Up 15 in second half, NIU men fall in overtime to Western Michigan

The NIU men’s basketball team blew a 15-point second-half lead in Mid-American Conference action Tuesday, losing 95-90 in overtime at Western Michigan.

The Huskies (6-9, 0-3 MAC) were without key players Keshawn Williams, Yanic Konan Niederhauser and Zarique Nutter. They lost for the fifth straight time and eighth straight time against an NCAA Division I opponent.

David Coit scored 32 points and dished out a career-best 10 assists for his first double-double. Xavier Amos added 14 points and Quaran McPherson 12. Harvin Ibarguen had nine points and a career-high 13 rebounds.

The Huskies led 55-40 after an alley-oop basket from Coit to Ibarguen with 17:43 left in the game. WMU (6-9, 3-0) took its first lead at 79-78 with 24 seconds left. McPherson had a chance to win the game with a pair of free throws with 10 seconds left, but he made only one.

The game was tied at 86 with 2:06 left in the overtime, but the Broncos scored the next six points over 90 seconds to secure the win.

“We have to put two halves together, and we didn’t,” NIU coach Rashon Burno said. “We got annihilated on free throws 47-24 – a lot of missed calls – but we didn’t do anything with aggression in the second half. We scored on the first possession, but we were outscored by 15 points, we have an inability to play the right away when we are ahead.”

NIU is home for the next three games, starting Saturday against Bowling Green.