Fourteen three-pointers sunk the NIU men’s basketball team Saturday in Kalamazoo, Mich.

In their fourth consecutive road loss, the Huskies dropped a 52-71 decision to this year’s MAC favorite Western Michigan and fell below the .500 mark in conference play.

The Broncos’ hot shooting was the afternoon theme as WMU went 14-28 from three-point range and hit 43 percent of their shots from the field. NIU managed to capitalize on 37.7 percent of its opportunities but only dropped in four of its 15 three-point attempts.

“They were red-hot from three-point range, and we weren’t,” said NIU head coach Ricardo Patton. “We struggled to make anything from outside. When you aren’t making shots, it puts pressure on your defense to continue to get stops, and that’s what happened to us, particularly the first half.”

The Huskies quickly fell in the first half going down 7-1 in the game’s first six minutes of play. NIU would find itself down by as much as 19 points before cutting the lead to 17 before halftime.

NIU opened the second half with an 11-3 run, dropping the lead to nine with 16 minutes left to play. During the team’s second-half effort, sophomore Sean Kowal scored 12 of his team high 14 points and hit two back-to-back layups to bring the Huskies within eight. A trey by WMU’s Andre Wicks would seal the win, and NIU would not come within more than nine points of the Broncos for the rest of the game.

“They were just making shots, whether they were open looks or contested,” Kowal said. “We lost them around the three-point line too many times in the first half, and they made up pay by knocking down some big shots.”

Kowal said his team lacked the defensive spark they had played with in their previous two games. The Huskies held Toledo to a season low 34 percent shooting performance and then kept Ball State to 60 points earlier in the week.

“Defensively, we didn’t come out with that fire,” Kowal said. “You need to have that fire to win ball games especially on the road in conference play.”

The Huskies return home today to square off against Eastern Michigan at 7 p.m. at the Convocation Center.

The Eagles (3-14, 1-2) ended their weekend play with a loss to Toledo and will look to rebound tonight.

Eastern Michigan ranks 10th in the MAC in scoring offense, averaging 61.8 points a game, while the Huskies sit in the second spot, averaging just less than 68 points a matchup.

NIU hosts the Eagles with a 3-2 home record compared to going 1-5 on the road.

“We often talk about being able to ‘take the show on the road,’ and right now, that is very difficult for us,” Patton said. “That is typically the case for a young team; it’s a tough thing to play in hostile environments.”