DEKALB, Ill. -- The Northern Illinois University men's basketball team finished the regular season with a 75-54 setback against Ball State (March 6) on Friday night at the NIU Convocation Center. Senior Eugene German (Gary, Ind./21st Century Charter) scored a team-high 17 points and sophomore Trendon Hankerson (Novi, Mich./Novi) added 12 points. 

"It's definitely not the way we wanted to end the (regular) season, or the way we envisioned it, but you have to give Ball State a lot of credit," said NIU head coach Mark Montgomery. "They came out the opening four or five minutes and punched us in the face, and we really didn't recover until the second half. We made a good run and cut it to four and then (Ball State) stepped up and made some big plays."

Ball State shot 51.2 percent (22-of-43) from the field in the contest, including 43.5 percent (10-of-23) from three-point range while holding NIU to just 28.1 percent (18-of-64) shooting, and 22.2 percent (6-of-27) from beyond the arc. 

NIU finishes the regular season with an 18-13 overall record, 11-7 in Mid-American Conference play and will be the fourth seed in next week's conference tournament. 

Ball State (18-13, 11-7 MAC) raced out to a 10-0 lead in the opening five minutes of the contest before a triple from Hankerson ended the Cardinal run to start the game. 

After a bucket by German trimmed the Ball State lead to 15-7, the Cardinals answered with the next nine as they took a 24-7 lead with 6:27 to play in the opening half. 

The Cardinals led by 18 before NIU scored the final six of the half to trim the Ball State lead to 36-24. Senior Noah McCarty (Rock Falls, Ill./Sterling Newman) started the burst and German scored the last four before the break.

Ball State scored the first four to start the second half before NIU answered with a 12-0 run to cut the Cardinal lead to just four. German started the burst with a free throw, sophomore Darius Beane (Carbondale, Ill./Southern Illinois) added a triple and German had a bucket before Hankerson converted an old-fashioned three-point play and a trifecta to cut the Ball State lead to 40-36 with 15:12 to play in the second half. 

Beane finished with eight points including 2-of-3 from beyond the arc. 

The Cardinals answered with the next eight as the Ball State lead grew to 48-36 with 12:49 remaining. 

After a pair of dunks from senior Lacey James (Grand Rapids, Mich./Rider) trimmed the Ball State lead back to 11, the Cardinals used a 13-0 run to take a 64-40 lead with just over seven minutes left. 

Tahjai Teague scored a game-high 18 points and grabbed 11 rebounds to lead the Cardinals. Miryne Thomas added 14 points while Kyle Mallers and Ishmael El-Amin each had 12 for Ball State who, with the win, earned a share of the MAC West Division title with NIU and the No. 3 seed in the conference tournament. 

The Huskies will return to action on Thursday, March 12, when they open the MAC Tournament in the quarterfinals at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, Ohio. NIU will face the winner of the Buffalo-Miami first round game with tipoff scheduled for approximately 1:30 p.m. CT.