Futility At it's Finest on Saturday in Eastern Michigan, Northern Illinois Game

For those who casually follow college basketball, a scan of the scoreboard is usually fun. Questions may arise after seeing a score of 42-25 between Eastern Michigan and Northern Illinois.  Yes, that was the full game score and yes Northern Illinois scored only four at halftime as they were down 18-4.

Northern Illinois has put up single digits in a half twice this season which is just one more than their high powered football team did in their season and that came in the last game of the year.  The Huskies finished this game shooting a whopping 8-of-61 and at one point had made just one shot in 36 attempts.  They put up 33 three-point shots making only one in the loss.  Scanning the NCAA record books we found that in 1940 a tournament game between Springfield and Indiana featured a 12.7% shooting effort.  A slightly better effort was made in 1946 between Harvard and Ohio State where they were 10-for-72.

NIU’s leading scorer was Daveon Balls with seven followed by Abdel Nader with five overall.  EMU didn’t shoot much better although somehow they managed to put up only 35 shots in a 40 minute game.  They were led by Glenn Bryant who put up 10 points.

Ironically these two played each other in the last regular season game on the gridiron with NIU winning 49-7.  Running back Akeem Daniels had four touchdowns in that one accounting for 24 of those 49 points.

In the end, it was a win for the Eagles moving them to 10-10 on the season and 3-3 in the MAC.  The Huskies meanwhile only manage to get one loss despite the effort and are now 4-14 on the season.