NKU returned home on Tuesday night after a tough loss on Saturday. The Truist Arena crowd was treated to a game against the Brescia Bearcats out of the NAIA. As expected, the Norse were able to get a sizable lead early in this game and keep it on the way to a 92-53 victory on a cold night in Highland Heights.
Grad transfer Kael Robinson scored the first nine points on the night for the Norse. The Bearcats were able to stick around thanks to Jaunte Jenkins, the standout player for Brescia in the first half, who connected on back-to-back scores in the paint between Robinson buckets. A Donovan Oday steal and dunk gave NKU their first points that Robinson didn’t score and a five point lead in the first four minutes.
Former NAIA athletes Robinson and Tae Dozier gave NKU the first double digit lead in the game as a triple and a fast break dunk sparked some momentum for the Norse. Israel Momudu hit a jumper to cut the lead to 22-12. That is when Northern Kentucky started to find separation behind a 10-0 Norse run fueled by senior Dan Gherezgher who had six of those 10 points.
Robinson and fellow newcomer Shawn Nelson kept the momentum rolling with each hitting a shot from deep to push the lead to 40-18. Jenkins scored the last points for Brescia in the half before threes from Oday and Bryce Darbyshire capped the opening half and sent the home team to the locker room with a 50-20 advantage.
The first half is one Brescia will want to forget. Their only consistent scoring output came from Jenkins who scored 10 of the 20 points for the Bearcats in the first half. Brescia was held to 21% shooting overall and 0-14 from the perimeter. The Norse were able to show they were focused and ready to make a statement. They shot 47% overall and 35% from range before the break.
The second half was much of the same as NKU was able to maintain the lead, even having it balloon to as much as 41 in the final half on the way to the commanding win. The biggest difference for the Norse in this game was the 33-16 edge they had from bench points. Darbyshire contributed to that with a season high 11 points and freshman Ryan Tolliver who saw his first major minutes of the season led the team in offensive rebounding. NKU head coach Darrin Horn said contributions like that mean so much to the team.
“Guys that don’t get to play a lot, to get reps in a game like this, can help. Those guys are capable of giving us minutes. I would say that for everybody that’s coming in off the bench for us.”
Horn made sure to emphasize focus this week in preparation for the game because despite Brescia being NAIA, that is not an indictment on the skill that the players and team has overall.
“I think there are really good basketball players everywhere. I think levels can be really overrated. What determines how good you are is how good of a basketball player you are.”
NKU remains undefeated at home and are winners of seven of their last eight games. They will look to have a better showing on the road as they travel to play another intrastate matchup in Bellarmine. The game can be seen Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. on ESPN+.
Like Alex’s work? Support his work via Venmo: @Alex-Perez-103
Subscribe to our emails, and get our latest posts in your inbox, plus a weekly digest of everything we've published!
