Nichols, Huskies alertly protect second straight win

DEKALB -- After his team lost its first six games by an average of 18.2 points, including a humiliating 24-point home loss to Stephen F. Austin, Northern Illinois coach Ricardo Patton hit on an idea.

The night before Saturday's home game with Lamar, Patton rolled a raft of mattresses into the team's Convocation Center locker room.

The Huskies watched "Glory," a film about one of the Civil War's first regiments made up solely of African-American men, and went to sleep at 11 p.m. sharp.

"Basically it was coming together and learning how to protect our house," said NIU junior guard Jarvis Nichols. "If we sleep in it, then it's pretty much something that we have to protect."

The Huskies earned their first win the next day on Egan Grafel's tip-in at the buzzer -- a basket initially waved off by the officials before being ruled good after the courtside television replay.

Still on a high from that victory, Northern Illinois took control in the final four minutes Tuesday night and knocked off Air Force 63-52 in front of 1,169 at the Convo Center.

Nichols, a 2004 Glenbard North graduate, came off the bench to deliver game-high totals in points (18), assists (4) and steals (4).

All of those numbers represented Division I career highs for Nichols, who spent two years in junior college before redshirting last year at NIU and losing his scholarship prior to this season for reasons that remain "behind closed doors."

"It's made me work harder," Nichols said.

But not quite hard enough for Patton's tastes. He showed faith in Nichols even though he committed 6 turnovers in 14 minutes against Lamar.

"Jarvis is a much better player than he's shown so far," Patton said. "I keep telling him that. Jarvis, what he did tonight was OK, but he's much better than that.

"When he learns to play with Jeremy Landers' energy, this is going to be just an average performance for Jarvis Nichols."

Could've fooled Air Force.

After the Falcons (5-4) rallied to pull into a 46-46 knot with 3:59 left, Nichols and freshman guard Jeremy Landers keyed the Huskies' finishing flourish.

Nichols ignited NIU's 17-6 run when he slashed into the lane and kicked it to Landers in the corner for the go-ahead 3-pointer.

Nichols hit 4 free throws in the final minute and capped the rally when he stole the ball and fed it to Grafel for a breakaway slam.