DEKALB, Ill. - The Rockford University men's basketball team played well on Saturday evening in an exhibition game at Division I Northern Illinois University. Rockford was able to hang with NIU for the entire first half and much of the second half before the Huskies eventually took and pulled away for a 90-57 win.
Nerves may have gotten the better of Regents early on in the match as they found themselves in a quick 13-0 hole. However, Rockford would not be intimidated and slowing fought its way back into the game. The Regents used a 9-0 run just over midway through the first half to cut the deficit down to only 7 points with 5 minutes remaining before halftime. David Dixon (Bellwood, Ill./St. Joseph) scored 6 of the 9 points during the run. Later in the first half, the Regents cut the lead to just a six with 2:28 remaining in the first half off a pair of Zach Wallace (Rockford, Ill./Belvidere) free throws. However, the Huskies would flex their muscles over the final two minutes of the half scoring the final 8 points to take a 38-24 lead into the intermission.
After a back-and-forth exchange to begin the second half, the Regents had one more run left in them before NIU ultimately took control of the game. The Huskies opened the half adding to its lead before Rockford junior Travis Hawkins (Newman, Ill./Shiloh) knocked down a three-pointer to make it a 53-42 NIU lead with 13:42 left in the second half. However, the remainder of the game belonged to the Huskies as they were finally able to put some distance between themselves and the Regents and pick up the exhibition win.
The Regents can take away numerous positives from Saturday's game. David Dixon appears to headed for an excellent senior season this year. Dixon led the Regents with 15 points and 8 rebounds against the Huskies. His 8 rebounds was tied with NIU's Darrell Bowie for the game-high and he was just 2 points shy of NIU's Jordan Threloff's game-high 17 points. Freshman Zach Wallace was outstanding off the bench for Rockford. Wallace scored 10 points in just 16 minutes on 3-7 shooting and a perfect 4-4 from the line. Senior guard Scott Suchy (Genoa, Ill./Genoa-Kingston) added 9 points while senior forward Tory Minnifield (Blue Island, Ill./Eisenhower) chipped in 4 points, 5 rebounds, 1 steal and 1 assist.
The men's basketball team opens the regular season portion of its schedule at home on Friday, November 15th at 7:00 p.m. when the Regents host the Loras College Duhawks.
