Keshawn Williams scores a career-high 24 in NIU home debut as Huskies top Eastern Illinois

DeKALB – One reason Keshawn Williams transferred from Tulsa to NIU was to be closer to home, but it took him almost a month of the season to play in front of a home crowd.

He made the most of his Convocation Center debut Wednesday, scoring a career-best 24 as the Huskies snapped a five-game losing streak with a 55-45 win over Eastern Illinois on Wednesday.

“I knew I had a lot of family out here tonight so I knew I had to play as hard as I can,” Williams said. “I had to do what I had to do to win games.”

Williams scored almost half of his team’s points, making 11 of 20 shots, helping the Huskies maintain the lead throughout the second half and for a total of 35:40 of the game.

“My first instinct is to score,” Williams said. “That’s not like what I want to do to win games. If I’ve got to do it to win games I’ll do it. ... We’re always going to feed the hot hand whether it is with Trendon [Hankerson], one of our posts, whoever – that’s who we’re going to feed the ball too.”

Hankerson added 15 for the Huskies (2-5) as the duo combined for 39 of the Huskies’ 55 points. The Panthers (1-7) had a similar one-two scoring punch with Kashawn Charles and Jermaine Hamlin scoring 27 of the 45 Eastern points. No player other than those four scored more than four points in the game.

But it was Williams, the Bloom graduate, who led everybody. Coach Rashon Burno said he’d like to see other Huskies help out with the scoring, but said that Williams is a capable scorer.

“Talking to him before the game he was happy, his entire family came out,” Burno said. “That’s good, and that’s something we’re offering to local kids who want to stay home and be a major part of a rebuild have a major part of what we’re doing moving forward. I’m super ecstatic for him that he was able to play in front of his family but also play well and help us get a victory.

NIU had trouble getting the lead past 10, but Eastern never got the lead below six. The Huskies broke the barrier with 6:07 left in the game when Williams hit a jumper to push the lead to 47-36. The Panthers never got their deficit below 10 again.

“We try to keep the runs on our side,” Hankerson said. “Just keeping at the 8-10 margin was good for us. We really need to try to extend it, it was good for us tonight so we could seal the victory.”

Burno said it was frustrating for the players because they know they can play better.

“The game wasn’t going the way we hoped, but these guys were resilient,” Burno said. “It didn’t affect the defensive end.”

Williams and Hankerson dominated the first-half scoring for the Huskies, combining for 25 of the Huskies’ 29 points as the Huskies took a six-point lead into the break.

The Panthers only led for 0:47 in the first half and never led by more than three. NIU led by as much as six in the first half.

The Huskies head to Dayton (5-3) as the Flyers are coming off a 74-73 upset win at Kansas last week and have won four straight.

“This game will be a tremendous challenge, but we also came off playing in front of 17,000 in Bloomington,” said Burno, referring to an 85-49 loss last month at Indiana. “The schedule has geared us and prepared us to face Dayton. They’ve seen a packed arena before. It’s deja vu.”