Northern Michigan University’s Dylan Kuehl, slams home his second dunk of the night during a GLIAC Tournament quarterfinal men’s basketball game played against Purdue Northwest at the Berry Events Center in Marquette on Wednesday, March 6, 2024. (Photo courtesy Cara Kamps)

By Journal Sports Staff

WISCONSIN DELLS, Wis. — Nothing like beating the buzzer to get the blood flowing in the early part of the season.

That might be the thinking of Northern Michigan University men’s baskeball coach Matt Majkrzak after Wildcats newcomer Julien Smith did just that in NMU’s 85-83 victory over Illinois-Springfield at this neutral site in Wisconsin on Saturday.

Traveling to the Justagame Fieldhouse where they played — and won twice by double digits — the previous weekend, Northern had a much tougher battle against the Prairie Stars, who like NMU were 2-0 entering the game.

Northern trailed 83-82 with just a few seconds left and UIS at the free-throw line. After a player from that team missed both charity tosses, the Wildcats’ Duylan Kuehl grabbed the rebound, quickly passing it to Gerald Gittens Jr., according to a game account from NMU Sports Information.

Gittens then got it to Smith in front of his teammates on the bench. Smith put up a buzzer-beating 3-pointer and the rest, as everyone says, is history.

The Wildcats overcame a big shooting night by Springfield, which made just over two-thirds (67.4%) from the field, 29 of 43, plus going 21 of 28 at the charity stripe.

NMU overcame that by also shooting better than 50%, 54.2% to be exact, on 32 of 59 from the field.

All five Wildcat starters scored in double figures, led by a red-hot Sam Privet amassing 22 points after he pumped in 9 of 11 shots from the floor and 4 of 5 free throws.

Kuehl added 13 points, making both his 3-pointers, while Smith contributed 12 points also with two triples after his final shot fell.

Gittens also reached a dozen points, making 3 of 4 on 3s, as the four players mentioned combined to make 68.8% (11 of 16) on their 3-point attempts.

And regular high scorer and veteran guard Brian Parzych rounded out NMU starters’ scoring with 11 points.

Off the Northern bench, Michael McNabb had nine points while Jackson Dudek, Derek Merwick and Biggie Luster each made a 2-point basket.

NMU also had an excellent assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.0 — dishing out 16 assists while committing only eight turnovers.

Despite the excellent shooting, the Wildcats got out to a slow start, trailing 9-2 just a couple minutes in. The Prairie Stars opened the game making eight of their first nine shots.

Later in the first half, NMU used a similar-sounding 9-2 run to trail by just one, 20-19, before Kuehl hit a triple to even it at 22-22 with 11:30 left before intermission.

NMU managed to build a 31-28 lead not quite eight minutes before halftime, but Springfield erased that with a 7-0 run that produced a 48-42 lead for the P-Stars by the break.

A big part of that lead was Springfield being productive at the line, making 16 of 19 free throws in the first half.

But Privet got hot in the second half, scoring seven of Northern’s first 10 points, including a triple, to keep the Wildcats within 57-52 with 16:13 left.

With Gittens hitting back-to-back 3s later in the half, Northern needed all the points it could scrape together to stay within 68-62 with 9:53 to go.

Privet scored five points in a row to help NMU get within 70-67 a bit later, then put together another personal five-point run to keep them within 77-74 with 6:15 remaining.

Finally, yet another Privet jumper and a pair of Parzych free throws pulled the Wildcats within 81-80 with less than a minute to go. Though UIS hit a pair of free throws with 13 seconds left to open an 83-80 advantage, the Prairie Stars fouled Smith with seven seconds left, and Smith made both free throws to cut Springfield’s lead back to 83-82 and set up the game’s final play.

After all those machinations, Northern gets a well-deserved week off before heading to Duluth, Minnesota, to play a pair of 5 p.m. EST contests this weekend. The Wildcats face Minnesota State-Moorhead on Friday for what will be another neutral-site game, then play host Minnesota-Duluth on Saturday.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.