By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
As this basketball season slipped away for Northern Kentucky’s Norse — going 28 days from the first week in January without a win against six losses — Coach Darrin Horn had one question for his players.
One question about how they kept passing up good shots as they tried to find perfect ones, one question about how they were doing more thinking about making plays then actually making plays. Just one question.
“How’s that working out for you?” Horn asked.
Not a difficult answer for the Norse to come up with in trying to stop the plunge toward the bottom of a Horizon League they’ve dominated in March when an NCAA bid was on the line.
“Now we’re on a streak” the other way, said NKU leader Sam Vinson who is still slowed by the brace on his offseason knee surgery but made all the plays the Highlands alum has gotten NKU fans used to.
A streak of their own, indeed, as the Norse ended the 13-game win streak – second-longest in the nation that a first-place Cleveland State team brought into Truist Arena Wednesday – as NKU simply out-toughed the Vikings to the delight of a crowd listed generously at 2,380.
Of course, that many should have been here. This was fun. This was how this NKU basketball team has to play the game – “aggressive,” “attacking” and “confident” were three of the words Horn and his players used to describe what must be for them to be the team they can be.
Clearly, playing this way, with “swagger” and the game to back it up, they’re as good or better than any Horizon opponent.
Clearly, playing this way, transfer point guard Dan Gherezgher is as good as, or better than, any player in the league, just as he was the best player on the floor against the league’s most talented team.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a player do that,” Horn said of Gherezgher’s emergence from an unsure first-year transfer from Michigan Tech who didn’t even get in the first Cleveland State game three weeks ago in NKU’s 18-point loss to now the No. 1 guy.
From thinking about making plays to actually making them, Gherezgher has gone from no points and no minutes to the guy who fired in a game-high 26 points hitting every big shot he took whether it was a deep three or a slashing drive through contact.
Maybe it shouldn’t have been a complete surprise. In his breakout game came Saturday in NKU’s 84-75 win over a good Oakland team, Gherezgher fired in 24 points to start NKU’s season turnaround.
It was all a matter of “simplifying the game,” Gherezgher said, by not thinking so much and just playing. “The shots will come,” he says. The difference now is how Gherezgher will take them when they do. No hesitating. No wondering if he should pull the trigger. Just let it go.
Let it go the 6-foot-4, 180-pound lefty from Brookfield, Wisc. did, hitting 10 of 14 field goal attempts including five of seven from three-point range.
Horn’s reaction to Gherezgher’s sudden about-face? “About time,” he said with a big grin, making it clear that response was about what he and his coaches had thought about Gherezgher’s talent when they brought him here.
But the challenge for NKU – and Gherezgher – is to keep doing it. “We have another game in Saturday’s Homecoming at 2 p.m. against a fourth-place Robert Morris team that beat visiting NKU, 97-93, in three overtimes, Dec. 29.
But let’s not make this all about Gherezgher, as much as it was.
“Sam’s stat line is absolutely ridiculous,” Horn said of the seven rebounds, seven assists and four steals Vinson had in addition to his 13 points.
Asked if NKU’s passing game or rebounding was the winning key, Vinson made the call for “our ball movement, . . . we had 14 assists.”
Horn went the other way. “The rebounding was huge,” he said of the Norse’ 34-29 edge over the big, athletic Vikings with 6-9, 240-pound post player Dylan Arnett a real force down low with his 17 points for CSU, second only to Tevin Smith’s 18.
But not only did NKU outrebound the Vikings, they outscored them, 40-26, in the paint with veterans Trey Robinson and LJ Wells fighting through big bodies for 12 and 13 points respectively. For the junior Wells, it’s been something of a coming-of-age time as well, with Horn having the “maybe this isn’t the right place for you” talk and now saying “those are the kinds of plays you have to make” because LJ’s making them now.
And don’t forget another transfer, 6-4 grad student guard Josh Dilling, another Wisconsin guy, from Oshkosh, whose 14 points came with three treys.
Put it all together and the story these Norse wrote was one of breaking away from a 36-36 halftime tie and gradually pulling into a 56-49 lead after seven minutes, then going up by double digits, 68-57, with 6:17 left.
Cleveland State could get no closer than seven points the rest of the way.
“What a terrific basketball game,” Horn said, “they’re (Cleveland State) going to make it hard for you for 40 minutes.”
The good news here is that NKU made it harder on Cleveland State than any team the Vikings had played since Dec. 5, when they lost their last game.
Until Wednesday.
SCORING SUMMARY
CLEVELAND STATE 36 39—75
NORTHERN KENTUCKY 36 49—85
Cleveland State (17-7, 11-2 Horizon): Smith 5-0 3-6 5-7 18, Arnett 7-11 0-0 3-4 17, Staveskie 4-8 2-4 0-0 10, R. Robinson 3-7 1-3 0-0 7, Dibba 1-4 0-0 0-0 2, C. Robinson 2-9 2-6 0-0 6, Stevenson 3-7 2-5 3-4 11, Franklin 1-2 0-0 0-0 2, Debrick 1-2 0-0 0-0 2; TOTALS: 27-59 10-24 11-15 75.
Northern Kentucky (11-13, 6-7 Horizon): Gherezgher 10-14 5-7 1-3 26, Dilling 4-10 3-9 3-3 14, Vinson 3-6 1-2 6-8 13, Robinson 5-11 0-0 2-2 12, Itejere 2-3 0-0 1-2 5, Wells 6-9 0-0 1-2 13, Pettus 1-8 0-5 0-0 2; TOTALS: 31-61 9-23 14-20 85.
Attendance: 2,380.