Players on the Northern Michigan University men's basketball team flash signs after a victory in a game played at the Berry Events Center in Marquette. (Photo courtesy NMU)

MARQUETTE — What was so surprising wasn’t the Northern Michigan University men’s basketball team winning, but the dominant way that the Wildcats pulled it off against the GLIAC leader.

NMU demolished Wisconsin-Parkside 73-47 at the Berry Events Center on Thursday night to insure the jumbled mess at the top of the conference will continue right to the end of the season.

After its lowest point total of the season, Parkside fell into a tie for first place in the GLIAC at 11-4, in a deadlock with Ferris State with the same record. Northern is just a half game back at 11-5, while Lake Superior State is only a half-game behind the Wildcats at 10-5.

And Grand Valley State at 9-6 is only two games out of the top spot, but at this juncture would miss out on a top-four home court berth in the first-round quarterfinals of the upcoming GLIAC Tournament.

It’s that close in the league, but it wasn’t close at all on the Berry court Thursday.

The Wildcats (19-7 overall) led wire to wire after freshman Max Weisbrod hit a 3-pointer just 17 seconds into the game. NMU worked its way into a double-digit lead with 13:42 left in the first half when Sam Schultz put in a layup to make it 17-6.

Though the Rangers (18-7) pulled it back to within nine points several times later in the half, NMU had established its dominance, taking a 38-25 edge into halftime.

With a hot start to the second half, Northern worked up to its first 20-point lead, 48-27, with 15:31 to go on a Sam Privet layup, then got it up to 30 with 5:05 remaining when Weisbrod hit another triple to make it 69-38.

Parkside scored the game’s final five points in the last 2 1/2 minutes to make it slightly more respectable at the end.

GLIAC Preseason Player of the Year Max Bjorklund of NMU led all scorers with 22 points, making 11 of 16 shots from the field (69%) to lead his team’s solid shooting night of exactly 50% — 32 of 64.

Meanwhile, the Wildcats allowed the Rangers to hit on barely a third of their shots — 34% — as they were only 18 of 53.

Bjorklund also pulled in seven rebounds and dished out three assists.

Weisbrod added 15 points, hitting 4 of 7 triples while making far and away a game-high seven assists to go with four rebounds and two steals.

Teammate Sam Schultz came off the bench to score 13 points, pull down six rebounds and make two assists in just 17 minutes court time, while Privet had 11 points.

If the shooting superiority wasn’t enough, Northern held a huge 45-24 rebounding advantage, led by the Wildcats’ Dylan Kuehl with nine as he also dished out four assists and blocked two shots while scoring four points.

NMU has two games remaining in the regular season, starting with its final home game at 11 a.m. today against struggling Purdue Northwest, which is on the outside looking in for the conference tournament in ninth place at 4-11, 11-14 overall.

The Wildcats finish their schedule with a short road trip to Houghton to face Michigan Tech at 3 p.m. next Saturday. The Huskies reside in the last tourney spot, eighth place, at 5-11.

After those two games, Northern could wind up anywhere from first place to fifth place in the GLIAC.

One of today’s key games has co-leader Ferris State playing at fourth-place LSSU. On Thursday, LSSU goes to fifth-place Grand Valley, while next Saturday, Ferris is at GVSU.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.