11Sports Sports Editor: Brian Thomas ★ 815-753-9637 NorthernStar.info ★ Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Montgomery excited for season

Matt HopkinsonStaff Writer

DeKalb | With seven new fresh-man faces on the roster this sea-son, NIU men’s basketball will be a mixed bag.

Coach Mark Montgomery knows there will be excitement, but also a lot for his players to learn.

“There’s going to be a lot of coachable moments, probably more in practices than in games because they have enough pressure on them in games,” Montgomery said. “With young guys you just have to be pos-itive, you have to have patience. We’re going to have our growing pains.”

Despite the possibility of youth-ful mistakes, Montgomery likes his new players and identifi es some of their areas of strength and where they can improve.

“[Our] point guards with [Daveon] Balls and [Travon] Baker, they’re still learning the tempo and fl ow of college play, but they’re very un-

selfi sh players,” Montgomery said. “At the guard position with [Mike] Davis and [Akeem] Springs, they’re physically strong enough to com-pete at the college level, it’s just going to be more game experience. Then you take our bigs: They prob-ably have it the toughest as they have to battle guys who have more weight on them, but I like the way they all come to practice every day.”

With both point guards on the roster being freshman, one will have to become a starter, but Balls believes there is no battle for the position between himself and fel-low freshman Baker.

“We’re doing what we’re capable of doing, me and Tra [Baker],” Balls said. “We ain’t really battling for a position, we just know when we get in there, [we know] what we got to do to get the ‘W.’ If we’re in there at the same time, it’s even better.”

Offensively and defensively, Montgomery is going to look to newly-minted sophomore twins in Kevin and Keith Gray, both who he believes will be starting together.

“That’s the plan; sometimes things can change during the sea-

son,” Montgomery said. “Right now they are our most experienced bigs, they have a great feel for each oth-er and as long as they can stay out of foul trouble they will play a lot of minutes.”

Kevin believes that he’s much more comfortable coming into this season with the returning players and has been getting a good feel for the new members.

The turmoil from last season with players leaving and a bit of unrest in the locker room has been put in the past.

This year’s squad and mental-ity is different, as Montgomery has been getting the new players and the returning ones to buy into what he is preaching, which was evident even in preseason action as freshman guard Springs barked out where junior forward Aksel Bo-lin should be on the fl oor.

“It doesn’t matter what year you are,” Montgomery said. “We want guys to help each other. If it’s a freshman telling a junior, great, it’s good he’s knowledgeable to know his position and someone else’s po-sition. We’re stressing communica-tion more this year.”

Men’s basketball ready for season to get underway

Erik Anderson | Northern Star File PhotoNIU freshman guard Mike Davis (24) attempts to score over Aurora University senior guard Joel Iventosch (10) at the NIU Convocational Center, Saturday

— Huskie Briefs —Ware, Kurisch win NIU Scholar-Athlete of week

DeKalb | This weeks recipi-ents of the NIU Scholar-Athletes of the week are Dominique Ware of football and Mary Kurisch of volleyball.

The junior cornerback lead the Huskies with eight tackles in their 63-0 win over the Massa-chusetts Minutemen. This broke his previous career high in tack-les of fi ve.

One of his tackles was a tack-le for loss. On the day, NIU re-corded a total of 10 tackles for a loss.

Ware played a big role in the Huskies fi rst shutout since Sept. 27, 2008, when they defeated Eastern Michigan, 37-0.

The Bolingbrook, Ill., native is a fi nance major that carries a 3.585 GPA.

The senior middle-blocker played a big part in NIU volley-ball going 2-0 over the weekend, as it defeated MAC opponents Toledo and Ball State.

On the weekend, Kurisch had a team-high .468 hitting per-centage and averaged 3.29 kills per set.

In a 3-1 victory over Toledo, she had 11 kills on 27 swings and did not record an error leav-ing her with a .407 hitting per-centage.

In the Huskies sweep over Ball State, Kurisch recorded 12 kills on 20 swings with one error, giving her a .550 hitting per-centage.

Kurisch maintains a 3.022 while majoring in business ad-ministration.

Huskies, MAC teams earning votes in the polls

DeKalb | With the Huskies dominating victory over MAC bottom-feeder Massachusetts, 63-0, the saw a noticeable in-crease in votes from the polls this week.

