Despite being held scoreless, Huskie guard Perry Smith’s defensive effort on Drake guard Luke McDonald was enough to satisfy coach Rob Judson and help lead NIU to a 77-62 victory.

McDonald, Drake’s leading scorer and the Missouri Valley Conference’s returning points leader, was held to seven points on 1-of-6 shooting.

“His job was to stop Luke McDonald, leading returning scorer in the Missouri Valley, and he held him to seven points on 1-of-6 shooting,” Judson said. “He did a great job and so did everyone.”

NIU junior Marcus Smallwood scored six of his 17 points in the first four minutes of the game to get the Huskies (3-3) out of the blocks. He finished 7-of-9 from the floor and added a team-high seven boards.

With 2:47 left in the first half, NIU enjoyed a 31-25 lead, but then a barrage of three pointers by Al Sewasciuk and Todd Peterson ended the half and sealed the game.

Sewasciuk finished with a career-high 25 points and seven three-pointers.

Peterson’s only buckets came from downtown as he finished with six points on two treys.

“I was really impressed with Northern,” Drake coach Kurt Kanaskie said. “They shot 61 percent in the first half. I don’t think we did a very good job defensively, but I think Northern Illinois had a lot to do with that.”

Freshman guard Anthony Maestranzi enjoyed his first start of the year and it will be one that will go in the record books.

Maestranzi set a school-record by hitting his first two three-pointers to extend his consecutive three pointers made to eight. He was 6-for-6 on Saturday against Valparaiso and 2-of-2 Wednesday.

“I think it’s a great credit to my teammates,” Maestranzi said of the record. “Smallwood and Rome [Sanders] draw so much people inside that it’s easy to find open shooters like me and Al. Of the eight threes I’ve hit, I think maybe one or two have been contested so it’s just getting open shots in the offense.”

Free throws, which have been a problem for the Huskies, were greatly improved as 16-of-18 found the bottom of the net.

The full-court press defense that NIU wanted to use to run down the road-weary Bulldogs – who have not been home in eight days – was a success. The Huskies forced 21 turnovers and had 14 steals.

“A lot of that was the Drake travel, coming back from Hawaii,” Judson said. “They had some tired legs and we wanted to keep attacking offensively and defensively. Our team is just making progress and being better and better at attacking and making better decisions in that attack mode all the time.”