Northern State nearly completed a second-half comeback on Friday evening.
The Wolves fell 70-69 to Wayne State in a Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference men’s basketball games at Wachs Arena.
Down as much as 19 points in the second half, Northern climbed back into the contest, and even led in the final minute.
The Wolves tied the game at 68-68 on a pair of Jacksen Moni free throws. Moni then made one of two free throws that gave the Wolves a one-point advantage with 33 seconds left.
Northern needed just “one stop,” according to Wolves coach Saul Phillips, to make the comeback complete.
However, that stop was thwarted when Wayne’s Alec Millender nailed a jumper with five seconds left to give the road team a one-point lead.
The Wolves had one more chance to pull off the victory. After dribbling the ball up the court, Northern called its final timeout to set up the last play.
Wolves guard Josh Dilling took the final inbound pass and threw up a deep 3-point shot, which rolled around the rim before falling out.
“We had a different plan, throw it up to Moni closer to the hoop and they kind of took it away, so I told Andy (Bergen), I said, Hey I’ll be there if you need me” Dilling said. “Got a good look off, I saw it mid-air, and I thought maybe it might be dropping. I had some hope there. Unfortunately, it just didn’t fall through.”
The wild second half came after a first half where the Wolves struggled to get good looks at the basket due to the Wildcats stifling defense, which included intense ball pressure and blocked shots.
“We didn’t handle the pressure very well early on,” Phillips said. “We didn’t turn it over a whole bunch, but we just weren’t able to produce good shots and that kind of changed a little bit in the second half where we were able to pretty much flip the script and scored at a really efficient pace.”
When Northern did get good looks, the shots sometimes failed to drop.
“It’s always frustrating when you’re missing shots,” Dilling said, “but the fact that you’re getting good looks, it means you’re doing something right.”
The game was tied at 11 with just under 12 minutes left in the half before Wayne State scored six points in a row to take a 17-11 advantage. The Wolves went on a scoring drought of almost four and a half minutes. After a Dilling 3-pointer cut the deficit to 17-14, Northern again went scoreless for four more minutes before Augustin Reede hit a pair of free throws to end that stretch. Meanwhile the Wildcats went on a 10-0 run to extend their lead to 27-14, and eventually taking a 31-18 lead into the locker room.
Phillips regrouped his team at halftime, which led to the second-half comeback.
“I just explained to them if you’re going to allow people to pressure you like that, you’re not going to get good looks and we’ve got to generate good ways to get the ball into the paint,” Phillips said. “Once we got over that hump and once we started handling that pressure, we operated at a level that we’d like to operate at.”
Despite operating at a higher level, the comeback ended up falling just short in the end. Wayne State nailed a pair of 3-pointers to begin the second half to stretch their lead to 19 points.
“From there on out I thought we played really well, but it wasn’t enough,” Phillips said. “We dug too big of a hole.”
Moni led the Wolves with 21 points, nine rebounds, seven assists, and three blocks, while Dilling totaled 18 points, including four 3-pointers.
The Wolves will host Augustana in a doubleheader today, with the men’s contest set to begin at 4 p.m.
“It’s another huge game (Saturday),” Dilling said. “Augie’s another great team that’s coming in, so we’ve got to be short memory, be ready and prepared for (today) so we can get out of here with a ‘W’.”
For a complete box score, click on the following link:
https://nsuwolves.com/sports/mens-basketball/stats/2023-24/wayne-state/boxscore/13318
