Northern Basketball Season Ends In NCAA Tourney
This story was written by NMU Sports Information. (Casey Ford photos)
INDIANAPOLIS - It was an unfortunate time for the Northern Michigan men's basketball team to have its worst shooting performance of the season, as the 'Cats shot just 22-65 (33.8%) as they fell to Ferris State 81-65 in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament, ending its season at 22-11.
The Wildcats go out in front early 7-4, but the Bulldogs then went on a 12-0 run and held NMU without a made field goal in nearly nine minutes, going 0-11 in that span. The Wildcats were getting looks that would normally fall, but the basketball gods were not on NMU's side as the 'Cats seemingly couldn't get anything to go.
The Bulldogs led 41-24 at the half and nearly double up NMU in FG% (52.9 to 27.6).
NMU came out with some fire in the second, but each time the Green and Gold started to make a run, FSU's Ben Davidson seemed to come up with a tough contested fadeaway to quiet the momentum.
A 10-1 NMU run with nine minutes to play closed the gap to 11 and the Wildcats had plenty of time to continue to chip away, but the Bulldogs scored four straight out of a timeout to flip back the noise in their favor.
Ferris would hit free throws down the stretch to put the game on ice.
Max Weisbrod scored a game-high 24 points to lead the way for Northern with Sam Schultz following with 14 and Carson Smith another 13. Dylan Kuehl pulled down 13 rebounds. FSU was led by Davidson and Ethan Erickson who each poured in 19.
