Northern Illinois Hands Men's Basketball 73-54 Loss

Tuesday, January 10

DeKalb, Ill.

8 p.m.

Central Michigan University

6-10,1-2MAC

Northern Illinois

5-11,1-2MAC

Central Mich.

NIU

Photo by: Jack Reeber '23,M'25 - @jackreeber.raw

1/10/2023 10:43:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score Boxscore (PDF)

NIU scores 37 points off 22 Central Michigan turnovers; Brian Taylor leads CMU with second consecutive double-double with 15 points and 11 rebounds, Markus Harding finishes with 11 points and five rebounds.

By: Greg Hotchkiss

DEKALB, Ill.—David Coit scored a game-high 23 points and Zarique Nutter finished a career-high 22 points as Northern Illinois scored 37 points off 22 CMU turnovers to register a 73-54 win over Central Michigan in men's basketball Tuesday evening at the NIU Convocation Center.

Northern Illinois finished with a season-high 14 steals, hit 8-18 3-pointers, shot 49 percent (25-51) from the floor, and the Huskies scored 37 of their 74 points off CMU turnovers. Meanwhile, CMU hit just 36.7 (18-49) of its field goals and 12 of 22 free throws, turned the ball over 20 times for the second straight game.

Central Michigan drops to 6-10 overall and 1-2 in the MAC, while NIU improves to 5-11 overall and notches its first win in the MAC with a 1-2 record.

"We've got to show more fight than that," Central Michigan Head Coach Tony Barbee said. "We didn't have it tonight. Our post play was good in spots. We knew they were going to trap the post, but our guys were late to the spacing, which puts a lot of pressure on Markus to be able to pass out of the trap."

"We've got to find a way. We've got to go back and take a look at the tape and take our guys' temperature."

For the second straight game, Central Michigan played without junior Jesse Zarzuela (14.7 points per game). Kevin Miller missed his 12th game of the year.

Senior Brian Taylor led the Chippewas with his second consecutive double-double performance as he finished with 15 points and a game-high 11 rebounds. Sophomore Markus Harding registered his third straight double-figure scoring game with 11 points and five rebounds. Freshman point guard Amani Drummond started the second game of his career and sparked the Chippewas with six points in the opening minutes.

For NIU, Coit hit 9-15 field goals and 4-8 3-pointers en route to 23 points, while Nutter made 7-10 field goals and grabbed six rebounds. Kaleb Thornton also added 16 points.

Northern Illinois took advantage of 12 CMU first half turnovers to take a 40-30 halftime lead fueled by Coit's 14 points and 3-5 3-point shooting.

NIU used a 10-0 run to take a commanding 27-17 lead with 7:24 in the first half. The Huskies hit three 3-pointers in the rally as David Coit started the rally with a 3-pointer, Kaleb Thornton followed with a 3-pointer of his own, then Coit hit 1-2 free throws and followed with another 3-pointer for the 10-point lead. Thornton hit a 3-pointer at the top of the key for a 30-20 lead and a Coit jumper put NIU up 32-20 at the 4:51 mark. Later, Coit swished another 3-pointer, then Darweshi Hunter converted a layup for NIU's largest of the game at 14 points, 37-23, with 2:31 to play in the first half.

Coit extended NIU's lead to 15 points (52-37) with 14:07 to play on a 3-pointer and a driving layup. Nutter backed in for a layup and a 55-39 NIU lead with 11:09 to play. NIU led by as many as 20 points (61-41) with 9:24 to play.

Central Michigan is back in action when it hosts Buffalo at McGuirk Arena on Saturday. Tipoff is at 4:30 p.m. ET.

—CMU—