UNIVERSITY CENTER, Mich. – The Saginaw Valley State University men's basketball team fell to Northern Michigan 82-68 on Thursday night inside O'Neill Arena. The Cardinals (9-12, 5-8 GLIAC) tied the game in the second half, but the Wildcats (15-6, 9-4 GLIAC) outpaced SVSU the rest of the way.
Maurice Anderson was the team's leading scorer with 18 points on 7-of-13 shooting. He added five rebounds and two steals to his stat line as well. Toodles Seal completed his second double-double of the season with 14 points and 10 boards in the losing effort. Meijer Player of the Game Freddie McIntosh finished the night with 15 points, two rebounds, three assists, a steal, and a block.
The teams traded layups in to begin the game before NMU used an 8-0 run to hop to a 10-2 lead in the opening two and a half minutes of play. Northern Michigan held a 23-9 lead at the 13:23 mark of the first half before Triston Nichols made a layup that sparked a 9-0 run for the Cardinals, trimming the margin to 25-20 with 10:29 left in the opening half.
Nichols made a jumper on the next SVSU possession to cut the lead to four points (27-23) and Bryson Huckeby would do the same with 7:04 left before the half. Anderson scored all six points in a run for Saginaw Valley that put the score at 32-31 with just under four minutes remaining in the first half and the deficit sat within two possessions for the remainder of the half as NMU held a 38-34 lead at the break.
The second half began exactly as the first had ended with the Cardinals hanging around within two scores. McIntosh made all three free-throw attempts after getting failed beyond the arc to put SVSU within a point of tying things up (45-44) with 15:52 left to play. He would make a step-back jumper a few minutes later and held the margin at a single point before hitting a three on a second-chance bucket to knot things up at 49 with 12:17 on the clock.
Northern Michigan responded with a 12-0 run that elapsed for over two minutes of play to put the score at 61-49 with 9:46. Huckeby hit a three at 9:26 to cut the advantage to nine points, but a 9-0 run by the Wildcats pushed the lead to 18 and NMU never looked back.
UP NEXT: The Cardinals will face Michigan Tech on Saturday, February 8, at home. The tip-off time is 3:00 p.m. (ET).
