Northern Michigan University’s Dylan Kuehl, right, drives past Davenport’s Raishaun Brown during their GLIAC men’s game played at Vandament Arena in Marquette last Saturday. (Photo courtesy Cara Kamps)

Today’s games: NMU at Wayne State; women’s game at 1 p.m., men’s at 3 p.m.; Radio: WUPT 100.3 FM The Point

————————–

UNIVERSITY CENTER — Despite not improving its position in the GLIAC, the Northern Michigan University men’s basketball team picked up a lot of ground in the league race on Thursday night.

While the Wildcats were winning 82-68 at Saginaw Valley State, coleaders Michigan Tech and Lake Superior State both lost. The Huskies fell at Wayne State 74-62 and Lakers lost 71-68 at Grand Valley State.

Those results left NMU in fourth place right where they started the night. But now the Wildcats are just one game behind what have become tri-leaders MTU, LSSU and Ferris State. The Bulldogs won at last-place Davenport 67-56 on Thursday.

Northern turned a close game at halftime — it led 38-34 — into a double-digit lead for the game’s final nine minutes.

Balance was NMU’s key, with five players scoring in double figures and two more with at least seven points.

New starter Jackson Dudek, who had previously been one of the Wildcats’ top reserves, led the visitors with 16 points as he hit 2 of 3 on 3-pointers while grabbing five rebounds.

GLIAC top-10 scorer Dylan Kuehl along with Sam Privet added 13 points apiece, Kuehl tacking on five rebounds while Privet hit 3 of 4 on triples and didn’t commit a turnover in 26 minutes court time.

And Derek Merwick came off the bench to score 12 points, while Cal Klesmit did the same and scored 10, almost all coming on a trio of triples.

NMU No. 2 scorer Julien Smith contributed nine points, adding in three rebounds and a team-high three assists, as Biggie Luster had seven points and six rebounds. Finally, the only other Northern scorer was Gerald Gittens Jr. with two points, but he pulled down a team-high nine rebounds.

The Wildcats shot quite well, making 51% from the field (28 of 55) and 77% at the free throw line (17 of 22).

They also held a 37-27 rebounding edge and committed six fewer fouls, 19-13.

Maurice Anderson paced SVSU (9-12, 5-8 GLIAC) with 18 points as he had five rebounds but also four fouls.

Despite the Cardinals tying the score 2-2 in the game’s first minute, NMU raced out to a 13-4 lead after a Privet triple with 16:52 left in the first half. The Wildcats never trailed at any point in the game.

NMU’s first double-digit lead came about three minutes later, 20-9 with 13:58 to go after a Dudek trey, then got to as high as 14 points twice in the first half, the final time 25-11 with 12:55 left after a Luster layup.

Then the Wildcats’ offense went cold for most of the time that remained before intermission.

Saginaw Valley got within a single point, 32-31, with 3:57 remaining in the half on an Anderson dunk.

Kuehl answered with his own dunk exactly 15 seconds later and NMU maintained a 38-34 lead at the break.

While never allowing the Cardinals to grab the lead, Northern couldn’t shake their hosts in the first part of the second half, its lead not going beyond five points for the first eight minutes following intermission. That included SVSU tying it 49-49 with 12:17 to go on a Freddie McIntosh triple.

That might’ve been the wake-up call the Wildcats needed, however, as they immediately went on a 12-0 run to make it 61-49 with 9:46 to go on a Dudek triple.

The lead never dipped below nine points after that. That was because soon after that first spurt of points, another 9-0 string followed to make it 70-52 with 7:18 left on a pair of free throws by Merwick.

Northern’s advantage reached a high-water mark of 20 points twice in the final three minutes, the last time 81-61 after a Merwick layup with 2:10 to go.

The Wildcats complete this short road trip in Detroit at 3 p.m. today with a game against sixth-place Wayne State, which defeated Tech on Thursday.

NMU returns home next week to host tri-leader Lake Superior State at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, then host another tri-leader, Ferris State, at 3 p.m. next Saturday. And after that, the Wildcats play at the last of the tri-leaders, MTU, in Houghton on Feb. 20.

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