Gatorade coolers are typically associated with college football games, when coaches and players get drenched after big wins.

Gatorade, however, was flying at the NIU men’s basketball game this Saturday, and it had nothing to do with a victory.

During the 58-45 Huskies loss, physical play was at its finest as CMU’s Robbie Harman found himself soaked after chasing down a loose ball. The guard raced against freshman Mike DiNunno but couldn’t find the breaks as he leapt over the Huskies bench into the cooler.

“The MAC is a physical conference. When you’re competing at a high level, the kids are going to be physical,” said CMU head coach Ernie Zeigler. “I don’t think anything was bordering on dirty-play, but we all know it’s going to be a battle. You had two physical teams who were competing to win.”

Before the Gatorade incident, Harman found himself in a physical battle with DiNunno at half-court. Harman dove in for a steal, knocking DiNunno to the ground. No foul was called, though it looked like DiNunno couldn’t get his leg free from Harman’s grip. Seconds later, Harman was called on a questionable reach-in foul drawing yells from the CMU bench.

Harman and DiNunno kept the physical play high throughout the half, sparking noise from the crowd. Each time Harman had the ball in his hands, he was greeted by boos from the NIU band and a run-in with DiNunno.

“I thought it was a very physical game, as has been the case in most of our conference games,” said NIU head coach Ricardo Patton. “Today, I thought that was to our disadvantage. We didn’t match their physicality and frankly, I thought they pushed us around.”

The Huskies did some pushing of their own. The victim of this run-in was the cameraman sitting below CMU’s basket. Chippewa guard Jeremy Allen was pushed out of bounds on a breakaway shot, where he first met the basket’s support, and then the unsuspecting cameraman.

The hard collision forced theman’s swivel chair to come out from under him and roll onto the court, and both men banged into the ground. The crash made for a great replay for the MegaTron, but resulted in two points on the free-throw attempts.