our seniors continue to give us good leadership.”

Perhaps the two seniors who provide the most leadership are starters Donald Whiteside and Donnell Thomas. Whiteside scored 12 points in 25 minutes, and had a team-high 2 steals.

“I feel that my intensity defensively was pretty good,” Whiteside said.

“I can improve offensively,” the senior point guard said. “The key is never being satisfied with your performance.”

Thomas, who scored 16 points in a little over 19 minutes, said he could tell the team was nervous in the beginning of the game, so he decided to jump-start the offense.

Thomas said the team’s defense will set the tone to how well they can play.

“We know there is going to be nights when our offense will be off, but we can always play defense,” Thomas said.