NKU traveled back to Tennessee, this time to Johnson City, for a trip to Freedom Hall on Wednesday to take on the ETSU Buccaneers. Northern Kentucky started the game extremely slow and despite their best comeback efforts, found themselves on the wrong end of a 75-63 outcome against their Southern Conference opponent in their first meeting since 2017.
The Buccaneers were quick out of the gate. A floater from Brian Taylor II would start the scoring on the night. A three from Cam Morris III was followed by a contested layup and then a dunk from Blake Barkley to give East Tennessee an impressive early 9-0 lead. Senior guard Donovan Oday finally stopped the bleeding for the Norse as his bank floater gave the visiting team their first points of the night four minutes into the contest.
The lid seemed to stay on the basket for Northern Kentucky while momentum continued for ETSU. The Norse didn’t get their second made field goal until nearly the 11 minute mark. The team shot a dreadful eight percent over the first eight minutes of the game. The lead grew to 18-4 before NKU began to make some noise on the offensive end. A couple of paint baskets paired with two Dan Gherezgher three-pointers helped cut the deficit to six just after the third media timeout.
ETSU would continue to stay hot from the floor, but Gherezgher perimeter makes and a SportsCenter top 10 worthy dunk from Donovan Oday helped inch the deficit down to four. NKU continued to cut into the lead with back-to-back makes from Oday, as well as the first points of the night from Kael Robinson after a buzzer beating shot attempt was goaltended. A once 14 point lead for the home team was dwindled down to a single point.
The shooting stood out in the first half for ETSU. They shot 52% overall and 50% from behind the arc. NKU was resilient and able to keep themselves in the game through taking advantage of the fast break, which they led 16-5 in the opening half. Oday and Gherezgher were able to keep the Norse afloat, tallying 23 of the team’s 32 points at the break.
Unfortunately for the Norse, their second half start was marred by the same struggles that they began the game with. NKU was only able to register one made field goal in the first four minute stretch of the second half. ETSU continued their scoring consistency by getting to the line and finding easy opportunities at the rim.
The Buccaneers were able to keep the lead at or near double digits for most of the second half thanks to the stellar interior scoring from Cam Morris and the perimeter play from Taylor, paired with the seven turnovers NKU had in the first eight minutes of the second half. The second half scoring efforts from the Norse were almost exclusively from Gherezgher. After ETSU secured a 47-36 lead, the senior guard would score the next eight points for the Norse before Robinson made what was just his second field goal to cut the deficit to 55-47.
That eight point deficit would be as close as the Norse would get for the remainder of the game. The post play was the glaring difference in this game as NKU starters LJ Wells was held scoreless and Robinson, the leading scorer for the Norse through two games, had a quiet night of just seven points on 3-12 shooting. The bigs for ETSU were a force all night as Barkley and Morris combined for 35 points.
Taylor had a nice 20 point showing for the home team. NKU can find some encouragement from their star guard Gherezgher, who came into the game 3-13 from deep, but seemed to have found his stroke in this one, burying five of the team’s seven three-pointers on the night.
The Norse fall to 1-2 on the season. They return to the home crowd at Truist Arena for a matinee game against Cumberland on Sunday at 1 p.m. The game can be seen on ESPN+.
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