Michigan Tech guard Gabe Smith attempts a layup during a game against Northern Michigan Thursday at the SDC Gym in Houghton. (David Archambeau/For the Gazette)

HOUGHTON — In what was billed to be a battle of top GLIAC opponents and bitter rivals, the No. 12 Michigan Tech Huskies men’s basketball team got 35 points from senior guard Marcus Tomashek and earned an 84-75 win over the No. 18 Northern Michigan Wildcats Thursday at the SDC Gym.

The Wildcats had come in having won 12 games in a row. With the win, the Huskies improved to 13-2 overall and 4-1 in GLIAC play.

Tomashek scored 18 of his points in the first half, and was proud of how he and his teammates put together the kind of game they needed to to have success against the Wildcats, who won the last meeting in the SDC Gym between the two teams back in March in the GLIAC semifinals.

“Obviously, it feels great,” he said. “We’ve been battling with Northern for however long, and we’ve known these guys for so long. I think we’re probably split right now in my career. So, it just felt really good to get this one here.”

It took all of about three and a half minutes to see what kind of impact Tomashek was going to have on the game. After senior guard Nate Abel got the Huskies on the board by driving to the basket and getting a pass for a layup, Tomashek hit two straight triples, drawing a foul on the second one. Suddenly the Huskies led 9-0 in just 3:41 of play.

“I made a few shots to start the game, which was good to see,” Tomashek said. “Helped me with my confidence a lot. I’ve been struggling a little bit recently. Then, everyone just playing really well. We kind of got out to that 10-point lead, and pretty much held on to it the whole game.”

Huskies coach Josh Buettner said that the swagger that Tomashek played with rubbed off on his teammates.

“That’s part of his role on our team,” Buettner said. “The two games he got flustered and lost a little bit, we lost. As long as he’s playing with a confidence, and a swagger, that leads the other guys. When he thinks that way, it helps elevate everybody else.”

After back-to-back 3-pointers from senior guard Josh Terrian and junior guard Matt Schmainda, the Huskies led 15-5 with 14:19 left in the opening half.

Fifth-year forward Dylan Kuehl did what he could to match Tomashek, starting with a 3-pointer from beyond the arc 7:54 in. He finished with a team-high 27 points.

Buettner was happy with a lot of what his team did, he admitted the effort was far from perfect.

“As a whole, it’s kind of shocking that we gave up that many offensive rebounds, and our nine turnovers to their five turnovers,” he said. “Usually when you see those stats, it doesn’t look like we’re going to have that. But honestly, I’m really proud of how our guys fought. I thought we really guarded their stuff well. We talked about being really switchable, and our guys communicated. They were aggressive with it. They lived with switches when we had to live with switches to not give up. All their rip screens, their back screens, they usually get some layups on there, and they didn’t get many of them. Today, we wanted to take away that stuff.

We wanted to try to minimize Kuehl, which we didn’t do a great job. We kept (Cal) Klesmit from getting some pretty good looks.”

While the Huskies contained Klesmit, a sophomore guard, to just four points, they did not have an answer for freshman guard Bennett Basich, who scored 20.

“We’ve talked about that for 20 years in this rivalry,” said Buettner. “A lot of times it’s the unsung heroes and the stars aren’t that. But, obviously today it was the stars. The two all-conference players the last however many years were really good, but it was (also) guys that step up for them. It was Basich. Basich was spectacular as a freshman, 20 points. We really didn’t have an answer for him. But, our bench guys were huge for us too.”

Buettner tasked freshman guard Jesse Napgezek and redshirt sophomore guard Alex Calcaterra to key minutes defensively, and both shined in their roles, according to their coach, in trying to slow Kuehl down.

“I was really happy with our bench today,” Buettner said. “We had some guys step up, Jesse and Alex. That’s a tough assignment to go in there, but the way they’re built felt like a guy that we wanted to try to put on Kuehl. We weren’t going to stop him. We just wanted to make him work for stuff, throw some different bodies at him, and try to make him earn everything he had.

“I thought those guys did a pretty good job of that.”

The second half of the game was a much slower-moving half due to a high volume of whistles and foul calls. In the end, both teams shot over 30 free throws, both making 24 of their attempts. The Huskies were slightly more efficient at 24-of-32 to Northern’s 24-of-34.

Up next

The Huskies don’t have long to celebrate the win over the Wildcats, as they are back in action Saturday when they host Ferris State at the SDC Gym at 2 p.m.