Coming off a ‘gut-wrenching’ loss to Toledo Tuesday, NIU coach Rob Judson was interested to see how his team would respond.

Two straight wins on the road and Judson had his answer: The NIU men’s basketball team is not going to go away.

The Huskies used a strong defensive effort and a hot second half to take down Eastern Michigan 67-55 Sunday at Ypsilanti.

After the Toledo game, Judson talked about his team’s character. He told them in the locker room they would rise from the loss.

“It’s hard to tell how a team is going to respond,” the fifth-year coach said. “Sometimes a team can just disappear.”

So far, the Huskies have been proving their coach right.

After winning a tight game at Central Michigan, NIU had to try and stop the MAC’s second-leading scorer in John Bowler.

While Bowler came close to his season average in scoring, his 17 points weren’t nearly enough to win the game. Especially when only one other player scored double digits for the Eagles.

The Huskie defense held EMU to 38.9 percent shooting for the game. And while that number isn’t staggeringly low, NIU did hold the Eagles to only one basket in the final 6:07 of the game.

“[The strong defensive effort] is a credit to our conditioning and our depth,” Judson said. “You have to have defensive energy down the stretch. That was the key to the win for us.”

NIU used that final stretch of the game to go on a 15-4 run and seal the victory.

Red-shirt freshman Craig Reichel started his third game to combat Bowler’s size and add a defensive presence down low, Judson said. Reichel and James Hughes have been splitting time for much of the season, with Hughes starting almost every game.

“Craig gives us a little bit more weight down low,” Judson said. “James is a bit more long and athletic. The two of them working together gives us good match-ups in the post.”

With Reichel used mainly for defensive purposes, Hughes has been able to do more on offense. In the three games that he’s come off the bench, the junior averaged 13 points a game. Hughes lead all Huskies with 14 points and five blocks against EMU.

Anthony Maestranzi continued his strong offensive outputs lately with 12 points, and Mike McKinney made all five of his shots for 13 points.