This Mid-American Conference men’s basketball opener isn’t likely to do much for Miami University’s confidence.

Northern Illinois brought the MAC’s worst record to Millett Hall on Wednesday night, but pulled away from a 28-28 halftime deadlock and throttled the RedHawks 72-61 before a crowd of 907.

“There was nothing they surprised us with,” said MU forward Will Felder, who had 15 points, five rebounds and three steals. “I think they lost like five games in a row. A team that’s on that type of streak, they’re going to come in hungry like that. That’s what you’ve got to expect. You’ve just got to match that intensity, and we came out a little flat.”

The Huskies buried 9 of 13 treys, sank 21 of 26 free throws and forged a whopping 44-8 advantage in bench scoring to improve to 3-10. NIU is now 2-19 at Millett Hall.

Reggie Johnson scored 12 points and Allen Roberts added 11 for Miami, which committed 18 turnovers and converted just 13 of 22 foul shots.

RedHawks coach John Cooper said he saw “a lack of emotion, a lack of passion” from his squad as MU fell to 5-8 with its second straight home loss.

“Those were the things which bothered me,” Cooper said. “We are who we are in that our margin for error is very, very small. We always have to bring our competitive nature to the game.

“It’s a step back certainly. There’s no secret — this is a team that’s going to be evolving through the year. Night in and night out, we don’t know where it’s always going to come from. In some ways we’re undermanned, and that was no excuse for the outcome of the game, but it’s where we are. That’s why it’s called building.”

Miami had a 36-34 lead after a Felder free throw with 15:21 left, then watched Northern tally 24 of the next 34 points. The visitors shot 63.2 percent from the field in the second half.

“It’s called confidence,” Cooper said. “They got comfortable. They had a little swagger about them, and their energy level was right where it needed to be, so they were able to step in and knock in some shots.”

Aksel Bolin (11), Darrell Bowie (10) and Abdel Nader (10) paced the scoring for the Huskies. All 11 of their players that saw action scored.

“Our scoring is probably going to look like that every game,” NIU coach Mark Montgomery said. “We play so many guys in so many different combinations, so they know they’re going to play and have to be ready, and they fed off each other, which is nice.”

Northern gained a 27-24 edge on the boards, with Bowie and Bolin getting five caroms apiece. Guard Will Sullivan once again led MU with eight rebounds and also scored eight points.

The RedHawks travel to Buffalo on Saturday night.