By Dan Weber NKyTribune sports reporter
“March Starts Here” the Horizon Conference website proclaims in touting the final two postseason championship rounds in Indianapolis March 11-12.
Then as if to confirm it, Northern Kentucky University Coach Darrin Horn’s entire Norse mantra continues to be that Horizon basketball comes down to “three games in March.” No “must win” games for him or his team before then.
Sorry, Horizon folks, we’re not buying it. This last week in February is where March basketball begins — at the latest.
As for Horn, we know he’s doing what good coaches do. Admit that you need to win a game to get into the league’s top four to get a postseason home game, then you’re admitting that if you don’t do that, you’re screwed. So Horn won’t go there. He knows he may end up having to go on the road to in the Horizon tournament first round and he’s not giving his guys any excuses.
OK, we’ll give Horn that, even if the math is the math: NKU is 12-3 at home, 4-11 away from home. So for NKU, playing at home is clearly the better option – and one worth playing for, even if not to be talked about. Which is why a home game against 10th-place IUPUI matter so much.
Although the current roster that the Norse trotted out to face IUPUI Sunday in front of a crowd of 3,824 at Truist Arena for Senior Day/Fan Appreciation Day was missing four of the Norse’s top eight players projected from October.
No matter. NKU better win now. And on Wednesday at Robert Morris and again on the final day of the regular season Saturday at Wright State and see how it shakes out. With NKU and Wright State, who could be tied for that important fourth-place slot at 13-7 if NKU wins out – and NKU owning the tiebreakers – it just makes sense. Although with the two Horizon leaders – Oakland and Green Bay – both losing at home Sunday to the two teams chasing them – Wright State and Youngstown State – not much makes sense here.
Which is why Sunday mattered more than just a Senior Day sendoff for four-year stalwarts Marques Warrick and Trey Robinson and first-year grad student transfer Michael Bradley.
For those three, it was also about giving themselves the best chance to come back here one more time to Truist Arena. “Most fun I’ve ever had in my whole life,” said Bradley, whose home is San Antonio, Tex., but who played his undergrad years at Mercyhurst in Erie, Pa.
“I know I’ve only been here a year, but it seems like I’ve been here my whole five years. It changed my life,” Bradley said of “Coach Horn and his staff seeing something in me.” They gave him the chance to lead the Horizon in assists with 4.5 a game this season in addition to scoring 9.5 points a game.
But despite Senior Day, it took a couple of freshmen – Jeremiah Israel and Randall Pettus II – stepping up to make it happen. With NKU already down team leader Sam Vinson, out for the second half of the season with ACL surgery and with high-leaping 6-foot-9 center Keeyan Itejere out with an injured ankle from Thursday’s Cleveland State game and wearing a boot and his backup Cade Meyer having left the team, the Norse would need lots of “next man up” heroics on this day against an IUPUI team that was ready to take it to them.
And did, as the sluggish Norse found themselves down, 14-5, just five minutes into the game and having trouble guarding the Jaguars without fouling them.
And then it turned all around, as a suddenly scrappy NKU – much as the Norse did Thursday against Cleveland State – started defending and rebounding – and more importantly, scoring. Scoring as in a 39-16 run to intermission for a 44-30 lead no one would have predicted after watching how this one started.
Then NKU stalled again, leading just 54-52, with 11:22 left. And then once again NKU made a run. “Defense and rebounding” make the difference this time of year, Horn said, admitting that it’s pretty much tournament time in February.
And if you defend and rebound, as NKU did for the second time on the night, you can score the ball, as NKU went on another extended 26-12 run for an 80-64 final enlivened by a four-technical double-foul near imbroglio with 35.4 seconds left and NKU up 18 – 80-62.
It looked like the instigators were a pair of unhappy IUPUI guards who took aggressive exception to NKU’s Robinson and then Warrick arrived as a peacemaker before the entire NKU coaching staff could intervene before anyone took a swing.
IUPUI (6-23, 2-16 Horizon) left the floor at the buzzer without shaking hands as they finish up a tough season that earned the Jags praise from Horn. “They played hard,” Horn said, “they didn’t go away.”
Unfortunately for IUPUI’s upset shot, neither did Northern even if many of the players’ responsibilities had gone in different directions. The 6-6 Robinson, playing back-to-back games on a bum ankle, had his second straight double-double – 10 points and a career-high 14 rebounds. “Without Trey Robinson, we don’t have NKU basketball,” Bradley said.
For the freshmen, both 6-3 tweeners, Israel gave NKU five players in double figures with 12 points in his 26:20 of action. And Pettus, normally a quick-firing long-range shooter pulled down nine rebounds with six assists.
Warrick, with Bradley in foul trouble in a game where he blocked a career-high two shots, filled in as a point guard/ballhandler while adding 17 points. And playing the five spot for the entire game, a completely new position for him, the 6-8 LJ Wells recorded a game-high 20 points on seven-of-10 shooting with lots of nifty down-low moves.
NKU is listing Itejere as “day-to-day” and hoping he’ll be back this week for an unspecified ankle injury but there are certainly no guarantees.
SCORING SUMMARY
IUPUI 30 34–64
NORTHERN KENTUCKY 44 36–80
IUPUI (6-23, 2-6 Horizon): Egbuta 4-6 0-0 3-4 11, Samb 4-7 0-0 0-2 8, Counter 4-12 1-3 7-9 16, Brady 6-12 2-5 1-2 15, Blocker 3-6 0-1 0-1 6, Samuels 1-4 0-0 2-3 4, Jackson 0-6 0-0 2-2 2, Dewitt 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, Nkomba 1-1 0-0 0-0 2, Allen 0-0 0-0 0-0 0; TOTALS: 23-54 3-9 15-23 64.
NORTHERN KENTUCKY (16-13, 11-7 Horizon): Wells 7-10 1-2 5-5 20, Robinson 3-8 0-1 4-6 10, Warrick 7-15 2-6 1-1 17, Pettus 3-6 1-2 0-0 7, Bradley 4-9 4-5 0-1 12, Israel 5-10 1-4 0-1 12, Tchilombo 1-1 0-0 0-0 2, Ipassou 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, Sherman 0-0 0-0 0-0 0; TOTALS: 30-59 9-20 11-14 80.
Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @dweber3440.