Michigan Tech forward Dawson Nordgaard backs his defender in during a game against Wayne State Thursday at the SDC Gym in Houghton. (David Archambeau/For the Gazette)

HOUGHTON — For 20 minutes, Michigan Tech Huskies men’s basketball coach Josh Buettner watched his team play like the No. 6-ranked team in the country, as they came away at the buzzer with a 43-23 lead and looked poised to run away with the game Thursday night at the SDC Gym.

Then the second half started. The Wayne State Warriors outscored the Huskies, 51-32, in the half, but the Huskies held on just enough to earn their sixth straight win, 75-74.

“Credit to Wayne State,” said Buettner. “I thought they played lights out in the second half. I thought the first half, offensively and defensively, we executed as well as we did all year. Came out in the second half we didn’t execute as well.”

Buettner could point to one major issue, turnovers. The Huskies (17-2 overall, 8-1 GLIAC0 had just five after the first half, but finished the game with 13.

“The turnovers were honestly pretty disturbing,” Buettner said. “Things get rolling, and it’s just when things go bad for us right now, everything seems to. We miss free throws. We miss wide open shots. We miss some layups.

“Defensively we’re working on it, and I think we did a pretty good job of shrinking the floor for stretches. But, when they’re going nuclear from three, then you start getting a little tired and you start getting some game slippage. Then those seams opened up again. We gave up a couple easy ones.”

Wayne State (8-7 overall, 5-4 GLIAC) turned that 20-point deficit at half into a 54-54 tie with 8:49 remaining in the second half.

Senior guard Marcus Tomashek, who led all scorers with 35 points, got the Huskies back up by three with a 3-pointer and a dunk, one of two he had in the game, 29 seconds apart, 59-56, but a Jotham Nweke 3-pointer evened things again with 5:35 left.

The Huskies created separation again when senior guard Josh Terrian hit a 3-pointer from in front of the Michigan Tech bench with 2:37 left, 69-61, but again and again, the Warriors answered as best they could.

“Proud of the guys,” said Buettner. “(The) last five minutes, I thought we got back to executing a little bit. Some huge shots, some huge offensive rebounds. Terrian had a huge shot. Marcus, that step back he hit in front of our bench. Gabe (Smith) getting that offensive rebound in a two-point game that gets us two free throws.

“We made some winning plays down the stretch. I’m happy we won. Obviously, we need to fix the problems.”

Buettner felt that the Warriors made the necessary changes in the second half to make themselves much harder to guard.

“They’re harder to guard,” he said. “Teams are going to try to go small and space us with five shooters. That’s part of it. It becomes harder for us to guard. I’d like to watch the film and see how much of it was their defense, and how much of it was us making some execution errors and some dumb turnovers, because that really fueled what was going on that end.

“We gave up a couple offensive rebounds to start that half. When you need to put them away, that first four minutes is huge. In a game like this, if you come out there and play them even for four minutes, I think the chances of winning go way, way up. They got a layup, we came back and got a layup. But then after that it was offensive rebounds. One of them was a tip in, and, I think, one of them turned into a three, maybe a second one turned into a three, and then they’re feeling good.”

Still, having Tomashek put up another 35 points helped the Huskies weather the storm.

“We’re going through this stretch right now (where) we have a big target on our back,” Buettner said. “Everybody’s out to get us. I don’t think that’s going away. Right now we’re struggling a little bit.

“And you know what? The rest of the guys and people picked it up from Mark when he was getting back into shape early in the year. Right now, he’s carrying us.”

Along with Tomashek, redshirt sophomore guard Gabe Smith and junior guard Matt Schmainda had 10 points each, all in the first half. Buettner liked a lot of what Schmainda brought to the game.

“He was confident. He was aggressive,” said Buettner. “I was happy with how Matt played. He gave us a big time spark in the first half, and you can say what you want, that we had a bad second half, but we don’t win the game if we don’t play that great first half, and he was a big part of that.”

Up next

The Huskies, who have won their last three games by a combined four points, are back at it Saturday, when they host Purdue Northwest. Opening tip is set for 2 p.m. at the SDC Gym in Houghton.