NIU men’s basketball: Early-season schedule includes trips to Gonzaga, Northwestern, VCU

DeKALB — A self-described NIU men’s basketball locker room full of competitors is certainly going to get some competition this season.

The season starts Monday for the Huskies at home against Illinois-Springfield. But the pre-MAC slate includes four games against Power 5 schools or perennial NCAA tournament teams.

“We have competitors in our locker room,” second-year head coach Rashon Burno said. “I recruited a lot of these guys, they had an opportunity to go elsewhere and the opportunity to go to, on paper, higher-level schools. The one thing I told these guys is we’re going to go out and compete against the very, very best.”

After the opener against UIS, the Huskies head to Northwestern on November 11. They have a trip to Georgia Tech six days later, then back-to-back games at Gonzaga on December 12 and VCU on December 17.

Bruno’s first game as coach was a win at Washington, although the Huskies finished last year 9-21 overall and 6-14 in MAC play. They were picked last in the conference’s preseason poll.

“We have a team full of competitors,” said guard Kalen Thornton, one of three returners with key minutes back for the Huskies this year along with Keshawn Williams and Anthony Crump. “There’s a lot of newcomers, but all it took for them was to see we were picked last for the MAC this year. They’re not expecting anything of us. I think that alone should bring out our competitive nature.”

The competition started early for the Huskies this year, who played three games in August in Canada, allowing the team 10 extra practices Burno said were very productive.

A sophomore transfer from Tulsa and a graduate of Bloom, Williams averaged 16.3 points per game last year. Burno said the offseason goal was to hit the transfer portal and bring in talent to help alleviate some of the load from Williams, and he said he felt he was successful.

He said sophomore Zarique Nutter (Clarendon) was one of those key additions, and he put up 19 points in an exhibition game October 31 against McKendree. Sophomore junior college transfer David Coit added 13.

“You win nine games, it’s hard to get a kid on the all-MAC team,” Burno said. “He throughout the conference season was one of the better players. He was top 10 in scoring, field goal percentage, 3s. So he did a lot for us. But one thing I love about him is focus. He realizes he has help with him this year. It takes a lot for a young man to relinquish the responsibility to do it all. And Keshawn has understood less is more for us this year and focus on other areas of the game.”

Burno said Crump will see an expanded role that will utilize his versatility. He also said he liked how Zion Russell has come along. When Thornton missed the last game of the year at Ohio, Russell took over for him and helped the Huskies pull off the upset to close the year.

It was one of six conference wins last year for the Huskies. Thornton said he feels that number will rise dramatically, thanks in part to the early-season schedule.

“It prepares us to be ready for anybody, anyone,” Thornton said. “When you play these Power 5 schools, all these schools with these accolades, it makes us more prepared to play against schools in our conference. I think they’re great tune-up games in a sense. We’re going in to win, but it’s also going in to help us come February, come March time.”