After IU Indianapolis (7-20, 3-13 HL) started on a 10-0 run and didn’t allow Northern Kentucky (16-11, 8-8) to even the score until almost six minutes into Thursday night’s game–and that lead would stretch out to as many as 13 in the first half–the Norse clawed back, behind a dominating effort by Donovan Oday (26 points), Dan Gherezgher (24 points, five-for-11 shooting from three-point range, five rebounds, and five assists), and Tae Dozier (19 points, three-for-four from beyond the arc, nine rebounds, and four assists) before ultimately taking their first lead of the game on a Gherezgher three with 9:12 to go, and never ceded it, even as the Jaguars made a late run. In the end, IU Indy fell, 84-81.
“We’re competing with every team going into halftime, either leading or trailing by a bucket,” said IU Indy senior forward Finley Woodward (15 points, 7-for-11 FG shooting, and 6 rebounds) after the game. “Second half, we just kind of implode, and I think we’re our best enemy…We beat ourselves a lot of the time, (it’s) super frustrating.”
NKU would proceed to build up its own lead in that second half, which got as high as 10 and sat at nine after a Gherezgher lay-in with 43 seconds to go. Then came one of the crazier college basketball finishes fans will witness.
After the Jaguars’ Maguire Mitchell (14 points, 4-for-8 from three, five rebounds) missed with 33 seconds to go, Dozier rebounded, and it felt all but over when Mitchell had to foul with 33 seconds left to go. The drama was only just getting started.
The Norse’s Addison Archer was sent to check into the game, but in his excitement for the moment, he all but skipped the scorer’s table and joined his teammate’s celebration on the floor.
Woodward was the first to notice, and made his plea to the referees. “It’s an opportunity to get free points, I guess,” he explained. “…he just ran on the floor celebrating, so I just knew, I’m going to start snitching basically.”
Snitch he did, and after the officials huddled as they did several times down the stretch of the game with teams at their benches, a technical foul was called on Archer, and the Jags’ Jaxon Edwards (16 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, and 2 steals) put in the free throw. Dozier still got his free throws, though, and he made both, putting the Norse up ten.
Eleven seconds later, IU Indy’s leading scorer in the game, Kyler D’Augustino (22 points in the game on nine-for-18 shooting), went downhill and made a lay-up, which meant the Jags now trailed by eight with 20 seconds to go. Their press then forced a Norse turnover, and on the out-of-bounds play, the home team set up a corner three for Mitchell, and he drilled it.
In desperation mode to extend the game, the Jags fouled Dozier again, and when he made them both, the difference in the game was seven with 15 seconds left. Woodward quickly bullied his way to the rim for a layup with ten seconds to go, and then Northern Kentucky managed to pick up its second technical foul in the final minute after a second delay of game penalty was called. Edwards would hit his free throw, and then NKU’s LJ Wells (11 points, 7 rebounds) split his free throws at the other end with nine seconds to go.
Edwards rebounded and went coast-to-coast for the lay-in with five seconds to play and a deficit that had been cut to three. On the ensuing in-bound, it even appeared as if the Norse may have extended an arm for a shove that could have been an offensive foul, but there was no call in a game that wasn’t short on controversy, and this time the Jags couldn’t catch up to foul in time. The Norse escaped in triumph.
“A lot of it has to do with endurance,” Edwards said. “We like to press a lot, and then late in the game it kind of hits us harder than the other team. Sometimes we’ve just go to make smarter decisions throughout the long stretch of the game.”
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