Raiders deny NKU Top 4 tourney seed, home game
Prior to Saturday night’s game at Wright State, the table was truly set for the Northern Kentucky University men’s basketball team to secure a highly coveted top-four conference tournament seed.
The planets and stars were seemingly all aligned in just the desired fashion. The Norse (17-14, 12-8 HL) had just taken care of business on their end, beating both IUPUI on the road (80-64) and then returning home to snag their sixth win in seven games over Robert Morris (70-60).
To aid in the matter, on February 28th, Purdue Fort Wayne made the trip to Dayton and shocked the Raiders in Overtime 79-77, effectively dragging Wright State down in the standings to a dead-even tie with the Norse. With one regular season game left on the docket for the Norse, there was but one thing left for them to do…take the bus to Dayton and beat Wright State (18-13, 13-7 HL).
On Saturday night – on the road and with a short bench due to a recent injury (post Keeyan Itejere) and departure (post cade Meyer) – Head Coach Darrin Horn’s squad got pulled into Wright State’s frenzied pace and came up just short, bowing down to their hosts 94-88 in front of 5,232 fans at Wright State’s Nutter Center.
“So proud of our guys and the effort and the fight they showed tonight,” Coach Horn said after the game. “Give them (Wright State) credit, I thought they made some really timely shots, shot the ball really well especially from the perimeter. And they got to the foul line, that was really the difference in the game.”
Going into the game, there was little doubt as to what Wright State Head Coach Scott Nagy had planned for the Norse. If seasonal statistics and trends were any indication, the Norse knew to expect a fast and furious game from the Raiders with an emphasis on aggressive, attacking basketball on the offensive end of the court.
The teams went into the game with Wright State boasting the nation’s #6 rated offense on the season (85.6 ppg) and the Norse touting the Horizon League’s #3 ranked defense (71.4 ppg). The Norse entered the game no stranger to playing with pace in transition, ranking #81 in the nation in points off turnovers (11.84) per game, just ahead of the likes of North Carolina, Duke and Texas.
What the Norse could not answer for though, was Wright State’s healthier and deeper roster at this juncture in the season. The Norse kept the score close most of the first half, even tying the game up at 36-36 at the 3:41 mark in the first half off a rebound by freshman guard Randall Pettus II and bolt pass to senior guard Marques Warrick for a fast-break layup. But the Raiders refused to let the lead slide away and proceeded to convert multiple possessions before the first half buzzer to lead by seven at intermission, 45-38.
The start of the second half saw the Raiders sprint out to a 15-point lead by the 15:53 mark. Thankfully for the Norse, the under-16:00 media timeout at 15:49 slowed the Raiders’ momentum.
Coming out of the timeout, sophomore wing LJ Wells hit a layup cutting the Wright State lead to 13. By the 12:08 mark in the second half, senior Trey Robinson sank a fastbreak layup assisted by grad senior Michael Bradley to whittle the lead down to six, 64-58.
Over the next five minutes of play, the Raiders again slowly stretched their lead back out to 14 at 77-63 with 7:41 left in the game. The Norse continued to fight back, and in the last two minutes of the game hit a series of three-pointers and free throws to tighten the game down to a two-possession affair (89-84) after a long trey from Warrick with just 42 seconds remaining.
With just 13 seconds left, Robinson was hacked hard and sank two free throws to draw the lead to four at 92-88 with the game clock reading 00:13. The Raiders were able to convert two free throws of their own and keep the Norse off the board the rest of the way to account for the final score.
The Raiders shot the ball uncharacteristically well from deep, logging one of their best long-range shooting games of the season. They drilled 11-of-25 from deep (44%) and used the deep touch to their advantage while Norse defenders focused on collapsing on players roaming the paint down low, giving shooters on the perimeter more room to take the open shots.
“We wanted to do a better job of taking away the easy cuts and the layups and it’s probably my fault, I didn’t think our guys were aggressive enough,” Horn observed. “We didn’t wanna just let them shoot threes, but we were trying not to get too spread out (on defense)…That said, you’ve got to make them (treys) when they’re open, and they made them…so give them credit for that.”
Despite the loss, the Norse battled the Raiders shot for shot the second half to a stalemate (50-50), came back from 14+ point deficits multiple times, but could just not make up the difference from the first half deficit.
The Norse were led in scoring by Warrick, who had a career night pouring in 39 points on 15-of-23 shooting from the field and 5-of-10 from behind the arc. The senior from Lexington, Ky. also hit 4-of-5 free throws and added 2 rebounds and an assist to his line on the night.
All five of the Raiders starters scored in double digits on the night, and were led by conference Player of the Year candidate Trey Calvin and his 23 points.
Care To Compare? :
- Notable Stats
- Norse:
- Warrick: 39 pts. (Pushed scoring average up to 19.9 ppg – 3rd in HL)
- Robinson: 20 pts. – 9 boards – 4 steals
- Bradley: 11 pts. – 4 boards – 5 assists – 6 turnovers – His 137 assists this season are the most at NKU since 2017-18, when guard LaVone Holland II recorded 140 assists for a 4.4 apg
- Wells: 8 pts. – 8 boards – 2 assists
- Pettus II: 6 pts. – 5 boards
- J. Israel: 4 pts. – 1 steal
- Norse:
- Points in the Paint
- Norse: 38
- Raiders: 32
- Points Off Turnovers
- Norse: 16
- Raiders: 9
- 2nd Chance Points
- Norse: 7
- Raiders: 11
- Fast-Break Points
- Norse: 13
- Raiders: 11
- Field Goal Percentage
- Norse: 51.5% (35/68)
- Raiders: 54.2% (32/59)
- Behind the Arc
- Norse: 32% (1st half 10% – 2nd half 47%)
- Raiders: 44%
- Charity Stripe Freebies
- Norse: 62.5%
- Raiders: 67.9%
- Total Rebounds
- Norse: 31
- Raiders: 37
- Stop, Thief! – Steals
- Norse: 10
- Raiders: 4
With the loss Saturday, the Norse inherit the #5 seed in the Horizon League post-season tournament. What this amounts to is, they get a First Round Bye but must still travel to Wright State to play the Raiders in the 2nd Round of the tournament in Dayton at the Nutter Center.
- NKU (5) @ WSU (4):
- Thursday, March 7 – 8:00pm EST – Nutter Center – ESPN+
- Dayton Radio: 101.5 HANK FM / WING 1410 AM
The Norse are 0-2 against the Raiders this season, but the mathematical odds of beating the same team three times in a row are not all that favorable, so this may bode well for the Norse.
According to statistics from KenPom.com, when the “better team” (in this case, Wright State) won both previous matchups (which they did), the third game becomes a true toss-up — the better teams win only about 49.3% of the time in these cases.
As it stands now, the Norse finish the regular season as such:
- Fifth place out of 11 teams
- 17-14 overall (.548 win percentage)
- Worst record since the 2015-16 season (9-21 / .300)
- 12-8 in the Horizon League
- 12-3 Home record
- 5-11 Away record
- Finished season winning 6 of last 8 games
- #5 seed in conference tournament
- 74.1 points per game = Best offensive output since 2018-19 season (78.5 ppg)
If the Norse are victorious in Dayton, they will then play the remainder of the tournament in the Indiana Farmers Coliseum in Indianapolis. Stay tuned!
