Ball State University Athletics
Ball State University
19-12 (10-8MAC)
Northern Illinois
20-11 (9-9MAC)
Men's Hoops Falls at NIU, Shares MAC West Title
March 04, 2016 | Men's Basketball
DEKALB, Ill. -- The Ball State men's basketball team suffered an 80-69 loss Friday in its final game of the regular season at Northern Illinois.
Despite the loss, the Cardinals (19-12, 10-8 MAC) share the Mid-American Conference West Division championship with Central Michigan. It's the first division crown for Ball State since it shared the title in 2009.
Ball State will be the No. 6 seed in the MAC Tournament and will host No. 11 seed Miami on Monday at 7 p.m. at Worthen Arena.
Six days earlier, it was Ball State who blistered the nets with 18 3-pointers in a win over Eastern Michigan. Friday, it was Northern Illinois (20-11, 9-9 MAC) who was hot from deep. The Huskies went 14 for 24 from beyond the arc.
"It was a tough game, and I'm certainly disappointed," Ball State coach James Whitford said. "But I have no shame in the way we played tonight. I thought our guys competed their tails off. I thought Northern Illinois played a great game, and they had one of those shooting nights that was reminiscent of the shooting night we had against Eastern Michigan."
Franko House led Ball State with 19 points, while Francis Kiapway had 16, Ryan Weber 14 and Jeremie Tyler 13. The Cardinals were 11 for 27 from 3-point range, including 4 for 5 from Weber.
Ball State trailed 37-29 at the half and could never catch up in the second. The Cardinals trimmed the lead to five shortly after the break but could get no closer, and the Huskies stretched their lead to as many as 17.
Alaric Armstead led five double-figure scorers for Northern Illinois with 14 points and hit 4 of 7 from 3-point range.
Northern Illinois won the rebounding battle 37-33 and committed eight turnovers to 13 for Ball State. The Huskies got 24 points from their bench to only three for the Cardinals, who have held the advantage in bench points in most of their games this year.
The NIU win evened the season series between the teams. Ball State won the first meeting 63-59 in Muncie 15 days earlier.
The Cardinals finished in a four-way tie for the third-best league record but lost out on tiebreakers to wind up with the No. 6 seed. The top four seeds receive byes to Cleveland, while seeds 5-8 host first-round games Monday.
