When Dylan Kuehl, Cal Klesmit and Bennett Basich get rolling together, Northern Michigan’s offense becomes nearly unstoppable. The trio proved that Thursday night at Vandament Arena, combining for 70 points in the No. 16 Wildcats’ commanding 83-68 victory over Saginaw Valley State. It was the kind of balanced, efficient performance that has NMU sitting at 20-3 overall and 11-2 in conference play — right in the thick of the GLIAC title race.
Kuehl led the charge with a game-high 32 points on a scorching 14-19 shooting, including 21 in the first half alone. The graduate student added eight rebounds, three assists and three blocks, continuing his all-around dominance this season. Klesmit wasn’t far behind, torching the nets for 24 points on absurd efficiency — 7-8 from three-point range and 8-9 overall. Fifteen of those came in the second half when the Wildcats needed to put the game away. Basich rounded out the triumvirate with 14 points on 5-8 shooting, along with five boards and two assists.
Northern’s offensive execution was nearly flawless. The Wildcats shot 62.5% from the floor, their third-best performance of the season, while connecting on 50% from beyond the arc. Meanwhile, SVSU struggled mightily at the free-throw line, converting just 33.3% compared to NMU’s 82.4%.
After a brief 3-0 deficit to open the game, Northern seized control and never looked back. A 7-0 run in the first half built a double-digit cushion, and a 12-2 burst coming out of halftime extended the lead to 22. Klesmit was particularly lethal after the break, drilling four three-pointers during a stretch that effectively ended any comeback hopes.
But the victory came on the heels of a tough three-point loss to Grand Valley State — a game that has head coach Matt Majkrzak looking inward about his team’s trajectory.
“I keep falling back on ‘we’ll get better, get better, get better,’” Majkrzak said. “And we haven’t. I think I’ve said it for a couple weeks here… if we make a jump, we will win the league. If we don’t get better, we probably will still win a few more games, but we will not achieve those big-picture goals because we haven’t improved in about a month.”
The coach acknowledged the challenge of balancing veteran fatigue with freshman development during this critical stretch of the season.
“Three of the last four years, we’ve taken a massive jump around now,” Majkrzak noted. “That’s really the messaging — we got to get better, and we’re going to keep trying things. I think we’re improving at certain things, but the team overall is not improving, and that’s my job.”
With the regular season winding down and the GLIAC tournament on the horizon, Northern has the talent. Now it’s about finding that next gear at precisely the right time.
