Usually losing by 28 points isn’t looked at in a positive way, but playing against two NCAA tournament teams from a year ago, NIU men’s basketball coach Rob Judson learned a lot about his team.

The Huskies defeated Winthrop 56-50 on Friday to advance to the NABC Classic Championship. However, they lost to host Wisconsin 84-56 on Saturday to finish in second place.

“The final score doesn’t look good, but I’m not worried about that,” Judson said. “As a coach you look to make progress and take positives out of a game. We did that tonight. I think we grew as a team tonight and this experience will help us in the long run.”

Despite the final score, the Badgers and Huskies played close to begin the game. Marcus Smallwood’s jumper, with a little over seven minutes gone in the first half, put the score at 11-9. NIU would get no closer though, as a barrage of three-pointers by UW put it up 35-20 at the half.

NIU came out with spirit as Smallwood connected on an alley-oop dunk from Jamel Staten to open the second half. But Wisconsin scored the next nine points to regain whatever momentum NIU was searching for.

Badger guards Freddie Owens and Kirk Penney each tallied 19 points to lead all scorers.

“Wisconsin is a very good team,” Judson said. “They have a lot of talent and you have to guard them. Their dribble-penetration hurt us tonight. We tried to play a lot of different defenses, but that didn’t matter. They beat us in one-on-one situations on any defense we were in.”

Smallwood led the Huskies with a double-double, pulling in 13 points and 11 rebounds. The only other Huskie in double-digits was Jay Bates with 11 points on a perfect five-for-five from the floor.

Wisconsin was able to take care of the basketball, only committing six turnovers, while NIU turned the ball over 22 times.

Against Winthrop, Smallwood and Perry Smith led the Huskies with 15 points, as Bates added 11 points.

Free-throw shooting, which was a worry of coach Judson’s in the preseason, didn’t improve much in NIU’s opening two games this weekend. NIU shot 17-for-31 from the free-throw line on Friday, followed by seven-for-12 on Saturday.

Winthrop corralled 17 offensive rebounds and converted that into 15 second-chance points.

NIU had a slight edge in the paint, between what Judson called a battle between two evenly matched teams, as the Huskies outscored Winthrop 28-22 inside the lane.

The Huskies now have a week to prepare for Saturday’s home opener against interstate rival DePaul. The game will be broadcast on Fox Sports Net at 5:35 p.m.