By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
Talk about getting into the spirit of things. It took a completely new-look NKU Norse team a trip to Sioux Falls, S.D., and more importantly, an inspired performance Monday in the nationally televised Field of 68 Opening Day Marathon set up to highlight mid-major college basketball, to do that very thing.
And to highlight a Norse team without a single returning starter for this game that played like the veterans that some of them are to take down a Texas-El Paso team heading into the Mountain West Conference with a doubled $2 million NIL roster.
Money didn’t matter in a perfectly symmetrical 84-76 NKU win where each team scored the same number of points in each half – 42 for NKU and 38 for a much bigger UTEP team with three players 6-foot-10.
But that didn’t seem to matter a bit as the scrappy Norse had the clear edge there, outbattling the Miners, 39-33, despite the size differential.
One other place where NKU could hardly have done better. The Norse cashed in on 30 of 33 attempts from the line – including the first 20 straight — to UTEP’s 14 of 24.
In a game dominated by veteran transfers in this new world of college basketball, NKU managed to do it with a 6-2 freshman guard fresh out of high school, Willie Foster from Lima, Ohio, leading the way. Playing like a veteran, Foster hit for a game-high 24 points on seven-of-14 shooting with nine of 10 from the line and an amazing 10 rebounds.
“That might be the best freshman debut I’ve ever been a part of,” said eight-year NKU coach Darrin Horn in a postgame Youtube interview, describing the athletic Foster as “a dude . . . whatever it is to be a ‘dude,’ he’s got it.”
Foster’s backcourt partner, senior Eric Acker, a New York City guy and 6-2 transfer from LaSalle who scored 16 points and kept NKU on course at the point, described Foster’s game this way. “He plays hard, he works hard.”
No secret, Foster told his Youtube interviewer, it’s all about “believing in myself and my work.” And forgetting that NKU’s only returning starter, Australian point guard Ethan Elliott, was out with a hamstring injury. So the pair totaled 73 out of a possible 80 minutes.
But in that same playing territory was 6-8 post player Noah Pagotto, another senior transfer, who battled UTEP’s “bigs” inside with a game-high 12 rebounds in addition to his 19 points on five-of-six shooting from the field and nine of 11 from the line.
Exactly the way Horn scoped it out for the Port Macquarie, Australia, native by way of East and West Texas A&M.
What this says about NKU’s all-new Norse, Horn said, it means “We’ve got a chance,” he told Fox Sports 1360, “but our league is good.” That’s the mid-major Horizon, whose players and coaches were clearly watching NKU carry the league’s banner with mixed feelings. Happy for the Horizon but not thrilled at what they saw in this NKU team they’ll have to face twice.
As much as this was about the new guys, the play of the game might have been made by backup Ryan Tolliver, a 6-7 sophomore from Hartford, Conn., who, with NKU leading 69-66 and UTEP making a last run, fired in a corner three-pointer to give NKU a six-point lead with 3:33 left.
“For a first time out, I thought we did a terrific job,” Horn said, underplaying a bit the quality of this opening game start. “I thought Eric (Acker) did the little things that win a game like this . . . he showed he’s played a lot of basketball.”
Which pretty much describes the way this NKU team, with no returnees on the court to start, played in highlighting mid-major basketball against a high-major team. UTEP coach Joe Golding agreed as to how the smaller Norse won this one: “Credit to Northern Kentucky,” he said, “they did a great job of spacing us out.”
NKU will remain in their Sioux Falls hotel, where some of the Norse got stuck on an elevator Sunday night, for the next couple of days before busing over to Vermillion for a Wednesday game at the University of South Dakota before heading on to College Station, Tex., for a Friday game at Texas A&M.
NORTHERN KENTUCKY 42 42—84
TEXAS-EP PASO 38 38—76
Foster 7-14 1-5 9-10 24, Pagotto 5-6 0-0 9-10 19, Acker 6-12 0-4 4-4 16, Davis-Ray 3-8 1-5 2-2 9, Shortt 1-1 0-0 4-4 6, Jokubauskas 1-7 1-6 2-2 5, Tolliver 2-3 1-1 0-0 5, Rakotonanahary 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, Ruiz 0-0 0-0 0-0 0: TOTALS: 25-50 4-21 30-33—84.
TEXAS-EL PASO (0-1) 76
Traore 7-18 0-0 4 5 18, McDaniels 4 15 3 9 0 0 11, Cassia 4 8 1 4 1 3 10, Moeller 3 11 0 3 2 2 8, Miller 1 5 0 4 2 2 4, Criss 4 4 2 2 3 8 13, Whiting 2-8 2-9 2 2 8, Reid 2-6 0 0 0 2 4, Ward 0 2 0 0 0 0 9, Jackson 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; TOTALS: 27-70 8-30 14-24–76.