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Northern Illinois tops Ohio in MAC opener

Huskies win without leading scorer


Lonnie McMillan Photo
ATHENS - Northern Illinois held Ohio to 30 percent shooting in the second half and took a 70-60 victory in the teams' Mid-American Conference opener Wednesday night at The Convo.

Antonio Campbell scored 16 points, and Javarez Willis had 15 points to lead the Bobcats (5-7, 0-1 MAC). Aaric Armstead led the Huskies (7-5, 1-0 MAC) with 17 points.

After Ohio jumped out to an 11-2 lead, Northern Illinois began to take control and eventually asserted itself, even without leading scorer Darrell Bowie.

"A lot of frustrating elements to the night obviously for me and for the players," Ohio coach Saul Phillips said. "I think the word would be energy. We talked a lot about coming out with a lot of energy in your conference opener and for the first five minutes we did, but for the majority of the night, they had more than we did, and we have to figure out how to fix it and fix it in a hurry."

Ohio scored nine straight points to take an 11-2 lead to begin the game, but Northern Illinois got things turned around in a hurry. It had an 8-0 run to go up 17-15 and knotted the game at 32 at halftime on an Armstead corner 3-pointer with three seconds left.

Anthony Johnson and Armstead hit 3-pointers early in the second half, and the Huskies never gave up the lead again.

Northern Illinois scored seven straight points to go up 47-39 with 11:41 remaining, and after Ohio cut its deficit to 49-45 two minutes later, the Huskies went on a 9-3 run to gain a double-digit lead.

Ohio leading scorer Maurice Ndour went 4-of-6 in the first half, but got only two field goal attempts in the second half. He finished with 13 points and 10 rebounds.

"That's a problem, and it doesn't take a genius to figure that out," Phillips said. "We've got to be better than that.

Lonnie McMillan Photo
"I don't think we gave them a chance to compromise their defense by having to double. That has to be an element of what we do. I was befuddled at that."

Instead, the Bobcats settled for jump shots, shooting just 6-of-24 from 3-point range, with nearly half of their field goal tries beyond the arc. They were 3-of-14 on second-half 3-pointers.

Northern Illinois took only 11 shots from beyond the arc and made five of them. It shot 43.4 percent overall despite starting 1-of-10.

Travon Baker had 15 points, Pete Rakocevic scored 12 and Jordan Threloff finished with 11 points.

"They started getting downhill on penetration for their screen-and-roll," Phillips said. "... As soon as they started turning the corner on the screen and roll, and you start giving up offensive rebounds, you start struggling a little bit."

Willis was just 1-of-8 on 3-pointers and Ryan Taylor went 1-of-5 and finished with 10 points and four assists.

Phillips continued to go with a seven-man rotation, leaving out scholarship players Wadley Mompremier and Khari Harley, who has had on-and-off back spasms. Phillips said he struggled finding the right rotation and regretted not giving Harley a few minutes.

"We aren't a perfect team," Phillips said. "We're not flawless obviously, but we're capable of more than what we gave tonight, and that's what hurts. As the head coach of this team, I've got to figure out how to get more out of them. I'd say do some soul searching as a team, but we've done plenty of soul searching. It's time to move ahead.

"We had a lot of mistakes that were self-inflicted. It's going to be a long night in the old Phillips household after the kids go to bed. I've got a lot of teaching to do, and I'll do it. I love to teach, and that's good. We've got something to do."

Ohio plays Bowling Green at 4 p.m. Saturday at the Stroh Center.

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Photos  (BobcatAttack.com)







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