By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
It was a bold strategy: Play fast, get in their faces and take it to the best team in the Horizon League – a team that beat them twice already — at both ends of the Corteva Arena court.
And for nearly six minutes into the second half, it was working for Northern Kentucky’s Norse as they hung in there through a fast-paced and streaky first half that saw eight ties and nine lead changes against No. 1 seed Wright State, a team that finished five games ahead of NKU in the regular season.
And then, six minutes into the second half with a three-point lead, it stopped working for an NKU team that had won the play-in game in Indianapolis easily against Green Bay just 24 hours earlier. And the Norse ran out of gas – or maybe lost the charge in their battery – in the final 14 minutes of this semifinal matchup with the Raiders.
The final score was 103-90 in a game NKU led, 58-55, with 14:38 left. That’s when Wright State’s quick and accurate shooters fired in 48 points down the stretch against the slowed-down Norse, who could manage just 32.
Key here were a pair of Wright State runs of less than two minutes each – one 9-0 and the other 8-0 – when NKU, which finishes 20-14, simply had no more answers for the now 21-11 Raiders.
It’s also the first time in coach Darrin Horn’s seven years at NKU that an opponent has managed to beat the Norse three times in a season with last week’s regular season finale won on a buzzer-beating tip-in with 0.02 seconds left.
In those three losses, NKU allowed Wright State to average a sizzling 94.3 points a game.
Which is why the faster this game was played, the more Wright State seemed to like it. For as many offensive weapons as NKU has, Wright State has more. Although it’s not like NKU had any real choice. The Norse played to their strength – the offensive play-making abilities of their veterans.
The bad news for an NKU team that loses five senior and/or grad student regulars is that two of the top Raiders are true freshmen – guard Michael Cooper, who led WSU with 25 points, and 6-foot-9 post player Kellen Pickett, who scored 14.
That illustrates the offseason challenge for an NKU program where the departing players scored 84 of the Norse’s 90 points in this season-ending game.
New Zealand native Kael Robinson led NKU in scoring with 24 — 19 in the first half. LJ Wells continued his strong late-season play with 23 points. Donovan Oday, after a scoreless first half, finished with 15 second-half points.
Dan Gherezgher scored 12 while Tae Dozier added seven. That adds up to 151 of the 200 total minutes for the Norse. Next season will have an NKU team with an entirely different look.
TJ Burch added 22 for a Wright State team that hit 33 of its 62 field goal attempts (55.9 percent) and 42.9 percent from three-point range (nine of 21).
Another key difference came on defense. Wright State had 10 steals to NKU’s six and committed just 10 turnovers to NKU’s 15, producing 24 points to NKU’s 13.
SCORING SUMMARY
NORTHERN KENTUCKY 44 46—90
WRIGHT STATE 46 57—103
Northern Kentucky (20-14, 10-10 Horizon): Robinson 6-11 4-6 8-10 24, Wells 9-16 0-2 5-8 23, Oday 6-15 2-7 1-2 15, Dozier 1-4 1-2 4-4 7, Elliott 1-6 0-1 0-1 2, Gherezgher 3-9 2-5 4-4 12, Rakotonanahary 3-3 0-0 1-1 7, Tolliver 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, Nelson 0-0 0-0 0-0 0; Totals: 29-64 9-23 23-30—90.
Wright State (21-11, 15-5 Horizon): Burch 7-16 2-5 6-6 22, Pickett 6-8 0-1 2-2 14, Callaghan 2-6 2-6 7-8 13, Pangonis 4-5 2-2 4-4 12, Imariagbe 3-3 0-0 2-4 8, Cooper 8-13 3-6 6-6 25, Woods 1-2 0-1 3-3 5, Holden 2-5 0-0 0-0 4, Alamutu 0-1 0-0 0-0 0; Totals: 33-59 9-21 28-33—103.