Lookin pretty good Huskies.  You've outdone yourselves, especially at home.  That's where our big victories have been lately against WMU and Akron.  Huskie Nation enjoys the fact that you just didn't lie down and let the rest of the season go to waste.  There are still 3 winnable games still left on the schedule an it's time to make a statement for next year.

It was all about defense for the Huskies, especially starting the game off.  NIU held the Broncos to 10% (2 of 20) shooting for the entire first half.  All the Broncos had was David Kool scoring 31 points for them.  He truly is an amazing player, but got in foul trouble early just like one of their other top scorers, Shawntes Gary.

The Players

Two words: Jake Anderson.  He reached the "on fire" status in the first half of the game, in which he scored 11 and was 3 of 3 from beyond the arc.  He finished with 26 pts.  If Jake is on, then there really is no stopping this team from winning.  He truly is the heart and soul.

Mike Dinunno showed some nifty moves getting to the basket scoring 14.  However, he did turn the ball over a whopping 7 times.  He turned the ball over 8 times in our win over Akron.  Go figure.

Sean Smith and Michael Patton are the unheralded cogs in this young squads depth off the bench.  Both scored 14 and made some deadly shots from 3.  They caused matchup problems and Patton is finally looking healthy.  If Smith keeps getting to the line like he has, there's no stopping our offense.

Sean Kowal got beat up in this game.  He did manage to grab 7 rebounds, but didn't manage to score a single point.  He's on the brink of shooting less than 50% for the season from the stripe.

The Stats

On the heels of Sean Smith and Jake Anderson, the team as a whole shot 71% from the charity stripe for the game.  All despite Sean Kowal's disappointing 0 for 5 in free shots.

This is my first time using StatSheet.com on this website and I encourage all you stat-heads to check it out.  Judging from this chart, we were smart with the ball on offense and got to the line just as much as the Broncos did.  Where we strongly out-performed WMU was in the offensive rebounding, which we won 13-6.  Credit Kowal with 4 of those.  9 were 'team rebounds'

Next up is MAC West leader Ball State on Saturday.  Time to show the Cardinals who is boss in the West for this year and next year.