And, surprise: they lost!
Image by Chris Trotman / Getty Images
The Northern Illinois Huskies — that's their mascot on a football field, above — played against the Eastern Michigan Eagles Saturday at Eastern Michigan. Northern Illinois is not a good basketball team: at 4-13 before the game, they're averaging only 57.6 points per contest — 337th in the country — and only scored five in the first half earlier this season against Dayton en route to a 60-43 loss. At the time of that game, the five points was a record for fewest in a half in Division I basketball during the shot-clock era. But Saturday, at Eastern Michigan: that was particularly bad.
The Huskies managed only four points in the first half, one on a jumper a minute into the game and then two on free throws, breaking their own record for fewest points in a half. After that first jumper, the team managed to go a full 24 minutes and 33 seconds without making a shot from the field, not managing to score a non-free throw basket until a layup 5:33 into the second half. From there on, they managed another 18 points, losing 42-25. (The Northern Illinois website described the performance as the team's "best defensive effort since 2005-06, which is a remarkably optimistic way to think about it.)
I don't have video, so the best way to convey the team's futility during that missed-shot streak is through the play-by-play, which I've pasted below, complete with some helpful commentary. Over the whole game, Northern Illinois went 8-61 from the field and 1-33 from the three-point range: 13.1% and 3.0%, respectively.
