In just a mere whisper, the NIU men’s basketball season came and passed just as quietly.

Unless you were actually in attendance at the games, you probably didn’t even notice that it happened. Who could blame them? For the most part, the season was uneventful and had nothing to bring students out to the games.

It is not a far stretch to believe that the general NIU population couldn’t name the starters for this year’s Huskies; even more so, who led NIU in the major statistical categories.

Primarily a football school now, NIU struggled to get attendance over 2,000 for most games. Not even on special occasions like Cram the Convo when tickets were only a $1 for non students was this achieved.

Even worse was the student section attendance. Although tickets are free to students, it wasn’t hard to count how many people you saw in the ‘Convo Nation.’

But were the Huskies really that bad?

There’s no denying NIU had a subpar road record which only saw two non-neutral site victories as well as a goose egg in MAC play. At home, the Huskies were a much better team going 8-4 for the season.

Not a stellar record but one that should have at least more than a handful of students at games. NIU provided a solid two hours of entertainment for home games.

Who could forget Mike McKinney flying over defenders to throw one down or Anthony Maestranzi kicking the ball to Todd Peterson on the baseline for a key three pointer late in the game?

How many Huskies fans can say they remember perhaps one of the greatest Huskie highlights of the season? A play which saw Peterson knocked to the floor after snagging a rebound then tossing it up from the ground to McKinney for an alley oop.

The record may not indicate this, but the NIU men’s basketball team had the nation’s 14th best free throw percentage as well as the nation’s 17th best three point percentage.

Where will the fans be next season? The Huskies are returning their entire team with the exception of Jonathan Byrd who finished his last game with NIU against Toledo. They also add redshirt freshman center Craig Reichel and Iowa transfer Ben Rand.

While the Huskies had an uphill battle all year, it is hard to maintain any kind of streak when injuries keep piling up all season long.

Although the Huskies may not be playing in the Big Dance or the NIT, they need to be applauded.

Congrats to the Huskies. The season may not have turned out the way you had hoped, but for the basketball die-hards, entertainment was never shy.