Beating one of the best teams in the MAC West is an accomplishment any way you look at it, but NIU’s 59-45 victory over Central Michigan had some asterisks to examine.

The Chippewas (16-8 overall, 8-4 MAC) showed up at the Convocation Center on Wednesday night, but that’s about all the group can be credited with. CMU played a sloppy brand of basketball that led to a runaway win for the home-team Huskies.

Coming into the game, the Chippewas were averaging 83.2 points a game and had four players averaging double digits. Against NIU on Wednesday night, though, CMU shot a paltry 26 percent and finished with only one player in double digits.

“We got so frustrated with ourselves,” said CMU head coach Sue Guevara. “We shot ourselves out of the game.”

The Huskies (11-14, 5-7 MAC) were relentless under the boards on a night the Chippewas needed second-chance points more than ever.

Highlighted by Ebony Ellis‘ 20th career double-double, NIU out-rebounded CMU 45-34, and out-scored the Chippewas in the paint 24-16. Ellis tore down 10 of her 12 rebounds in the first half. Guevara credited Ellis and the Huskies, but thought the first half ranked among the worst her team has played this season.

“I told the girls that they weren’t very coachable in the first half,” Guevara said. “By the time we finally started to follow the game plan it was too late.”

Ellis chalked her 11 point, 12 rebound performance up to a newfound intensity, formed in practice.

“The main goal was to rebound like no other tonight,” Ellis said. “In practice, the coaches have even had me rebounding when we are practicing free throws.”

While Guevara looked at Wednesday night’s game as a failure on her team’s part, NIU head coach Kathi Bennett preferred to look at the performance as a culmination of hard work.

“They were a transition team, but we got back and made them play a half-court offense,” Bennett said. “We have talked about not taking steps backward and we showed that we can do that tonight.”