Manny Adako posted his second career double-double with 24 points and a career-high 12 rebounds as the Northeastern men's basketball team rolled over Towson 68-53 Saturday afternoon at Matthews Arena.
The win is Northeastern's seventh in its last eight games and improves the Huskies' record to 10-5, 5-0 in the CAA. The Huskies are 5-0 in conference play for the first time since the 1988-89 season. The Huskies have dominated in conference play so far, defeating their opponents by an average of 14.6 points.
In addition, the Northeastern defense has been stellar this month, holding opponents to 54 points or less and under 40 percent shooting in each game. With the Tigers shooting just 34.7 percent, the Huskies are now 6-0 this season when holding opponents to under 40 percent from the field.
As it has been the case in each of the last four games, the Huskies got off to a great start, scoring the game's first 13 points. After Chaisson Allen stole the ball from Troy Frankling, Matt Janning nailed a fastbreak layup to open the scoring at 19:20. From there, the Huskies built the 13-point lead that included a pair of three pointers from Eugene Spates at 17:23 and 13:46.
After Franklin got Towson on the board with a layup at 13:25, the Huskies turned it up a notch with a layup from Chris Alvarez off a bounce pass from Janning and a dunk by Adako off a threaded pass from Allen, making it 17-2 NU with 12:45 left in the first half.
Northeastern continued with excellent shooting as Allen fed Nkem Ojougboh with a pass inside that resulted in a layup. Allen himself then navigated through three defenders in the lane for a layup. Adako followed with a layup inside off a feed from Vinny Lima and then took and inbound pass from Allen and drained a 15-foot jump shot. The Huskies led 29-8 with 6:15 on the clock and took a 35-17 lead into halftime.
In the second half, Josh Thornton woke Towson up with a pair of three-pointers in the first 3:34 as the Tigers got within 13, 38-25. Northeastern upped the lead back to 17 as a Adako kept hitting his shots, but Thornton did not relent, draining a three at 12:39 and then stealing the ball from Allen, which led to a Jarrel Smith layup as the lead dwindled to 12, 44-32. Thornton finished with a game-high 25 points, 16 in the second half. He made six treys in the game.
With the game at 50-46, the Huskies snatched the momentum away for good when Baptiste Bataille stole Brian Morris' attempted pass and handed off to Janning, who dunked home the ball, awakening the crowd and putting NU up 52-46.
Near the end, Adako took over, draining shots from all over the court. He had three baskets between 5:15 and 3:05 and none of them touched anything but the net.
Towson tried to get back into the game by fouling, but the Huskies were 6-for-6 from the line in the final two minutes. For the game, NU was 20-for-22 from the free throw line (90.9 percent).
Janning finished with 16 points and seven rebounds and Allen added 10 points, six boards and four assists. As a team, NU shot 51.1 percent, its second straight game hitting more shots than missing. Besides Thornton's 25, Smith had 16 points to aid the Towson effort.
After playing four games in seven days and winning them all, the Huskies get a five-day rest before playing at Delaware next Thursday in Newark, Del., at 7 p.m. The game will be televised on ESPNU.
Official Basketball Box Score
Towson vs Northeastern
01/10/09 3 p.m. at Matthews Arena (Boston, MA)
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VISITORS: Towson 7-10, 2-3 CAA
TOT-FG 3-PT REBOUNDS
## Player Name FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT PF TP A TO BLK S MIN
22 Smith, Jarrel....... f 6-11 1-1 4-5 1 2 3 2 17 1 0 0 1 36
24 Hairston, Junior.... f 0-9 0-3 0-0 0 2 2 2 0 0 2 1 1 34
25 Nwankwo, Robert..... f 0-1 0-0 4-4 1 6 7 2 4 2 0 5 1 33
23 Thornton, Josh...... g 8-14 6-10 3-5 2 2 4 1 25 0 3 0 2 36
32 Franklin, Troy...... g 1-6 0-3 0-0 0 1 1 5 2 2 3 0 0 18
20 Morris, Brian....... 2-5 1-1 0-0 0 1 1 3 5 4 4 0 2 27
35 Durant, Tony........ 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4
4 Coleman, Rocky...... 0-2 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 12
TEAM................ 2 2 1
Totals.............. 17-49 8-18 11-14 4 16 20 17 53 9 13 6 8 200
TOTAL FG% 1st Half: 6-22 27.3% 2nd Half: 11-27 40.7% Game: 34.7% DEADB
3-Pt. FG% 1st Half: 1-8 12.5% 2nd Half: 7-10 70.0% Game: 44.4% REBS
F Throw % 1st Half: 4-5 80.0% 2nd Half: 7-9 77.8% Game: 78.6% 1
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HOME TEAM: Northeastern 10-5, 5-0 CAA
TOT-FG 3-PT REBOUNDS
## Player Name FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT PF TP A TO BLK S MIN
24 Spates, Eugene...... f 2-4 2-4 1-2 0 1 1 2 7 2 0 0 0 17
32 Adako, Manny........ f 12-15 0-0 0-0 1 11 12 3 24 0 5 0 1 34
54 Ojougboh, Nkem...... c 1-2 0-0 1-2 0 0 0 3 3 2 1 0 0 23
03 Allen, Chaisson..... g 3-6 0-0 4-4 3 3 6 0 10 4 5 0 2 37
23 Janning, Matt....... g 4-15 0-5 8-8 2 5 7 0 16 2 0 0 2 33
02 Alvarez, Chris...... 1-1 0-0 0-0 0 4 4 5 2 2 2 1 1 19
11 Lima, Vinny......... 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 7
15 McDonald, Brian..... 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
20 Smith, Matt......... 0-1 0-1 0-0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 12
25 Bataille, Baptiste.. 0-1 0-1 6-6 0 1 1 2 6 3 1 0 2 14
31 Aragbaye, Allen..... 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 3
TEAM................ 1 3 4
Totals.............. 23-45 2-11 20-22 7 30 37 17 68 16 15 2 10 200
TOTAL FG% 1st Half: 14-25 56.0% 2nd Half: 9-20 45.0% Game: 51.1% DEADB
3-Pt. FG% 1st Half: 2-9 22.2% 2nd Half: 0-2 0.0% Game: 18.2% REBS
F Throw % 1st Half: 5-6 83.3% 2nd Half: 15-16 93.8% Game: 90.9% 1
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Officials: Tim Nestor, Bill Covington Jr., Freddie Williams
Technical fouls: Towson-Franklin, Troy; TEAM. Northeastern-None.
Attendance: 2078
Score by Periods 1st 2nd Total
Towson........................ 17 36 - 53
Northeastern.................. 35 33 - 68
Points in the paint-TOWSON 12,NU 24. Points off turnovers-TOWSON 20,NU 13.
2nd chance points-TOWSON 5,NU 7. Fast break points-TOWSON 7,NU 6.
Bench points-TOWSON 5,NU 8. Score tied-0 times. Lead changed-0 times.
Last FG-TOWSON 2nd-01:38, NU 2nd-03:05.
Largest lead-TOWSON None, NU by 21 1st-06:15.
