Northern Kentucky began the year on Thursday by hosting an IU Indianapolis team searching for its first conference win. The Norse started the game as if they were still on their holiday break, and the Jaguars took advantage. Northern Kentucky shook off the holiday haze towards the end of the half and carried that momentum to a 81-72 victory at Truist Arena.
Tae Dozier kicked off the New Year with a ball drop from distance to start the scoring on the day. Finley Woodward responded quickly for the Jaguars with two quick bank shots to continue the momentum from his season high performance in his last game. The teams swapped the lead seven times in the opening minutes.
After the Norse secured their final lead of the opening half, the Jaguars went on a 7-0 run to snatch the lead right back. Four different Jaguars scored by the time they had built a seven point lead just eight minutes in. Dozier and Dan Gherezgher trimmed the lead to four with triples, but IU Indy kept piling on. Woodward continued to add points to his total and was joined by Reece Hagy and leading scorer Kyler D’Augustino.
IU Indy tallied its largest lead of 12 after a pair of free throws. NKU head coach Darrin Horn said that the slow start for the Norse was simple.
“I don’t think we were as aggressive as we needed to be. A lot of that was [IU Indy], they did a good job of moving the basketball and playing inside out. They got us on some skips. So give them a ton of credit,” Horn said.
NKU ended the half with some steam as it started to force turnovers. That catapulted the Norse to easy looks for Donovan Oday and LJ Wells in transition, and for Ethan Elliot to find himself open for his second triple. That momentum led to the Norse cutting the deficit back down to just four heading into halftime. IUI dominated the first half, only allowing NKU a lead for a total of 90 seconds. The Jaguars shot 50% overall and 35% from deep.
Northern Kentucky started the second half with the same fire that they ended the first half with. After free throws from Wells and Dozier, Kael Robinson found himself open for a layup to give NKU its first lead since the opening minutes of the game. The teams exchanged threes that led to a couple ties and lead changes.
That is when IUI found the same momentum from the first half. They went on a 10-2 run behind two layups and two corner threes that forced NKU into a timeout as they found themselves down double digits once again. NKU was searching for a spark and found one on a fast break from Dozier where he was walloped on his way up for a dunk. The play was ruled a flagrant foul, but more importantly for the home team, it was the wake up they needed. Oday connected on consecutive corner threes and Donovan Rakotonanahary capped off the 10-0 run with a SportsCenter worthy cradle dunk that gave the Norse a one point lead.
After the Jaguars timeout, Robinson and Oday combined for 10 of the next 11 Norse points to give NKU a 71-65 advantage with time winding down. The excellent press defense of IUI gave the Jaguars one final last hope as they kept scoring to make it a one possession game. The daggers were then delivered by Gherezgher, who hit on back to back threes to give NKU a nine point lead late that they would not look back from on the way to the win.
Northern Kentucky excelled at the free-throw line in the second half. As a team, it shot 19 free throws in the last half compared to just five for IUI.
Another component that helped NKU capture the win was balanced scoring. Only one of the nine Norse players were unable to score, while the Jaguars got 40 of their 72 points from just three players. Horn said the difference was an attitude change in the final half for the home team.
“The truth of the matter is yeah, we did some things, but bottom line is we played more aggressive down the stretch. We defended much better. It doesn’t matter what defense you’re in, you have to guard and we were not guarding early at all. Down the stretch really defended, got a bunch of stops in a row that led to easy baskets,” Horn said.
Northern Kentucky moves to 11-5 overall and 3-2 in Horizon League play, good enough for second thanks to the logjam at the top of the standings.
The Norse will look to remain perfect in 2026 on Sunday as they host Youngstown State as part of another men’s and women’s doubleheader at Truist Arena. The game is set to tip off at 4 p.m. and can be seen on ESPN+.
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