Northwestern’s boys basketball team wasn’t as crisp as it often is Friday night but the things that Northwestern has relied on all season allowed the Purple Tigers to celebrate senior night the way they wanted to — with a win.

Northwestern’s sticky pressure defense and superb guard play got the Tigers ahead, kept them ahead and eventually delivered a 75-57 victory over Eastern in the final Mid-Indiana Conference game for both schools.

The Tigers inverted their rotation, starting their second five — all seniors — before the usual starters subbed in bit by bit. Senior shooting guard Tanner Thomas subbed in to score a career-best 28, senior point guard Kylan Dubbels scored 19, and usual super-sub David Alexander started and scored 10 points. Meanwhile, Northwestern’s defense forced Eastern into 25 turnovers.

Thomas, one of the senior group, called the game “just very emotional. It’s just hard to believe that you won’t be playing basketball on this floor anymore.”

Perhaps not on that floor, but if the Tigers continue to play well, they could be playing on neutral courts for a while in the coming weeks. Northwestern (17-2, 6-1 MIC) has won 11 straight and took second place in the league.

“I feel like we’re playing really good basketball right now,” Thomas said. “We’re peaking at the right time.”

Northwestern nearly blew the game open in the first half, opening up a 20-9 lead in the first quarter on back-to-back triples from Thomas. In the second quarter, Alexander led a one-man rally, scoring the first 10 points of the frame for Northwestern and also grabbing a steal and deflecting another ball on defense in the opening minutes of the frame.

“David brings another gear for us,” NW coach Jim Gish said. “It just seems like most people are playing in fourth gear and David plays in fifth gear. He’s quick, he’s a ball magnet and he understands defensively what he needs to do to make the team successful.”

Northwestern led 30-14 with the last of Alexander’s hoops, and pushed the advantage to 35-14 on a hoop and harm from Thomas and transition deuce from senior Kyle Hardwick.

Eastern hung around, but it seemed like every time the Comets had hope, Northwestern answered. Eastern cut the margin to 13 at 51-38 on five straight points inside by Josiah Price, but Northwestern responded with a layup by senior Cody Yeakel, and another trey by Thomas.

When two freebies by Price cut the lead to 13 again, 61-48, in the fourth quarter, Dubbels took control. He snagged an offensive rebound and found Thomas for a deuce. Eastern responded but Dubbels again found a teammate, feeding Chase Johnson for a 65-50 lead with 3:30 to go. That started an 8-0 Northwestern run to put the game away.

“I don’t think there’s too many people that disagree when I say that Kylan’s one of the best players in the area,” Gish said. “He makes the game a lot easier for the guys around him. He is so in tune to what we want to do and making guys around him better.”

Eastern coach Kyle Bedwell wouldn’t disagree.

“Dubbels is nearly unstoppable because if you play any sort of defense off of him, he’s going to be able to hit that 3,” he said. “So you’ve got to come out and guard him and as soon as you do that, he’s kind of like [Greg] Dickey from Tipton last year, he’s going to slice and dice you. Guys are going to slide over to help and if you don’t rotate quick enough, they’ve got a layup, or pop it out to Tanner Thomas for a 3.”

Northwestern hit 28 of 56 from the field, shooting 50 percent. Thomas hit 11 of 16 shots, and 5 of 10 from 3-land.

Thomas said NW’s efficient offense was because of “Kylan’s penetration, inside-out. I love it when he penetrates in and dishes it out.”

Price scored a game-high 31 points and had 11 rebounds for Eastern. K.J. Myers added 10 points and Michael Haynes had eight rebounds in what Bedwell said was his best game of the season.

The problem for Eastern was turnovers. The Comets outscored Northwestern by a point in the third quarter, but nine turnovers hurt their chances to slice an NW lead that was 56-40 after three quarters.

“First half it almost got out of hand with all the turnovers we had,” Bedwell said. “Northwestern’s a good team, so they’re going to force you to do some things that make you a little uncomfortable. We got down 13 points in the fourth quarter with four or five minutes to go. If a few more shots fall or there are a few more times that we don’t turn the ball over, we don’t have to take as many chances on defense. That’s what broke us at the end, we had to take chances.”