Visiting Milwaukee batters Norse, slide continues
For the fifth straight contest, the Northern Kentucky University men’s basketball team found itself on the wrong end of the box score, this time a 20-point thumping by visiting conference rival Milwaukee. The lopsided loss to the Panthers (15-7, 8-3 HL) drops the Norse to 9-12 (4-6 HL) on the season.
The Norse were paced in scoring by senior wing Trey Robinson (11 points – 6 boards – 1 steal), junior post Keeyan Itejere (10 points – 2 boards – 1 block/1 steal) and junior transfer guard Dan Gherezgher Jr. (9 points – 5 assists – 3 steals). As a team, the Norse shot just 42.9% from the field and a paltry 14.3% from beyond the arc, highlighting a glaring concern that continues to plague the Norse during the 5-game slide.
Due to the nature of the current streak of dreadful results, this article won’t aim to give readers a blow-by-blow account of the game. The box score can be found on ESPN’s page, I’m sure. This time around, this piece will be heavier on editorial creative license with an eyeglass on bigger picture concerns beyond the most recent drubbing on their home court.
Over the past five games, the Norse have shot at a 25.9% clip (27-of-104) from long range. This demonstrated trend in futility must beg the question of if (er, when) adjustments will be made to give the squad a better chance at making their offense more difficult for opposing coaching staffs to scout and game-plan against.
The Norse continue to run a predictable, plodding offense that favors holding four of the five players out past the perimeter through the duration of the shot clock, and then either feeding the ball closer to the paint or forcing a deep shot as the 30-second clock expires. This style of offense makes offensive rebounding excessively difficult, it makes second-chance points unlikely, it makes fast breaks a rarity. It makes fun, exciting, up-tempo basketball…nonexistent.
Not only are the Norse shooting poorly this season, but their overall shot selection suffers in the process, which lends itself to a limp scoring offense that has averaged just 60.2 points per game over the past five games. Of particular concern, game after game the plan appears to be the same, a copy/paste approach that continues to lead to copy/paste results.
This may not seem like such a pressing concern if their recent schedule read UK, Duke, Auburn, Houston, Memphis….but it doesn’t. Conference rivals in a one-bid mid-major conference are outplaying and outcoaching the traditional favorites to win the Horizon League. As a writer, the intent is that this article will guide discussion of the issue, with hopes squarely fixed on understanding how and why the team is unraveling at the seams this season.
That said, Milwaukee is a very solid team in their own right. Even though they (like NKU) failed to make a postseason appearance last season, they did manage to win 20 games and give Oakland all they could handle (83-76) before falling in the Horizon League Championship game. But these schools are dealing with the same transfer portal issues, same geographics and same conference schedule.
The only marked difference appears to be on the coaching side. Head Coach Bart Lundy was hired on to run the program out of Division II Queens University (NC) three years ago, and immediately led his team to back-to-back 20 win seasons while rewriting the program’s record books. Lundy installed a style of play that is fast, fun, frenetic, attractive and hard to coach against.
He generally sends 3-4 players to crash the boards every shot, his team runs hard in transition, they follow their shots and create opportunities, they drive to the rim instead of waiting for openings…in a nutshell, they do everything NKU Head Coach Darrin Horn’s team isn’t doing right now.
In the loss to Milwaukee, the Norse lost the rebounding battle, 33-20. They lost the second chance points battle, 15-6. They got run off their own court, in the process landing on the wrong end of the fast break points, 21-12. The Norse trailed at the Half, 41-26…and the score wasn’t even that close. If senior guard Sam Vinson doesn’t hit a jumper with 0:08 left on the clock, the Norse go into the locker room on pace to score less than 50 for the game.
The Panthers led the affair by as many as 26 (at the 5:43 mark in the second half) before Coach Lundy started emptying his bench…but even the bench continued to pour in points and the Norse never got closer than 20 down the stretch.
While things look bleak for this Norse squad right now, there is still time to make adjustments as they prepare for their January 30 tilt at the University of Detroit in historic Calihan Hall, where the hosting Titans (6-16, 2-9 HL) will not only look to avenge an early season away loss to the Norse, but also end a losing streak of their own. The 7:00pm EST clash will be available on both the ESPN+ app as well as ESPN 1530 AM radio.