ST. PAUL, Minn.-- Men's Basketball was knocked out of the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference playoffs on Wednesday. The defending league champion University of Northwestern defeated the Rams 88-66 at the Ericksen Center.

North Central (13-13, 10-7 UMAC) got stuck playing catch-up midway through the first half and could never find a way back. Midway through the first half NCU trailed just 20-18 but the host Eagles made a run and pushed the lead out to 32-22 over the next five minutes.

The Rams could not string together stops and Northwestern led 38-24 with 5:31 to play in the opening half. North Central fought back to within 40-33 with 90 seconds left but as was theme all night, Northwestern covered every run and then some to lead 45-33 at the break.

Things started positively in the second half with the Rams stringing together a 6-0 run, forcing a UNW timeout just 30 seconds into new period. After the timeout the Eagles made what proved a deciding run that put the game out of reach for good. UNW ran off 11 unanswered and led 56-39 with 15 minutes to play.

North Central was able to get within 14 at several points, the last with 7:03 to go after senior Cody Martin (Burnsville, Minn./Burnsville) hit a pair of free throws that made it 76-62. From there UNW ran off another 10-0 run and went on to close out the victory.

KEY PERFORMERS OF THE GAME

Cody Martin posted 18 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists in the loss and helped keep the Rams shot a comeback alive. Senior Josh High (Buffalo, Minn./Buffalo) added 10 points while junior Travis Voigt (Green Bay, Wis./N.E.W. Lutheran) also added 10 points.

INSIDE THE BOX SCORE

• UNW shot .508 (32-63) on the night including 9-18 from three point land
• NCU was just 5-19 (.263) from the three point area but did manage to shoot .406 (26-54) overall
• The Eagles owned the rebound edge 43-34
• Northwestern made 15 of 23 free throws while the Rams shot just 15 total free throws making just 9

UP NEXT

The Rams are back in action on Friday in the NCCAA Division II North Central region championship tournament. NCU hosts the tournament and the second seed Rams will play in a semi-final game at 8 p.m. They will take on the winner of first round game between third seed Faith Baptist Bible College (Ankeny, Iowa) and sixth seed Oak Hills Christian College (Bemidji, Minn.).