Northern Illinois Huskies vs. Kent State Golden Flashes basketball final: Manley's hot second half helps Flashes secure 67-65 victory

Manley's strong second half

Devareaux Manley had one helluva second half. He, as well as the rest of the Kent State Golden Flashes (10-5, 1-1 MAC) were off to a slow first half, was 0-for-3 from 3-point range in the first half but came out firing after halftime, going 5-for-5 in that category in the second half. He was also 4-for-5 from the free throw line, which helped his point total get up to 19 by the game's end. And I hate being the guy that says if you take out all of the good things somebody or a team does, then you'd only have bad things, but there's no way Kent State wins this game without Manley finding his rhythm in the second half like that.

Hall had 15 points before being fouled out

Jimmy Hall is maybe the most well-known name on the Flashes' roster. His team never trailed by a large margin, but he was the game's leading scorer with nine points at halftime. He earned his fourth foul with just under eight minutes to go in the second half, then was fouled out at the 3:30 mark. He was 6-for-10 from the floor with four rebounds and three free throws.

Threloff put up 21, grabbed a lot of offensive rebounds too

Hitting 11 free throws is always a bonus. Always.

5-for-10 from the field including nine rebounds (all but one were offensive boards), I'd say that's a pretty solid day for Northern Illinois (7-6, 1-1 MAC). You'd think that those five shots he made were all put-backs, but that only happened once. Travon Baker, who had eight assists, showed good ball movement to get Threloff the ball down low plenty of times to either get the short shot in or to draw the foul and get to the line.

13 ties, 14 game changes

But seriously, this was a really tight game the whole way. The largest point differential we saw was by seven points when NIU led 12-5 and 14-7 within the first ten minutes of the game.

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