This past weekend, the Northern Michigan men’s basketball team traveled to Houghton to face off against the Michigan Tech Huskies on Saturday, Feb. 17. The ‘Cats fell short to the Huskies in an 80-69 defeat. 

The Wildcats started out of the gate with a pair of successful free throws from Senior Sam Schultz. The ‘Cats were quick to grab an eight-point lead with a three pointer from freshman Riley Brooks and a jumper from junior Carson Smith. Smith also had a clean three pointer midway through the half to maintain the lead over the Huskies. As the half was winding down, Sophomore Dylan Kuehl sank a three pointer to end 37-32 before heading to the locker room. 

“I thought we made a ton of mistakes, defensive mistakes, offensive mistakes. I thought we played scared to lose instead of excited to win,” Head Coach Matt Majkrzak said. “It felt like we were down 30 the whole time.”

Schultz came out quick in the second half with a three pointer before Tech made back-to-back three pointers to tighten the score. The Huskies’ Marcus Tomashek made five three pointers in less than 10 minutes to push ahead of the ‘Cats score. The game continued with both teams playing neck and neck and gaining crucial points. NMU struggled without their top scorer, sophomore Max Weisbrod. The game ended 80-69 in favor of the Huskies. 

Smith scored 20 overall points, was 8-11 in field goals and 2-3 on three-point attempts. Kuehl and Brooks had 14 and 13 points each and collectively had three assists overall. 

“Part of me went, ‘all right, we have no point guard at all.’ Carson did an unbelievable job trying to play point guard. We went into the year with four point guards on our roster and we went into that game with zero,” Majkrzak said. 

The Wildcats look ahead to play a weekend of GLIAC games, traveling to play the Saginaw Valley State Cardinals on Thursday, Feb. 22 at 7:30 p.m. and the Wayne State Warriors on Saturday, Feb. 24 at 3 p.m. The Cardinals are currently ranked eighth in the conference and the Warriors are sitting in last. 

“Saginaw is a really hard place to play and I think Wayne State all year has played a lot better than their record showing. They’ve played everyone tough, and they’ve lost a lot of close ones, and you know both opponents are scary,” Majkrzak said.

The ‘Cats hope to improve their record before the GLIAC tournament to hang onto the number one conference seed.