NIU men’s basketball (6-12, 2-5 MAC) failed to mount an impressive comeback Tuesday, falling 80-77 against the Ohio University Bobcats (11-9, 5-3 MAC) in Athens, Ohio. 

“I thought we had good momentum,” NIU head coach Rashon Burno said. “It’s just losing awareness of where we are time and score wise, but there’s no quit in us.”

The Huskies were able to keep pace with the Bobcats in the first half, trailing 32-30 after the first 20. NIU went 11/25 (44%) from the field, 2/7 (28.57%) from deep and 6/10 (60%) from the free-throw line. 

Ohio broke free in the second half and opened up as much as a 16-point lead. The Huskies began chipping away at the lead, but with five seconds remaining, sophomore guard Gianni Cobb’s buzzer-beating three-pointer fell short. 

Cobb was at the forefront of the second-half comeback, as 11 of his 13 points came in the second half. Following halftime, he went 2/3 from the field, 1/2  from deep and a perfect 6/6 from the free-throw line. 

Switzerland native freshman guard Dylan Ducommun finished with 23 points, one point shy of tying his career high. Ducommun shot 8-14 (57.14%) from the field, 4-6 (66.67%) from deep, and 3-4 (75%) from the free-throw line. 

Despite the offensive performance from NIU, the Huskies allowed 23 points off turnovers, which proved to be the difference in a close game. 

“We can’t have 17 turnovers,” Burno said. “A lot of them weren’t live balls, but they were possessions where we didn’t get a shot. We had two end of the clock situations with Dylan (Ducommun) into the first half and then he stepped out of bounds in a possession.” 

UP NEXT

The Huskies will take on the Ball State Cardinals at 1 p.m. Saturday in Muncie, Indiana. The game will be streamed on ESPN+ and stats will be available on StatBroadcast.

“Getting tested and being on the road shows we can be in games,” Burno said. “Now we just need to tweak and clean up some stuff, stuff that we can control.”