DeKalb, Ill. — Six Sycamores made their Indiana State men’s basketball debuts on Tuesday at Northern Illinois.
That wasn’t the only thing that factored into ISU’s 86-79 loss to the Huskies at NIU’s Convocation Center, but it sure didn’t help.
Chalk it up as a learning experience ISU needed, but didn’t want to learn the hard way
“We’re young. Coach came in and told them, ‘Now ... you guys know,’” ISU forward Jay Tunnell said.
One of the ISU debutantes — Rashad Reed — led the Sycamores with 21 points, scoring 15 in the second half. But as with many of the other new Sycamores it was a mixed bag. Reed also had one assist and five turnovers.
Reed didn’t want to hear any excuses about ISU’s youth, a game he thought the Sycamores should have won.
“We should have won the game. We let them get a lot of loose balls. We let their guards go off on us, which shouldn’t happen.
“They got a lot of tips, we didn’t control the ball, they got a lot of offensive rebounds, they got a lot of second shots. That’s all stuff we can control ... and we didn’t,” Reed said.
ISU (0-1) couldn’t muster any level of consistency on either end of the floor. There were times when ISU looked unsure of itself on the offensive end and it seemed the same on the defensive end as ISU defenders were often late to get to NIU’s shooters.
“It did feel like a lot of guys were new. So many guys are new to this D-1 thing. Communicating on defense, things like that, we have to pick it up,” Reed said.
That didn’t bode well given that ISU feared NIU guards Mike DiNunno and Darion Anderson going into the game, as it turned out, for good reason. DiNunno, a freshman, scored 27 points. Anderson also scored 27 as they combined to make 10 of 18 from 3-point range. Late in the game, with ISU keying on them, they both deftly drove and dished to open teammates for easy buckets.
“[DiNunno] played with a lot of confidence, he played without any fear. That’s the way you have to play. You can’t worry about making mistakes and you have to play with confidence. We just didn’t make it tough enough for him,” ISU coach Kevin McKenna said. “A freshman scored 27 points and only took 17 shots ... I let our guys know about it.”
NIU (2-1) shot 41.9 percent from the field, worse than ISU’s 52.8 percent, but that was somewhat misleading. The Huskies also scored 15 second-chance points and had 15 offensive rebounds. ISU turned the ball over 15 times.
“We scored enough points to be successful, but we came up short in some of the toughness things. Northern Illinois beat us to a lot of loose balls, I thought we had some breakdowns defensively, we didn’t cover what we needed to
It was a mixed bag for ISU in the first half as its fortunes were married to how it did on the offensive end. After an Aaron Carter runner opened season scoring, ISU went down 14-4 to the 3-point loving Huskies.
Josh Crawford gave ISU energy on both ends to keep NIU from running away. He scored all nine of his first half points in a four-minute span in the middle of the first half to keep ISU in it.
ISU fed off of Crawford’s example as a 14-1 run briefly put the Sycamores ahead. During the run, five different Sycamores scored and ISU was noticeably more intense on the defensive end.
“I don’t think there’s any question with Josh what his development has been from the beginning of practice to now. I hope other players see what he’s done because he brings it everyday in practice. It showed in the way he played. I think some of the other guys need to take notice,” McKenna said.
After NIU went back up by five, ISU cut its deficit to two and had the ball with a chance to tie it with the shot clock off, but ISU’s youth showed through. Richard turned the ball over on the baseline trying to rush a shot with 6 seconds left. NIU’s DiNunno sped up the floor and found the mark on a fall-away 3-pointer at the buzzer.
DiNunno wasn’t done. He scored seven points in the first 1:07 of the second half, including a four-point play which fueled an 8-2 run to start the second half for NIU. ISU cut the lead to 55-53 with 13:07 left in the half, but that’s as close as ISU would get as defensive woes continued to crop up. Another NIU run — this time a 15-3 rally — put the game out of ISU’s reach for good as NIU led 70-56 with 6 minutes left.
“We lacked intensity and toughness to make it more difficult on Northern Illinois. The result was 86 points,” McKenna said.
Reed’s 3-point shooting — he scored 11 in the final five minutes — kept ISU within range late, but ISU couldn’t get the stops it needed as the closest it would get to NIU was the seven-point final margin.
Besides Reed, Crawford and Richard, Jordan Printy, Tyler Cutter and Keenan Barlow played their first career games against NIU. ISU has five days to prepare for its home opener against North Texas on Sunday.
“We have to get on the practice floor. We came here with one thing in mind, to get a win, and we didn’t get that done because we didn’t execute well enough. To have the goals we want to have, we have to do better,” Tunnell said.
Indiana State 79
Player min fg 3pt ft r a pf tp
Martin 13 1-2 0-0 0-0 2 0 2 2
Tunnell 21 5-8 2-4 2-2 7 0 3 14
Reed 33 7-12 5-8 2-2 3 1 3 21
Carter 26 5-9 1-3 4-7 5 3 4 15
Richard 31 2-4 0-1 3-6 6 0 4 7
Leitnaker 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Barlow 2 0-0 0-0 0-0 1 1 0 0
Crawford 29 6-9 0-1 1-2 7 1 1 13
Cutter 26 1-4 0-1 2-3 1 2 4 4
Printy 18 1-5 1-3 0-0 1 0 4 3
Totals 28-53 9-21 14-22 35 8 25 79
Northern Illinois 86
Player min fg 3pt ft r a pf tp
Ervin 33 2-4 0-0 1-4 8 1 4 5
Kowal 25 5-8 0-0 0-0 3 1 4 10
Hall 28 1-1 0-0 0-1 0 5 2 2
Dinunno 39 6-17 6-12 9-11 4 4 3 27
Anderson 31 8-14 4-6 7-10 8 4 3 27
Patton 2 0-2 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
K.Smith 0+ 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
S.Smith 3 0-0 0-0 0-0 1 0 0 0
Dzepina 13 2-10 0-0 5-7 8 0 1 9
Landers 12 1-3 0-0 1-2 0 0 2 3
Fisher 3 0-0 0-0 0-0 2 0 0 0
Storm 11 1-2 1-2 0-0 3 0 0 0
Totals 26-62 11-20 23-35 37 15 19 86
Halftime score — NIU 38, ISU 33. FG Pct. — ISU .528, NIU .419. 3-pt FG Pct. — ISU .429, NIU .550. FT Pct. — ISU .636, NIU .657. Turnovers — ISU 15, NIU 9. Steals — ISU 3 (Reed, Cutter, Printy), NIU 10 (Hall 3, Dinunno 3). Blocks — ISU 5 (Crawford 3), NIU 2 (Ervin, Fisher). (*) Team Rebounds — ISU 2, NIU 3. Att — 1,679.
Next — ISU (0-1) plays host to North Texas on Sunday. NIU (2-1) plays Friday at Tennessee State.
College
ISU men struggle in season opener against Northern Illinois
Sycamores’ lack of experience hurts in 86-79 loss
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