Despite the loss, the NIU basketball team did not fold under the bright lights that South Florida presented Tuesday night.

“I really didn’t look at this as a TV game, it was just another game that we tried to win,” said Al Sewasciuk, who finished with a team-high 15 points. “There wasn’t really anything special about it to me.”

With the game broadcasted on a local Fox Sports station and USF bringing an undefeated record into the game and several NBA scouts in attendance to watch USF players, there was no folding in these Huskies.

Staying within a 10-point range of the Bulls throughout the first half, NIU entered half-time down by three.

“I thought Northern Illinois was very well prepared,” said USF coach Seth Greenburg. “They just moved quick and continued to compete and made shots. We didn’t play as smart as I’d like, but maybe they had a lot to do with it.”

While the Bulls came into the game leading the nation in 3-point field goal percentage with a 49 percent average from beyond the arc, NIU held them to 19 percent. The Huskies countered with 36 percent 3-point shooting of its own.

Keeping within striking range until the very end, and down by a low of two points with 10 seconds left, the Huskies hung tight.

“I wouldn’t have guessed that we would be down by three with a chance to tie the game, but that’s what I would’ve wanted,” said Judson.

While the play of NIU, overall, surprised Greenburg and his team, the Bulls possibly weren’t expecting much of a challenge.

“That’s the reason why the game was so close, because we didn’t expect them to be that close to us,” said Will McDonald, who scored a game-high 28 points for USF. “We just thought we were going to blow them out.”

While both McDonald and Greenburg expressed great surprise in NIU’s play, it was the Huskies’ 6-foot-6 power forward that shocked Greenburg the most.

“He wasn’t a focal point,” Greenburg said. “When you’re talking about Northern Illinois, you’re talking about Smith and Rogers. Those are focal points for scouting reports, but Smallwood was very good.

“The funny thing is, we were watching Smallwood in warmups and he’s not making any shots in warmups. And our guys are saying we could run our help off of him, but then he made that first jumper right at the beginning on the baseline, and typical of a coach I go, ‘Yea, he can’t make any shots, ha ha.'”

Smallwood shot his way to a 14-point night on 4 for 8 shooting from the floor, and six rebounds that all seemed to come at crucial times.

Competing with a team the caliber of the Bulls, Sewasciuk and NIU feel that they can gain from this game.

“When you play a team like this you learn a lot,” Sewasciuk said. “So, we are just going to move on and play better next game.”

Judson agrees that this game only will provide his team with more growth and improvement.

“Our effort and our competitiveness are becoming pretty foundational right now,” Judson said. “Now we have to learn to finish games out. But this team will learn. Now the light is beginning to come on during practice and they see all the drills that we do and the teaching that we’re trying to instill, they see how it is put to use on the court.”