After last weekend’s win against Toledo, NIU men’s basketball coach Ricardo Patton said the next lesson for his young team was to learn how to grind out a win.

Unfortunately for Patton, his team has yet to learn that lesson as the Huskies dropped a 60-54 decision against Ball State Tuesday night in Muncie, Ind.

‘Grinding one out’ was the best way to describe the ongoing battle between the two MAC teams, as the lead changed multiple times throughout the contest. But the Huskies could not hold onto their seven point half-time lead, and fell to 1-1 in the conference.

“That was a case of two ball clubs trying their hardest to come away with a win,” Patton said. We wanted to get a big win on the road, and they certainly wanted to protect their home court.”

The Huskies (5-9 overall, 1-1 MAC) held their opponents to a 36 percent shooting performance in the first half. Ball State (7-7, 2-0) was able to find its second wind after a three pointer by junior Rob Giles in start of the second half. BSU quickly changed the momentum and tied the game at 49-49 with 13 minutes left to play.

During Ball State’s dominating run, NIU went 2-7 from the field, after hitting 60 percent of their shots in the first half. The Huskies ended the second half going 7-24 from the field, and hit only one of seven shots from behind the arc to seal their fate.

“I thought our defense was better in the first half,” Patton said. “Ball State really came out and did a better job of executing against our 3-2 zone in the second half, and I’m sure they addressed that at halftime. We made more shots, and played much better in the first half than we did in the second.”

Despite losing top scorer Anthony Newell against Eastern Michigan earlier this week, BSU saw three players step up to score in double-digit figures.

Three Huskies also scored in double-digits as sophomore Darion ‘Jake’ Anderson led his team for the second game in a row with 16 points. Freshman Mike DiNunno put up 13 points, while sophomore Sean Kowal added 10. Anderson also led the team in rebounding (9) and assists (4).

NIU owned statistical advantages in shooting percentage, rebounds, and blocks, but could not put the game away against the Cardinals. The Huskies committed 16 turnovers to Ball State’s nine, allowing their opponents to score 17 points off the miscues.

“The late unforced errors really cost us a chance to win,” Patton said. “There were a number of things we did to hurt ourselves. Without question, the two major areas of concern going forward are the turnovers and our struggles from the free throw line.”

NIU finished the game going 8-20 from the charity stripe, a statistic that Patton says will lose the game every time.