By Mark Schmetzer
Enquirer contributor

OXFORD - Charlie Coles labeled Tuesday night's crucial Mid-American Conference game against Northern Illinois as the "all-business game," and Chet Mason and Gene Seals got down to business at the right time. Mason and Seals teamed up to score 14 of the RedHawks' last 18 points over the final six minutes to lead Miami back from a 49-41 deficit to a 59-56 win over the Huskies before a crowd of 4,170 at Millett Hall.

"It feels good any time you get a win at this point of the conference season," Mason said.

The 6-foot-3 sophomore guard just missed a double-double with team highs of 16 points and nine rebounds.

Miami (13-11, 11-4 MAC) earned its fourth consecutive victory and ninth in its last 11 games while equaling its total number of wins from last season. NIU (14-11, 10-5) suffered its second consecutive loss and first defeat in eight MAC road games this season.

The RedHawks moved into first place by a half-game in the MAC East Division as Kent State lost at Marshall, 80-67. Miami also tied West Division-leading Central Michigan for the best conference record as the Chippewas lost at home to Akron.

Junior guard P.J. Smith scored a game-high 20 points for the Huskies, and junior guard Al Sewasciuk added 18, 15 in the second half on five 3-pointers.

The RedHawks overcame the absence of sophomore forward Danny Horace, their second-leading scorer, who was sitting out the first game of a two-game suspension after being ejected from Miami's game at Buffalo Saturday. They also dealt with an NIU defense that limited MU leading scorer Juby Johnson and steadily improving Josh Hausfeld to a combined six second-half points.

"It's always good to know that you win without your greater contributors," said Seals, the 6-6 junior forward who finished with 10 points.

"It's like you can lose a piece of the puzzle, but you can still put the puzzle together."

"Charlie's team made some plays at the end of the game, and that was the difference," NIU coach Rob Judson.

Mason hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key and a putback to personally cut the deficit to three points. Seals followed with his own five-point run on a 3-pointer and a drive along the baseline capped by his right-handed reverse layup that gave the RedHawks the lead for good.

Johnson followed with a block of Smith's jumper that was corralled by Hausfeld, who fed Mason for a layup. Seals hit two free throws and Johnson four in the last minute to overcome 3-pointers by Smith and Sewasciuk.

Miami opened up two 10-point first-half leads behind the balanced scoring of Mason, Johnson and redshirt freshman Nate VanderSluis. Each scored seven points. VanderSluis finished with nine while shooting 4-of-4 from the field. The RedHawks attacked the NIU zone with a traditional low-post offense that was different than the Princeton-inspired motion offense they'd been running for most of the season.

The RedHawks also focused on outrebounding NIU, which was leading the MAC with a plus-8.9 rebounding margin in conference games. The RedHawks ended up outrebounding NIU by six.

"It was beautiful," Coles said of the rebounding.

"Those were my keys to the game. The No. 1 key was rebounding, the No. 2 key was rebounding, and the No. 3 key was rebounding."

NIU	M	FG	Att	FT	Att	R	A	F	TO	TP
Smallwood	30	3	10	0	0	9	0	3	1	6
Staten	31	1	4	1	2	6	3	3	2	3
Morrison	14	1	1	0	0	0	0	2	1	2
Bates	20	2	3	1	2	1	4	3	0	5
Smith	37	6	14	4	5	3	5	1	1	20
Maestranzi	20	0	1	0	0	0	1	3	2	0
Sanders	16	1	1	0	0	1	0	2	1	2
Sewasciuk	27	6	11	0	0	2	0	1	0	18
Peterson	4	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	0
McKenzie	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Totals	200	20	45	6	9	26	13	18	9	56

Team rebounds: 3.

Miami	M	FG	Att	FT	Att	R	A	F	TO	TP
Seals	34	3	6	3	4	7	3	1	2	10
Reed	15	1	1	0	0	0	0	3	1	2
Hausfeld	35	3	7	1	2	5	1	2	1	8
Mason	40	5	9	4	6	9	3	2	4	16
Johnson	40	3	9	4	4	4	1	3	1	11
Drake	7	1	5	0	0	0	0	2	0	3
Williams	3	0	3	0	0	1	0	0	1	0
VanderSluis	14	4	4	1	4	3	0	1	0	9
Schenke	11	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0
Hatcher	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Totals	200	20	45	13	20	32	9	14	10	59

Team rebounds: 3.

Northern Illinois	22	34	-56
Miami	30	29	-59

Attendance-4,170. 3-point goals-Northern Illinois 10-20 (Smith 4-8, Maestranzi 0-1, Sewasciuk 6-11); Miami 6-20 (Seals 1-2, Hausfeld 1-4, Mason 2-2, Johnson 1-5, Drake 1-5, Williams 0-1, Hatcher 0-1). Technical fouls-none. Officials-Collins, Fogarty, Secrest.