Northern Michigan University freshman Ben Wolf, top center, goes up for a shot while Michigan Tech senior Ryan Schulle, left, looks on and sophomore Owen White falls to the floor during their GLIAC men’s basketball game played at the Berry Events Center in Marquette on Thursday night. (Journal photo by Ryan Spitza)

MARQUETTE — Every once in awhile a sports fan will scan the box score of a game and they’ll do a double-take when they see an unbelievable stat.

That unbelievable stat in Thursday night’s GLIAC men’s basketball game between Michigan Tech and Northern Michigan was the Huskies’ shooting from long range.

Tech shot 18 of 20 on 3-pointers for a whopping success rate of 90 percent, helping the visitors to a convincing 91-61 win over the Wildcats at the Berry Events Center on the final night of the regular season. It snapped Northern’s three-game win streak over MTU.

The sharpshooting Huskies made nearly 62 percent of their shots overall as senior Kyle Monroe led the way with 32 points.

With the win, MTU finished the conference slate at 14-6 and overall at 20-8, good for the No. 3 seed in the GLIAC tournament that tips off Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Northern can breathe a sigh of relief. Despite the frustrating loss, the Wildcats locked up the eighth and final seed in the GLIAC tournament via tiebreaking procedures over Lake Superior State. Both NMU and LSSU finished with a 9-11 conference record and 12-16 overall.

The GLIAC tournament begins with the quarterfinals on Tuesday with Tech hosting No. 6-seeded Saginaw Valley State (16-12, 10-10 GLIAC). The Wildcats travel to Big Rapids to face No. 1-seeded and nationally No. 11-ranked Ferris State (27-5 16-4 GLIAC).

On Thursday, after NMU senior Sam Taylor cut the deficit to 45-43 early in the second half thanks to a triple of his own, it was all Huskies as they hit shot after shot.

Tech head coach Kevin Luke said even he was perplexed by his team’s video game-like 3-point shooting.

“Northern Michigan never quit, but we just shot it so well,” he said. “Eighteen of 20, that’s really shooting it. I did not know it was that and it was a great display by our guys. We’ve had some good shooting games, but not that high.

“When you get on a roll, that’s exactly what happened. Nothing really changed in the game except for our guys getting a little more confident.”

Luke also credited Monroe for leading the way on every inch of the floor.

“He’s dynamic because he can score at all levels,” he said. “He’s really hard to guard because if he hits that 3, it loosens things up for him inside. We try to keep a balance with him as far as inside-out goes. We let him pick and choose a little bit of what happens there.

“He makes all his free throws, his 3-pointers, and then when he gets rolling inside, he’s a hard stop.”

In the other locker room, it was first frustration, and then relief for NMU head coach Matt Majkrzak and his team. The frustration turned to joy after the Wildcats found out they had still made it into the postseason.

“We’re in, and to be honest with you, that was the result going into the day that was the most important,” he said. “I’m obviously really frustrated with losing by 30, but overall that was the most important.”

The Wildcats suffered a huge blow early in the game when senior center Myles Howard went down with an injury. At that point, NMU held its own as long as it could.

“The whole game plan revolved around Myles,” Majkrzak said. “And then Myles gets hurt, which right now, feels worse than the result. That’s one of the things I’m most disappointed about in the sense that he’s such a great kid and great person, and you just hate to see that happen to him in his last home game of his senior year.

“On top of that, Tech played unbelievably well and their shooting performance was as good as I’ve ever seen. Early on, we gave them some looks I wasn’t thrilled with, but at the same time, you can give any team an open shot and they’ll still knock it down at 40 percent. These guys knocked them down at 90 percent and that’s very impressive.

“I was almost laughing at the end, because everything they were firing up was going in.”

After draining nine straight triples to begin the game, the Huskies took a 43-35 lead at halftime. Tech finished the first half 9 of 11 from long range.

Taylor’s shot that brought the Huskies’ lead down to two came just under three minutes into the second half.

MTU responded to that with a 21-3 run, however, and the Wildcats were never able to climb back into the game as the clock kept ticking while the Huskies’ lead kept growing.

Following Monroe in scoring was Dawson Bilski with 16 points and Owen White with 14. Alec Fruin led the NMU attack with 12 points while Taylor and Ben Wolf each had 11.

NMU finished the game 21 of 62 shooting for nearly 34 percent and was 9 of 25 from 3-point range.

Monroe had seven of Tech’s 32 rebounds while Taylor and Dolapo Olayinka each had eight of NMU’s 32.

Email Ryan Spitza at sports@miningjournal.net.