Ohio Out-Guns Huskies 73-55

The day started off pretty interesting when in the 11 AM Alumni game the Cardinal beat the Black 124-120 in OT. I'm disappointed I forgot about this game and missed it. I really am not familiar at all with a lot of the basketball played here before I got to school at NIU. It has always been a football school, whereas before our recent success with the pigskin, basketball has been all the rage.

I never got to experience games at Chick Evans, but I was reminded that during the Convo years, our attendance in 2002-2003 we averaged 3,500 a game with 6,800 attending the CMU game when Chris Kaman played for them.

Then started the real game.

Things are a little hard when one of your most valuable guards goes down for an extended period of time. This is the case with the foot of Jarvis Nichols. Again we are down to 9 players and that is something this team just can't compete with right now.

Ohio has good days and bad days, but they just dominated us in all facets of the game. I guess it's a little revenge after last year when we beat the Bobcats at their place towards the end of the season.

Ohio probably has the best frontcourt in all of MAC basketball, so this game was difficult for our big men. We got out-rebounded and out-shot, especially from the 3-point line.

No point in to going through all of the stats, but you have to look at some things in this game. Player of the game has to be Jake Anderson, who had 16 points and 8 boards! Can somebody please explain how one of our guards is leading the team in rebounding? It's just ridiculous. Sure, Sean Smith scored 19, but he only grabbed half of Jake's total, with 4 for the night. And Sean Smith has almost a half a foot on Jake.

Michael Patton did not have one of his best games, going 1-10 from the field including 0-7 from beyond the arc. Shaun Logan puts his effort in to every game, but was only 1-5 with zero rebounds. Ohio has a lot more depth than what we have right now.

Ohio shot an amazing 48% for the game and getting the early 40-20 lead at half-time was the difference. Attendance was good with 2,324 for Alumni Day.

And if you like fluff, here are some Chronicle articles to take a glance at:

Hart glad to be a Huskie
Huskie Notebook: Phillips mum on Northwestern AD opening
Viewpoint: Kill works hard on recruiting

Also, here's an update on Doug Free for your Super Bowl Sunday:
Rookie season is learning experience for Free