It was all freshman for 40 minutes in NIU men’s basketball exhibition home opener.

Lee Fisher scored 14 points and pulled down 13 rebounds in Sunday’s 84-72 victory over Freed-Hardeman Sunday afternoon. Guard Mike DiNunno starred in his Huskie debut as well, scoring a game-high 20 points, shooting six-of-13 from three-point range in his first collegiate game.

NIU did not start out as strongly as it would have liked in the first half. The Huskies shot 29 percent in the game’s first 20 minutes compared to FH’s 45 percent and headed into the locker room trailing 40-34. Sophomore Jake Anderson found himself in foul trouble early and played only five minutes in the first half. The guard finished with 10 points on the night.

NIU head coach Ricardo Patton, however, attributes some of the miscues to the continuous search for the perfect team chemistry.

“Some of what happened out there in the first half you can blame on me because maybe I had some combinations that weren’t the best for us out there,” Patton said. “But you don’t know what it looks like until you put it out there. We have to be patient.”

While a pair of freshmen carried the team to victory through their offense, Patton feels the team’s strongest aspect needs to be its defense until everyone is completely comfortable offensively.

“Our defense has to be our strength until our offense comes around,” Patton said. “When you’ve got five guys trying to get a feel for what the others are going to do, that takes a little bit longer than defense. Defense is about effort while offense is a little more smarts and skill.”

DiNunno seemed comfortable on the floor as the freshman scored 12 second half points.

“My teammates were getting me open and luckily my shot was falling in the second half,” Dinunno said. “Obviously it’s our first game playing with each other and we were knocking a few kinks out here and there. We really weren’t in our comfort zone, but coach just told us at halftime to go out and have fun and just play our game.

NIU came out stronger in the second half, shooting 59 percent from the field. The Huskies turned up the defense as well swiping seven steals in the half and forcing FH to commit 20 turnovers in the contest.