After three straight nailbiters, No. 24 Miami (Ohio) looks to continue its historic undefeated run Saturday afternoon when they host Northern Illinois in a Mid-American Conference game in Oxford, Ohio.
Miami (21-0, 9-0 MAC) comes off an 86-84 home win over Massachusetts on Tuesday before 9,223, the 10th-largest crowd at Millett Hall. Saturday’s game already has been declared a sellout at the 57-year-old facility.
Northern Illinois (7-13, 3-6) enters as a big underdog, though the Huskies defeated Massachusetts by the same two-point margin when they hosted the Minutemen on Jan. 17.
Miami’s victory over UMass marked its first home game while ranked in the Associated Press Top 25. The RedHawks enter Saturday’s game as one of two undefeated Division I teams. The other is No. 1 Arizona (21-0).
At the same time, Miami’s last three games have been a three-point overtime win against Buffalo at home, a six-point overtime win at Kent State and the two-point win over UMass. In both overtime wins, the RedHawks needed a basket in the final seconds of regulation to force the extra five minutes.
“I can probably care less about the streak, more just about trajectory,” Miami coach Travis Steele said. “Can we be at our best in March? But I also understand how special this is for our university, for our men’s basketball program and our players. It’s all about our players. We’ve got great players.”
Steele recalled after Tuesday’s win that he could count the fans in attendance for his first Miami home game on Nov. 7, 2022, against Evansville. Now, Steele embraces the newfound enthusiasm for Miami basketball and he believes his team feeds off it, too.
“I knew it was going to be a rebuild from a talent perspective, from a culture perspective, once I got here, kind of figured that out as well,” Steele said. “From just fan attendance, student interaction, it wasn’t there. There was a disconnect for somehow, some way, but the Miami students love athletics. Our guys have earned this right to have this crowd.”
Steele hopes to have point guard Luke Skaljac (8.9 ppg, 4.7 apg) back from illness for Saturday’s game. With just seven players seeing action Tuesday, Eian Elmer picked up the slack with a career-high 30 points while Peter Suder and freshman Justin Kirby had 13 points apiece.
The Huskies are led by freshman guard Dylan Ducommun, who scored a team-high 21 in Tuesday’s 85-65 win over Western Michigan. Makhai Valentine and Taj Walters each scored 16 points while Gianni Cobb added 10 points and eight assists. Valentine leads NIU with 13.8 points per game while Ducommun averages 12.4 points.
NIU shot 50% (32 of 64) from the field, including 50% (15 of 30) from three-point range, as the Huskies snapped a two-game skid while earning their largest MAC victory margin since Feb. 11, 2023.
“(It) was a complete effort,” said NIU head coach Rashon Burno. “We came out of Ball State and Ohio disappointed with our offensive execution. Our defense all year has kept us in games. Ohio (was a) three-point game, Ball State (a) five-point game; we just had some hard luck scoring consistently.”
–Field Level Media
