It looked more like a rugby scrum than a victory celebration and senior co-captain Rodney Davis was on the bottom of the pile.

Davis’ 25-foot buzzer-beater at Drake Jan. 2 gave NIU men’s basketball team its first road win since Jim Rosborough took over last season.

“It’s something I’ll never forget,” Davis said of his 3-pointer that gave the Huskies an 80-78 victory over the favored Bulldogs. “It looked good when it left my hand and it went in.”

Davis called the win “one of the brightest spots of the season,” and it’s hard to disagree with him. The Huskies, who entered Christmas break with a 1-3 record, played 3-6 ball over break.

The momentum from the Drake victory carried over to the Huskies’ next contest when they dropped Loyola 80-78 in the first round of the Illinois-Chicago McLendon Classic. Davis again led the NIU charge with a team-high 20 points.

“It was a big win,” Rosborough said, though he could not hide his dejection over the team’s play in its following three games. “The temptation is to think you’re on an upswing, that you’re coming together.”

It was not to be. In the finals of the UIC tourney, Tennessee State ruined an 18-point, 15-rebound performance by NIU senior John Culbertson with a 90-80 win over the weary Huskies.

“We seemed tired,” Rosborough said, claiming NIU’s first-round game was more physically draining than TSU’s win over the host Flames. “In the last six or seven minutes, they (TSU) cranked it up a notch.”

Culbertson and Davis were named to the First-Team All-McLendon Classic for their efforts. Davis tallied 39 points and Culbertson grabbed 25 rebounds in the two-game tournament.

The Huskies’ only other victory over Christmas break came Dec. 21 against Northern Iowa in DeKalb. A sparse crowd of 1,051 watched freshman Donnell Thomas bring down 14 rebounds as the Huskies came alive in the second half to beat the Panthers 85-66. Davis again led the Huskies with 20 points, including 10-11 shooting from the free-throw line.

“From the standpoint of winning against a team who had been playing well, it was a big win,” Rosborough said. The Panthers beat Louisiana State a week after their loss to NIU.

The Huskies’ loss at home to Western Michigan Dec. 23 was the hardest to swallow for Rosborough. “Maybe the kids wanted to get home for Christmas,” he said. Whatever the case, NIU lost 76-83 despite Davis’ 19 points.

Randy Norman did his best Larry Bird imitation Jan. 9 at Butler. The senior guard drilled seven 3-pointers on a school-record 16 attempts enroute to 27 points against the host Bulldogs. However, BU came away with the victory 84-73.

The Huskies’ other two losses came at Wisconsin-Green Bay Dec. 30 and at Eastern Illinois Jan. 13. Davis again led NIU with 19 points against UWGB, but it was his former East Aurora teammate, Jay Taylor, who topped all scorers at EIU. The junior guard erupted for 29 points as the Panthers notched an 88-80 win.