By Anthony Gulizia, News Staff
After the first half of the men’s basketball game Tuesday against Bradley, it appeared as if the Huskies had a chance to snap their two-game losing streak.
The Braves led NU by a slim margin (36-33) going into the second half, and the Huskies even took the lead with two quick baskets.
But the lead was short-lived as Bradley put together a punishing 20-2 run to defeat Northeastern 79-68 in Peoria, Ill. Tuesday night.
With the loss, the team dropped to 3-4 on the season after starting the year 3-1.
“I thought we played very hard for 35 minutes,” Northeastern head coach Bill Coen said. “We had a five minute stretch immediately in the start of the second half that put us in a hole and we got down quite a bit. I think we relaxed on defense and Bradley hit some sots.”
Northeastern was able to cut the deficit to four twice in the game, once with 6:44 remaining and once with a little over two minutes left, but the Huskies weren’t able to pull off the comeback.
Freshman forward Quincy Ford turned in a career-high 18 points, and junior captains Joel Smith and Jon Lee scored 17 and 13 points, respectively.
But the Huskies committed 20-plus turnovers for the third straight game, this time with 23 against Bradley.
“We have way too many turnovers in an opposing gym to expect to come away with a victory,” Coen said. “We had chances to cut it to two, and both times we misplayed it.”
The team is averaging 19 turnovers per game, which is just second to 0-7 Towson who has 22.1.
“We’re doing a lot of good things on the court, but we’re negating all that effort with sub-par ball handling,” Coen said. “We have an excitable group, and we tend to play faster than we need to. We need to play hard on defense, but play with some pace on offense.”
The Huskies opened Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) play Saturday when they hosted Old Dominion and lost 69-59 to the Monarchs.
But it was the same story as it was against Bradley and La Salle Saturday, as the Huskies struggled to take care of the basketball and committed 22 turnovers.
The Monarchs capitalized on NU’s mistakes and scored 23 points off turnovers.
“First and foremost, we faced a quality opponent,” Coen said. “Ultimately, that was the difference. We failed to execute defensively when we needed to, and that coupled with some poor ball handling gave them some opportunities. We need to do a better job taking care of the basketball.”
After trailing 34-31 in the first half, Northeastern jumped out to a 40-38 lead less than five minutes into the second half.
But ODU answered with a 12-0 run to take a 50-40 lead on the Huskies and closed out the game, holding NU to no less than a five-point deficit throughout the game.
Kent Bazemore led the Monarchs with 21 points and eight rebounds, while forward Chris Cooper added 17 points and 12 boards.
Bazemore, last season’s CAA Defensive Player of the Year, played locked down defense on Smith and held him to six points.
After lighting up St. John’s for 29 points, Smith was held to two points against La Salle before struggling against ODU.
“Joel made a statement in [the St. John’s] game, and he’s going to require other teams to play him with best defender,” Coen said. “You’re not going to get any easy looks. Joel and I talked about letting the game come to him more. Sometimes, when you’re pressured like that, you tend to rush your game and nothing works when you approach it that way. He has to let the game come to him and Joel knows that.”
The Monarchs out-rebounded the Huskies 35-30 and heavily controlled the offensive rebounds, cleaning up 18 compared to NU’s 11.
Coen’s squad, which was the worst rebounding team in the CAA last season, has out-rebounded opponents in four out of the six games this season. The only time the team was outmatched, along with this game, was against the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
Spencer and Ford average 5. and 4.7 rebounds per game respectively and average 8.6 points per game each. The rookies are making big contributions in their rookie campaign.
Coen said he is happy with the progress they’re making.
“They have extremely promising futures,” he said. “Both have loads of talent, great attitudes and are excited to learn. You’re seeing them perform at a very high level so young in their career, and they’re playing as well as you could expect freshmen to.”
The Huskies resume action when they host Princeton Sunday at 1 p.m.
