Huskies remain winless in MAC after loss to BGSU
Halftime at the NIU Convocation Center Dec. 18, in DeKalb.
January 3, 2021
DeKalb — The men’s basketball team dropped another Mid-American Conference game with a loss against the Bowling Green State University Falcons Saturday.
The Huskies lose another early season game in MAC conference play and drop to 0-3 in MAC play this season. The Huskies were neck-and-neck with Bowling Green, but in the final six minutes the Huskies went on a cold streak to close out the game, extending Bowling Green’s lead to over 20 points.
The Huskies were led by junior guard Darius Beane who had 13 points in the game, with sophomore guard Tyler Cochran closely behind with 11 points. Sophomore guard Trendon Hankerson had a cold night and only scored four points, shooting 2-12 from the field along, with junior center Adong Makuoi who had two points.
“We really have to share the ball and feed it into the post,” Beane said. “We also need to run our plays more efficiently.”
Turnovers were a major problem for the Huskies in this game. NIU turned the ball over 18 times with nine turnovers coming from each half. The Huskies also had 18 personal fouls that put multiple players in foul trouble towards the end of the game.
“We had 18 turnovers,” Head Coach Mark Montgomery said. “We need to limit the turnovers and knock down some shots to really get our offense rolling.”
NIU only scored 18 points in the first half with Bowling Green scoring 23. The Huskies didn’t take the lead for the whole second half, which seemed to give Bowling Green an opportunity to pull away late in the game.
Bowling Green senior guard Justin Turner led the Falcons in scoring with 20 points, shooting 9-14 from the field.
“Turner really got aggressive on our ball screen defense,” Montgomery said. ”He was turning the corner and driving in the paint, and you cannot let him do that because he will be almost unstoppable.”
Cochran was removed in the first half due to a hamstring injury. Cochran had 11 points at that time and was not able to play for the remainder of the second half.
“Usually when you tweak your hamstring, it’s day-to-day,” Montgomery said. “We will see what he feels like tomorrow. He wanted to play in the second half. He’s a tough kid but we have to be smart about it. We didn’t want him to sustain a long-term injury.”
The Huskies will travel to play the Ohio University Bobcats in their next game Tuesday. The game will be played at the Convocation Center in Athens, OH. Tip-off will be at 5 p.m and can be listened to on the WLBK DeKalb sports radio channel.