After receiving 12 votes in The Associated Press Top-25 poll last week, the Huskies received the most of any team not to be nationally ranked in the Top-25, 64.

In the USA Today poll, the Huskies got 88 votes this week, which is also the most of any team to not be national-ly ranked, compared to 39 last week.

While the Huskies saw an in-crease in votes this week, the Toledo Rockets jumped into The Associated Press Top-25 poll, be-ing nationally ranked at No. 23. They are also ranked No. 25 in the BCS standings.

This is the fi rst time since 2001 Toledo has been ranked in the Top-25 polls.

Another team receiving plen-ty votes from the polls is the Kent State Golden Flashes. Kent State trails the Huskies in The Associated Press Top-25 poll by three votes with 61. In the USA Today poll, the Golden Flashes saw an increase from 26 to 32 this week.

The last team from the MAC receiving votes from the polls is the Ohio Bobcats. Ohio received 22 votes in The Associated Press Top-25 poll and are ahead of the Golden Flashes in the USA Today poll with 34.

Bishop receives the MAC West Player of Week

DeKalb | For the ninth time this season, a Huskie player won a MAC West Player of the Week award. This week it was junior defensive tackle Ken Bishop, taking home the MAC West De-fensive Player of the Week.

In the Huskies 63-0 win over the Minutemen of Massachu-setts, Bishop recorded fi ve to-tal tackles including one tack-le for a loss.

Bishop also recorded a fum-ble recovery, which was one of four takeaways by the Huskies defense.

Bishop along with the defen-sive line held UMass’ offense to a total of 267 yards on 83 plays, averaging 3.2 yards per play.

On the ground, the Minute-men were only able to accumu-late 114 yards on the ground on 46 carries, averaging 2.5 yards per attempt.

Bishop’s effort helped the Huskies hold the Minutemen to their lowest point total of the season while earning their fi rst shutout since they defeated Eastern Michigan, 37-0, on Sept. 27, 2008.

This season the Huskies have had six different players win a MAC West Player of the Week award, four of them coming from the defensive side of the ball.

The Huskies have passed their total of MAC West Player’s of the Week from last season as they only had seven players and only two from the defensive side.

Northern Star Staff

The MAC should get more credit

This season the Mid-American Conference [MAC] has shown the rest of college football it is worthy of some respect and recognition.

Already, this season, the MAC has six bowl-eligible teams; Kent State, Ohio and Bowling Green from the East Division; North-ern Illinois, Toledo and Ball State from the West Division.

With these six teams, the MAC has the second most bowl-eligible teams in the nation behind only the SEC, which has seven bowl-el-igible teams.

So I ask, where is the love for the MAC? They don’t only contin-ue to beat up on themselves but week in and week out they play more big name schools from pow-er conferences such as the Big 10, Big East and the Big 12.

This season, the MAC set its sin-gle-season record with victories over FBS opponents with 16 total wins thus far. The MAC has tak-en down teams such as Cincinna-ti, Iowa, Kansas, Rutgers, Indiana and it has defeated Army on four separate occasions this season.

The MAC’s previous high in FBS wins in a season was set in 2008 when it took down 14 teams.

Still not convinced that the MAC is deserving of national rec-ognition?

Looking at the MAC’s top four teams, Northern Illinois (9-1), To-ledo (8-1), Kent State (8-1) and Ohio (8-1), they are a combined 33-4. The MAC is the only confer-ence in the nation with four pro-grams having only one loss.

With the success of these four teams also comes votes and rank-ings in the polls. This week Toledo joined the BCS poll and is ranked No. 25 in the nation for the fi rst time in its schools history.

Northern Illinois received the most votes in The Associated Press Top-25 with 64 votes and the USA Today poll with 88, which is the most of any team to not be ranked in the Top-25. Kent State and Ohio have also received votes from the polls to be ranked in The Associat-ed Press Top-25 and USA Today.

My point is, people need to stop bashing the MAC and saying these teams are not worthy of recogni-tion because of the teams they play in the MAC. Sure the MAC has some teams that are not so competitive, but what conference doesn’t?

With all the success the MAC is having, stop making up excus-es, accept it and enjoy the strong quality of football.

Brian Thomas Sports Editor

Erik Anderson | Northern Star File Photo NIU senior defensive end Sean Progar (95) fi ghts to get around UMass’ offensive linemen Anthony Dima in a home game Saturday.

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