Huskies bulled over, losing 89-81

By ANDY PRUSKI

Near the end of Buffalo’s game against NIU Tuesday night, Bulls guard Andy Robinson missed a pair of free throws.

That was about all he missed the entire game.

Led by Robinson’s career-high 35 points, the Bulls snapped a 19-game road losing streak, beating NIU 89-81 at the Convocation Center. The win also broke Buffalo’s eight-game losing streak in the MAC.

Robinson shot 8-for-10 from three-point range and moved into third-place scoring all-time for a Buffalo (7-14 overall, 1-8) player in a road game.

“I felt really good today,” Anderson said. “The basket looked real big to me.”

Twenty-two of Anderson’s points came in the first half to help Buffalo take an 11 point lead.

NIU (5-16, 2-7) took an early 8-2 lead before the Bulls responded with a 15-0 run.

During that run Robinson hit a trio of treys.

“We have to look at film to see how he got open,” NIU head coach Ricardo Patton said. “The kid did a nice job coming off screens. He was running a fever.”

While the Bulls’ lead reached 25 in the second half, the Huskies battled back to within eight before the final buzzer.

NIU guard Jake Anderson was a key part of the comeback attempt, scoring nine points in the final six minutes.

Besides Buffalo, the Huskies’ biggest opponent on the evening was ball control. NIU committed 29 turnovers, which the Bulls converted into 35 points.

“They were making shots and we were making turnovers,” Patton said. “They got easy buckets off of those.”

While some of those turnovers were unforced, the Bulls did rack up 15 steals and forced the issue for NIU.

“We wanted to pressure,” Buffalo head coach Reggie Witherspoon said. “They did a better job in the second half at going at us.”

NIU guard Jarvis Nichols missed the team’s last game with an injury, but returned Tuesday. The junior showed no ill effects, leading the way for NIU with a career-high 22 points.

The Huskies also had some playing time out of senior Ben Rand, who missed seven games with an injury. The forward had two points and five rebounds in 10 minutes of action.

“For him to just get back, I thought he did good,” Patton said.