Offense Clicking as Men's Hoops Welcomes NIU Tuesday Night

Game 28
Ball State (18-9, 9-5 MAC) vs. Northern Illinois (12-15, 5-9 MAC)
Tuesday, Feb. 20 (7 p.m.)
Muncie, Ind. (Worthen Arena)
Watch (ESPN3) | Listen (WLBC) | Live Stats

About the Cardinals
• Ball State welcomes Northern Illinois for the first of two meetings over the next 11 days. The teams will close the regular season against each other March 2 in DeKalb, Illinois.

• The Cardinals have won four games in a row and six of their past seven, climbing to No. 90 in the NCAA RPI. Most recently, BSU handled MAC West Division leader Toledo 99-71 Saturday. BSU has handed the Rockets two of their three league losses this year.

• Ball State's success over the past seven games has coincided with Tahjai Teague playing the best basketball of his career. The sophomore forward has five double-doubles in those games and is averaging 16.4 points and 10.3 rebounds. Amazingly, that includes the Feb. 3 game at Eastern Michigan when he went scoreless with just four rebounds.

• Ball State has experienced its most successful offensive stretch of the season over the past three games. The Cardinals are shooting 54.2 percent from the floor and 42.9 percent from the 3-point line during that span. They are outscoring the opposition by an average of 92-72.

• Ball State will play its final regular-season home games this week (the Cardinals host Western Michigan on Friday). BSU is 13-1 at home this year, two shy of the school record for home wins.

• Junior center Trey Moses is leading Ball State in conference play in both scoring (14.5 ppg) and rebounding (8.9 rpg). He has scored a career-high 22 points three times in the past seven games.

• Senior guard Sean Sellers needs just three 3-pointers to break Jesse Berry's Ball State career record of 224. Sellers has made at least one 3 in every game but two this season and is shooting 43.1 percent from beyond the arc in conference play.

Scouting Northern Illinois
• Northern Illinois is coming off a 75-67 victory Saturday over Western Michigan.
• The Huskies also own a recent overtime win over Buffalo, handing the league-leading Bulls one of their two losses in conference play.
• NIU features the league's leading scorer in sophomore guard Eugene German at 20.5 points per game.
• Levi Bradley (14.7) and Dante Thorpe (11.7) also add double figures for a Huskies team that leads the MAC in field goal percentage (.468).
• NIU is playing its seventh season under head coach Mark Montgomery.

Series History
• Ball State holds a 52-37 advantage in the all-time
series and a 32-11 lead over the Huskies in Muncie.
• BSU has won three of the four meetings over the past two seasons, including both last year -- 81-72 in overtime at NIU and 87-82 at home.
• In the road win, Ball State scored the final eight points of regulation and the first 11 of overtime. In the home win, the Cardinals led by 11 before NIU rallied in the final minute to close the gap.
• Tayler Persons averaged 11.5 points and 7.0 assists over the two meetings last season, while Trey Moses averaged 11.0 points.

Offense Clicking as Men's Hoops Welcomes NIU Tuesday Night

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Players Mentioned

Trey Moses

Tayler Persons

Sean Sellers

Tahjai Teague