By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
With two Horizon League titles and two NCAA appearances in his six seasons at NKU, basketball coach Darrin Horn has pretty much figured out this whole getting-the-Norse-ready-for-March thing.
But this year’s postseason playoff bracket for the 11-team Horizon League is so complex and convoluted, so different from previous seasons, so full of potential changes and unpredictable matchups as the teams advance, Horn says it pretty much frees guys like him – and everybody else — from thinking too much about it. Who knows how this is going to go?
“That’s why I’m not worried about it,” Horn said after Wednesday’s crucial 87-71 Horizon win over a Purdue-Ft. Wayne team that owned a December win over the Norse and was a game ahead of NKU in the conference where six teams – including NKU – find themselves within a game of one another from third through eighth place with records of 10-7 to 9-8.
Stop worrying, Horn says, and just keep winning. Win out. Win every game you’ve got a shot to win and keep getting better. Let someone else figure this all out when the shooting stops.
Which is exactly what NKU did in a 16-point win against a Mastodon team NKU had to beat since it would be for one reason we do understand. It’s far better to finish among the top three for postseason tournament purposes than in fourth or fifth place which will involve an extra game in Indianapolis in two weeks when five – not four – teams will make it to Indy. Now, with its improved 9-8 league record, the 17-11 Norse are tied with 15-13 PFW with three games left.
“A total team effort, from start to finish,” Horn said although with lots of different contributors doing different things. Like 6-foot-8 senior LJ Wells, the only starter for the smallish Norse not listed as a guard.
“Coach always says the greatness of our team is our team,” Wells said after his 29-point effort with five assists on a night when he reckoned that his 23-point second half that opened with back-to-back old-fashioned three-point plays might just have been the best 20 minutes in his four-year career here. “Yeah, I would say so,” he said, “it felt like it.”
“LJ was fantastic tonight,” Horn said recalling how “I pulled him aside and said ‘this is the moment.’ “ Indeed it was, including one moment with the shot clock winding down and finding himself all alone well behind the arc, Wells figured he might as well fire it. Swish.
How many threes has he had, LJ was asked. “Not very many, I don’t know if it’s in double digits.” It is, actually. A total of 14 – in 45 attempts. But you get the idea. “We made some shots,” Horn said, “seven of our guys made threes.”
And everybody contributed something. Here’s Horn’s list: Grad student Tae Dozier grabbed 15 rebounds, crediting his “coaches for giving me the freedom” and “my teammates for pushing me.”
As for Aussie point guard Ethan Elliott: Horn said that’s “as much poise as he’s played with all year” on his way to nine points, four assists and a perfect four-for-four shooting with his only turnover on a slip on the floor. “Kael (Robinson, 11 points)) looked great,” Horn said in his return from three weeks on the injury list. And no longer sixth man Donovan Oday fired in 12 points with four assists while his instant-offense guard mate Dan Gherezgher scored 13 with three assists.
But it was their defense – especially those seven steals when “we were really aggressive to the ball,” Horn said — as NKU made a 20-5 run at the end of the first half to flip a five-point deficit into a 40-30 lead at intermission that allowed NKU to play from ahead the rest of the way.
“We always say we want to play best when it means the most,” Horn said. “Our whole focus is to win games, not check boxes.”
And with road games at No. 9 Youngstown State and No. 10 Cleveland State – both NKU wins by 15 points earlier in the season before finishing at home against a No. 1 Wright State that beat NKU, 88-80, in Dayton, NKU has a shot to do just that.
SCORING SUMMARY
Purdue-Ft. Wayne 33 38—71
Northern Kentucky 42 45—87
Purdue Ft. Wayne (15-13, 9-8 Horizon): Nelson 2-4 2-4 0-0 6, Elisse 2-3 0-0 0-0 4, Stevenson 2-8 2-6 0-0 6, Craig 7-14 2-4 8-10 24, Hadnot 7-15 3-7 3-5 20, Morgan 0-1 0-1 2-2 2, Levin 0-4 0-3 2-2 2, Duffy 1-1 0-0 0-1 2, Mosley 1-3 1-2 2-2 5; TOTALS: 22-53 10-27 17-22 71.
Northern Kentucky (17-11, 9-8 Horizon): Wells 10-16 1-2 8-11 29, Gherezgher 5-14 2-9 1-2 13, Elliott 4-4 1-1 0-0 9, Oday 4-12 1-6 3-4 12, Dozier 3-6 2-5 0-0 8, Archer 0- 0-0 0-0 0, Robinson 4-8 2-5 1-2 11, Nelson 1-1 1-1 0-0 3, Darbyshire 1-1 0-0 0-0 2; TOTALS: 32-62 10-29 13-19 87.
Attendance: 2,066.