Eagles Defense to Strong for Huskies, setting NCAA record's

      Setting a NCAA record is not something you see every day. But, Eastern Michigan set not one, but two NCAA records in this game vs. Northern Illinois. Holding NIU to only 4 points in the first half of play, and holding them to shoot 3% from the field. EMU ended up winning 42-25.

       Eastern came off a tough close loss to Western Michigan, and needed a win to stay in the MAC West race, and also get back to .500 overall. Eastern Michigan played solid defense the first half, forcing turnovers, getting rebounds, blocking break away shot's, and forcing NIU to take bad shots.

      It's hard to ask for a much better first half then this. Leading 18-4 at halftime seems like a unreal stat. Sure EMU could have scored more but the speed of the game made it a pretty low scoring game. The shot clock ran down on a lot of the possessions, just making the clock run a lot without shot's being taken.

     Defense was the main key in this game for EMU. Riley had 5 blocks, and Bryant had 3. Another positive is that, every player that came into the game for EMU had scored, Glenn Bryant led the team with 10 points, and Harrison close behind with 8.

      EMU did not have the greatest of games shooting but it was good enough to get the win. EMU shot 37% overall, and 28% from 3. Now compare that to NIU's 13% overall, and 3% from 3 point range. EMU held the Huskies 1-33 from 3 a new NCAA record. EMU also  had 41 total rebounds as a team, Balkema led the team with 8 of them.

     Eastern Michigan still only 1 game back from 1st place. EMU improves to 10-10 overall and 3-3 in the MAC. The Eagles are at Ohio next, on Wednesday at 7PM.