Once they got that accomplished, they could concentrate on turning it into their own chuckle fest and posting a 75-62 victory over SVSU on Saturday afternoon at Vandament Arena.

The Wildcats improved to 6-2 in the GLIAC and 12-4 overall, moving into a third-place tie with Lake Superior State. More importantly, NMU remained within a game of the league leaders, Ferris State and Michigan Tech, both at 7-1.

The Cardinals fell to 2-6 in league and 6-10 overall.

Northern turned what was nearly 10 minutes of a double-digit deficit starting when the game was less than four minutes old into a competitive game by halftime.

Northern Michigan University’s Gerald Gittens Jr. falls into the crowd after taking a shot during a GLIAC men’s basketball game played against Saginaw Valley State at Vandament Arena in Marquette on Saturday. (Photo courtesy Cara Kamps)

Then they parlayed getting within 33-28 at intermission into an amazing run to start the second half, scoring the first 19 points in less than 6 1/2 minutes to build their own double-digit advantage that never slipped below nine points the rest of the way.

A dozen of the points in the 19-0 run were scored by Cal Klesmit, who despite coming off the bench has been a major offensive contributor in the past handful of games.

He opened the second half with back-to-back 3-pointers 37 seconds apart, the second one turning into a four-point play after he was fouled and made the ensuing free throw.

Klesmit added another triple a few minutes later and a layup that ended the run with the Wildcats leading 47-33 with 13:36 left. Dylan Kuehl added three free throws and a jump shot late in the run, too.

NMU’s patented balance in scoring was evident Saturday. The Cardinals’ Freddie McIntosh led all scorers with 21 points, but he had to take 14 3-point shots to make three.

Northern, meanwhile, had five players score in double figures, paced by Julien Smith with 17 points. Like McIntosh, he made three triples, but only needed five tries to get them. Smith also was good on 6 of 7 free throws and added six rebounds and made no turnovers in 30 minutes court time.

Sam Privet added 16 points and a game-high eight rebounds, while Klesmit had 12 points also with three 3s. Then Kuehl and Gerald Gittens Jr. each had 11 points, Kuehl grabbing six rebounds while Gittens was the third Wildcat to knock down a trio of treys.

Derek Merwick tacked on game-highs of six assists and two steals to go with six points in his first game as a starter, while Gittens had four assists, too.

Both teams shot free throws well, but NMU had more than twice as many. SVSU was 9 of 10 at the line (90%) while the Wildcats were 19 of 22 (86.4%).

Just about nobody in the arena could’ve foresaw the Wildcats’ hot second-half start coming early in the game, when despite Kuehl knocking down a quick jumper for a 2-0 NMU lead, the Cardinals needed less than three minutes to turn that into their own 13-2 advantage.

While Northern got the deficit back to single digits a few minutes later, SVSU reupped the lead to 13, 26-13, with 7:42 left in the first half after a McIntosh triple.

NMU had plenty of fight left before the pause that refreshed them, immediately going on a 10-0 run on the backs of Privet and Smith. Privet hit a triple and Smith a more traditional three-point play with a layup and free throw within 17 seconds of each other to start the run. It was capped off by a pair of Privet layups about 30 seconds apart to pull Northern back within 26-23 exactly six minutes before halftime.

The pair continued to pour it on, Smith hitting a 3 and Privet two free throws, to tie it 28-28 before the Cards scored the final five points before intermission.

That was just the preliminaries for what would transpire to start the second half. The Wildcats turned a 33-28 deficit into a 47-33 advantage 6:24 in.

Their lead hit 16 three times after that, 52-36 with 12:07 left on a Gittens 3, 59-43 with 8:06 to go on a pair of Gittens free throws, and 75-59 with 11 seconds remaining following a Privet dunk.

NMU takes to the road this week to face teams even and ahead of them, both nationally ranked. No. 13 Ferris is first in Big Rapids at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, then No. 22 LSSU follows in Sault Ste. Marie at 3 p.m. Saturday.

Story contents based on Northern Michigan University Sports Information press release previewing the games. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.