Who is going to show up for Northern Illinois tonight is the biggest question as Bowling Green prepares
to face the Huskies in the Mid-American Conference men’s tournament quarterfinals.
Tipoff is at 7 p.m. in Anderson Arena.
Xavier Silas, one of the top players in the country and a potential National Basketball Association draft
pick, is not traveling with the team and is not expected to play tonight. Silas is averaging 22.3 ppg
and has missed the last three games with an ankle injury.
Silas, 6-foot-5, is apparently not playing to allow the ankle heal so he can participate in the
Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, an NBA tryout vehicle, next month,
NIU’s Nate Rucker, a 28-game starter, is doubtful with an ankle injury. Rucker, a 6-6 freshman, is
averaging 7.0 points and 4.0 rebounds per game.
Bryan Hall, a 6-1 junior, is definitely out. He started 21 times and is the team leader with 65 assists.
"There will be some new faces," BG head coach Louis Orr said. "You always expect,
especially against us, that a team is going to put their (perimeter) shooters on the court.
"(NIU) is an explosive offensive team," Orr continued. "They have guys who are
multiple-dimensional offensively."
Orr said the key defensively will be to guard the 3-point arc, protect against dribble-penetration and
transition baskets.
BG’s A’uston Calhoun, BG’s leading scorer at 12.2 ppg, said he’s looking forward to playing tonight.
"I feel pretty good, the team feels really good. We feel that we’re starting to understand things
better and we’re coming into our own," Calhoun said after BG’s 73-63 win over Buffalo. "We
lost a few games in a row. But there were things we started to do better during that period of time,
especially on the defensive end. Now, we just have to make sure we stay consistent. If we do that, we’ll
be on our way to Cleveland."
SCOUTING NIU: The Huskies are 9-20 overall, going 2-9 in the their last 11 games, and the No. 9 seed for
the tournament. BG won at NIU, 73-70 in overtime, on Feb. 2, in the only meeting between the two teams
this season.
Both Tim Toler, a 6-7 junior, and Jeremy Landers, a 6-2 senior, missed the first NIU-BG game with the
flu.
With Silas sidelined, Toler has taken over the scoring load. In the last three games, Toler has scored 48
points and added 23 rebounds. For the season, he is averaging 9.8 points and a team-high 5.4 rebounds
per game. Landers is averaging 7.0 ppg.
"He’s really a perimeter player," Orr said about Toler. "He’s a guy who is going to
stretch your defense."
BG and NIU have met three times in the MAC tournament, with those contests all coming in the first three
years of the MAC tournament. The winner of all three of those contests went on to play in the MAC
tournament championship game, with Northern Illinois winning the tournament in 1982.
70: The Falcons are 9-2 this season when scoring 70 or more points.
TICKETS: All children under 12 and BGSU students will be admitted free to the BG-Northern game.
NEXT: The BG-NIU winner plays No. 2 seed Western Michigan in the quarterfinals at Quicken Loans Areas on
Thursday with tipoff at noon.
