NIU men’s basketball coach Rob Judson wanted to make sure his team got the lead early in its last chance at a road conference win.

They listened.

Unfortunately, after the Huskies went up 3-0, it was all down hill as Eastern Michigan handed NIU its ninth-straight road loss, 79-63, Wednesday night.

The loss also moved EMU ahead of the Huskies (9-14 overall, 5-10 MAC) in conference standings.

“The key was the start of the game,” Judson said. “Those first 12 minutes. We had some really good looks and just didn’t convert.”

The same could not be said for EMU.

The Eagles (12-12, 5-9) took a 24-12 lead in those first 12 minutes and held a double-digit lead from there on.

Markus Austin’s 16 points lead five EMU players in double digits.

“When you have that many players scoring like that it makes it hard to defend,” Judson said. “But the key guy was [Darryl] Garrett. He didn’t play as well when we played them before.”

Garrett was second on the team with 14 points and he also chipped in four rebounds and five assists.

NIU’s Mike McKinney had a team-high 22 points and James Hughes went 7-of-8 shooting for 14 points. But after that the scoring fell off.

In the last meeting, NIU’s Todd Peterson put up 31 points, and that was something EMU was not going to let happen again.

“They were keying on him all night, ” Judson said. “That usually opens up the inside game, but we were missing a big piece.”

That piece was forward Paige Paulsen who missed his second game in a row with a mild concussion.