NMU men’s hoops fall to Lakers
Courtesy of NMU Athletics
ALLENDALE, Mich. – The Northern Michigan University men’s basketball team dropped a 69-61 Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference matchup at Grand Valley State Thursday (Feb. 6).
The loss drops the Wildcats to 4-16 overall and 3-13 in the conference. The Lakers improve to 15-5 overall and 11-5 in the GLIAC.
Junior forward Justin Newell lead all players coming off the bench to score 24 points for NMU, while sophomore guard Terry Nash added 16 points. Junior forward Chavis Mattison led NMU with six total rebounds.
“I am proud of the fact that we played very hard. The telling stat is they had 21 points off 14 of our turnovers, if you take away half of those we have a great chance to win the game,” said NMU head coach Bill Sall. “They are a great defensive team but you can’t make those kinds of mistakes. Newell had a great game and I thought Nash played really well. We battled for the entire game. Hopefully we can learn how to win on the road.”
The Wildcats held the Lakers to within six points through the first half as GVSU led, 29-25 going into the break.
The Wildcats shot 10-24 (41.7 percent) from the free throw line in the opening half, while the Lakers shot 12-26 (46.2 percent). Newell led all players with 14 first half points.
The Lakers used an 8-0 run with 16:43 remaining in the game to take a 40-28 lead, their largest of the game. NMU chipped away at the lead and a pair of made free throws and a three pointer by Newell cut the Lakers lead to 50-48 with eight minutes left on the clock.
NMU shot 22-45 (48.6 percent) from the floor and were 9-11 (81.8 percent) from the free throw line.
Ricardo Carbajal led five GVSU players in double digit scoring with 20. Trevin Alexander, Rob Woodson and Luke Ryskamp added 12 while Ryan Sabin scored 11.
The Lakers shot 23-49 (49.6 percent) on the night and were 21-25 (84 percent) from the charity stripe.
NMU returns to action at 3 p.m. Saturday (Feb. 8) at Ferris State.