Technical foul fires up men's basketball in victory over Northern Illinois
With 16:46 to play, Central Michigan Men's Head Basketball Coach Keno Davis was issued his first technical foul of the season. Northern Illinois converted its two free throws to take a 44-43 lead.
It would be the only lead of the game for the Huskies.
Sophomore guard Josh Kozinski hit five 3-pointers en route to a 76-64 Chippewa win over NIU Tuesday at McGuirk Arena.
CMU improves to 15-13 and 8-7 in the Mid-American Conference. The Chippewas enter a two-way tie for second place in the MAC West Division with Toledo (17-11, 8-7 MAC). They trail Ball State (18-10, 9-6 MAC) by one game.
“We’re always excited to win games," said senior guard Chris Fowler. "We’re happy about the win. We've just got to keep it going.”
CMU led 39-31 at halftime before the Huskies stormed out to a 12-3 run in the second half, taking the lead on the Davis technical.
Davis received a warning from the officials in the first half. He was upset with a foul on junior guard Braylon Rayson after NIU's Travon Baker hit a 3-pointer. Baker completed the four-point play to cut NIU's deficit to one with 16:54 remaining in the second half.
Eight seconds later, Davis' technical led NIU to the lead.
“I probably deserved it," Davis said. "I wasn’t using it to get our guys energy. I was just frustrated at the time and just tried to get that message across. I was OK being able to do that and get the technical foul because I knew my team wouldn’t react poorly. They wouldn’t get disrupted by it.”
Davis said he worries about the officiating each game.
“You want the same kind of energy from the officials as you do from your players," Davis said. "I think the officials that we’ve had, I haven’t always agreed with or maybe even liked at some times, but I think they are trying.”
Two free throws from senior forward John Simons and a three-point play from Fowler gave CMU a 47-43 lead.
NIU would cut the lead to 53-52 before Fowler used a jumper in the paint to put CMU up by three with 10 minutes to play. A 3-pointer from Kozinski on CMU's next possession extended the lead to eight. The Huskies would not recover.
“We’ve got a lot of weapons on our team," Simons said. "We’ve got a lot of drivers, we’ve got a lot of shooters. We’ve got guys that finish inside. It comes with the feel of what the defense gives you.”
Four Chippewas scored in double figures, led by Simons' 17. CMU shot 44.3 percent from the floor.
Despite the win, Davis said playing against NIU (18-10, 7-8 MAC) is normally not pretty and called the Huskies a "physical, tough team."
“To get into the 70s against Northern Illinois feels like we got 100 tonight," he said. "They don’t make that easy on you to be able to put points on them."
Fowler, who played NIU for the final time in the regular season Tuesday, knows what the Huskies are capable of bringing to the court.
“There’s no easy baskets, there’s no easy layups," Fowler said. "They challenge everything and make it hard on yourself. You know it’s going to be tough when you meet up against that team.”
The Chippewas avenged the 75-70 loss to the Huskies, which came Jan. 19 in DeKalb. CMU also held NIU's leading scorer, center Marin Maric, to only 10 points and 11 rebounds. No NIU player scored more than 10 points.
“We try and play with the same energy regardless of the position of the game," Simons said. "I think we did a pretty good job of trying to scrap loose balls and rebounds as we could."
The win comes two days after senior guard Rayshawn Simmons sent out a group text telling players to forget about the past and move forward. CMU lost to rival Western Michigan on Saturday, as it was outrebounded and attempted zero second half free throws while giving up 92 points.
The Chippewas made 12-of-16 free-throw attempts against the Huskies.
“We know coming late game, you’ve got to really lock in on defense and be able to execute offensively," Fowler said. "That’s what we were able to do today."
Davis said the Chippewas are going to make the right play when the game comes down to the wire.
“The reason there is something special about (this team) is, we’ve got really special student-athletes," Davis said. "I wouldn’t say that about every team out there or about every team that I’ve coached, but this is right up there at the top of the character scale of players that I’ve been able to coach.”
CMU will take on Toledo at 7 p.m. Saturday in Ohio. With a win and a loss by Ball State against Eastern Michigan, the Chippewas would move into a first-place tie with the Cardinals in the MAC West Division.
