The 2013 season started with high hopes. A solid recruiting class brought in a group of young players that played big roles in the season, but the season started slowly with NIU winning 1 of their first 4 games. Even though they ended non-conference play at a solid 7-7 there were still some doubts on whether NIU could handle conference play and the fears were quickly realized with NIU starting out 1-6 in their first 7 conference games including 65-46 blowout loss against the Ohio Bobcats.
As the season wound down NIU played better basketball going 7-5 in their final 12 regular season games and earned a 7th seed in the Conference Tourney where they beat Bowling Green 54-51 in OT and losing a heartbreaker marred with bad calls 53-48 to Eastern Michigan.
NIU did have some strong performances out of their freshman with G Dontel Highsmith averaging 10.5 PPG and 3.5 RPG. Aaric Armstead averaged 7.7 PPG and 4.1 RPG and his brother Aaron averaged 6.8 PPG and 2.4 RPG.
I expect a lot more out of NIU in the 2014-15 season especially since the team only loses 1 player in G/F Aksel Bolin who averaged 6.5 PPG and 4.5 RPG in 25.8 MPG.
