NIU men’s basketball could not have picked a better time to earn its first road win of the season, as it pulled off an unexpected upset over No. 5 seeded and MAC West champions Eastern Michigan, 55-52.

This is the Huskies (5-25, 3-13 MAC) first win in the MAC tournament since they beat Western Michigan in the quarterfinals of the 2003 MAC Tournament.

“It might be one of the biggest wins in the history of the program,” said NIU junior Tony Nixon. “We haven’t won a first round game since ‘03, and we haven’t been to Cleveland, so this win is great for the program.”

The Huskies will play Western Michigan Wednesday in the second round of the MAC Tournament in Cleveland, Ohio.

“It was great,” said NIU sophomore Aksel Bolin. “This was the road game we had to win and now we’re on our way to Cleveland, so it feels just amazing.”

The first half was a defensive battle as both teams had difficulty finding ways to score. Eastern Michigan shot 13 percent from the field while going 0-9 from the three point line, and NIU had trouble handling the ball, turning it over 10 times.

“We knew it was going to be a low scoring game, just like our other games against them,” Bolin said. “Our defense was really good tonight, they got some looks but they didn’t knock them down.”

The score was 18-11 NIU at half, but it had been in this situation before and come up short.

“We’ve been up at half sometimes,” Nixon said. “We always let teams come back and let the game slip away, and we told each other in the locker room that we weren’t going to let it happen this time, and that we would have to keep fighting and persevering to get this win tonight.”

Despite being up at half, the Eagles were not ready to concede the game as they stormed back with a 12-1 run to give them the lead 31-29 with 11:39 remaining in the game.

The Huskies would answer right back on a jumper from Kevin Gray to tie the game at 31, and then back-to-back three’s from Antone Christian and Stian Berg to increase their lead 37-31.

This would start a stretch in the game where NIU would hit six three-pointers in-a-row. NIU would end up hitting nine three pointers in the game.

“Our shooting was big tonight,” Bolin said. “With their 2-3 zone, they take a away a lot of stuff inside, so we knew we would have to shoot good to get a win.”

The Eagles were able to bring the game within one, 49-48 but Nixon came up with a big layup while Bolin and Berg each knocked down a pair of free-throws to keep the Huskies in front down the stretch.

Nixon scored a game-high 14 points, while Bolin added 13, going 3-4 from the three-point line.