Playing on the road in the Student Development Complex Gymnasium can be a daunting task to many foes going against Michigan Technological University. The University of Minnesota Duluth had no such trouble Wednesday evening as it throttled the Huskies 84-69 in Houghton, Mich. The Bulldogs (1-2) keyed in on executing more off turnovers than MTU (2-3). UMD scored 15 points off Husky turnovers compared to four the other way. The Bulldogs gained the lead with 11:50 to go in the opening half and never trailed again, taking their 33 victory in 63 tries in the series.

Michigan Tech opened up a 14-7 lead early on a Kyle Monroe three. Monroe was a one-man wrecking machine, putting up a game-high 27 points. Luckily, he along with Issac Appleby were the only Husky players to hit at least half of their shots.

Later in the half, sophomore forward Luke Harris nailed a shot from downtown to put UMD ahead. His three was part of a 19-2 run in which the Bulldogs drained seven of their eight shots. The lead ballooned up to 11 in the first half then by as much as 20 with 7:55 remaining. MTU only cut the UMD lead down to eight points at any one time.

Senior forward Jake Wilson dropped a team-high 20 points as he missed only one shot from the floor. He was a catalyst of a collective second half effort to retain the large cushion. Coming into the game, the Bulldogs held leads over the University of Central Missouri and Lindenwood University but were unable to sustain them in the second half. In those games they shot a combined 23.9 percent. Tonight, they got stronger as the game wore on, hitting 55 percent in the final 20 minutes including 17-of-18 at the charity stripe. 

"Our players reacted well to having 10 days off before this game," said head coach Matt Bowen. " They didn't dwell on the past and they got right back into the gym and went to work on improving in practice. They shot the ball well and were consistent throughout. We stayed in a offensive flow and hit the shots that plagued us before. It was a much concerted effort on both ends of the floor. We were active defensively and forced them to make contested shots."

The Bulldogs had five players record a steal and the Huskies turned the ball over eight times. Sophomore forward Brandon Myer, sophomore guard Logan Rohrscheib, sophomore guard Trevor Entwisle and Harris all tallied double figure for UMD as they shot a team-high 55.3 percent from the floor and 12-of-21 from behind the arc.

UMD plays the University of Wisconsin-Parkside on Saturday, Nov. 25 at 3:00 p.m. That is the last non-conference game before the start of Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference play, which starts a week from Friday.