By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
Two Saturday afternoon college basketball games in Northern Kentucky. Two teams going against opponents ahead of them in the league standings as they try to finish the regular season strong to set up their most favorable postseason bracket.
Two teams celebrating Senior Day saying goodbye to players who have meant so much to their programs. Of all the things that put these disparate programs in the same boat, that was the one that mattered most on this day.
For Northern Kentucky’s Norse and Thomas More’s Saints, just 8.1 miles and 10 minutes apart, the two are much closer than that even if Division I NKU in the Horizon League of big state schools and Division II TMU in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference of smaller private schools don’t always seem like it.
Which is what Saturday was all about. Two games, two fan groups, two final regular season chances to compete and say goodbye. One got the competition part right, one not quite.
But both handled the saying goodbye part as well as you can on a day where they scored 167 points in the game at Truist Arena, 168 at the Connor Convocation Center.
The names alone highlight the difference. NKU plays in a building named for a big bank. Thomas More in a place named for one of the most beloved coaches in Northern Kentucky history.
But if it’s all about people – “Your culture is your players,” the nation’s top college football GM Chad Bowden, now at USC but a Fort Thomas guy who got his start at Highlands, said the other day – then they’re on the right track in both Highland Heights and Crestview Hills.
That’s exactly what it was about on a day that went like this:
NORTHERN KENTUCKY 88, YOUNGSTOWN STATE 79: Not a single person we talked to after this game failed to mention “the crowd.” As well they should. Some 4,030 showed up for the 1 p.m. tip. People were populating the upper decks. Lots of kids. Lots of alums. Former players and coaches – both Kenney Shields and John Brannen – were here and that gave this big building that can seem a tad impersonal, or much too quiet at times, very much of a personal feel.
“When we have people here, it’s an advantage,” NKU coach Darrin Horn said, “like it was today” as the Norse jumped out hard and held on for their sixth win in the last eight and fourth straight to get above .500 for the first time in a month, finishing the regular season at 16-15 (11-9 Horizon). The seventh-seed Norse will host No. 10 seed Detroit Mercy Tuesday night at 7 at Truist Arena in the Horizon playoffs.
“It’s been awesome to play here and to see a packed house,” said Sam Vinson, honored before the game as a departing senior but maybe not. Sam is appealing the NCAA decision that his eligibility is up after missing more than half of last season after knee surgery.
So there’s that. Maybe this wasn’t goodbye for the Highlands’ star who led the Bluebirds to a state title and is one of the all-time beloved NKU players. He finished with 14 points and game-high-tying totals of six assists and two steals, not to mention leading in floor burns while diving for loose balls.
“A great win,” Sam said, “every win’s a great win . . . although we definitely could have been better.”
Not in his coach, Darrin Horn’s eyes. “We’ve got good dudes, a couple that you’re not going to see again, . . . really special dudes,” Horn said of his seniors and grad students – four of his five starters — while stopping to hold back and gain his composure as the tears formed.
“Trey Robinson might be the best player in our league right now,” Horn said, “despite his ups and downs as the grad student scored 24 points on 11-of-14 shooting with a team-high seven rebounds.
Right there with Trey was another departee and grad student, 6-foot-4 lefty shooter Josh Dilling, who hit seven threes on the way to 23 points in the final regular season home game for the Oshkosh, Wisconsin native and transfer from Northern State.
“My one year’s gone by way too fast,” Dilling said. NKU fans will agree on that. But with a home playoff game Tuesday, NKU fans will get another chance to see these guys and maybe catch one of the eye-popping slam dunks from 6-9 Keeyan Itejere, listed as a junior but honored as a senior, who may or may not be like Robinson, who went through Senior Day a year ago and here he was.
For this game, against a team of quick-twitch shooters, NKU’s defense dictated the play until the final 14 minutes, when NKU led 60-41 before Youngstown State, going for its 20th win under former NKU player and assistant coach Ethan Faulkner, got hot. And started burying threes with Detroit’s Juwan Maxey going for a game-high 26 points with his guard-mate Juwan Maxey, out of Norcross, Ga., adding 21.
The Penguins got as close as four, 79-75, with 1:56 left, and it would have been closer had Dilling not hit a twisting bank shot three with two defenders on him at the end of the shot clock that somehow banked in right before that. His fellow Wisconsin transfer teammate followed with another dagger three at the end of the shot clock to make it 84-77 and give the Norse some breathing room.
A credit to “our physicality,” Horn said after holding off a Youngstown State team “that didn’t have to play all week” and NKU had to win a tough road game Thursday at Purdue Ft. Wayne, then get back and get ready for this game.
“We had great energy, especially on the defensive end,” Horn said of the strong start that made this happen. “A lot of that’s confidence, just playing really hard . . . we’ve been really good at that.”
SCORING SUMMARY
Youngstown State 35 44—79
Northern Kentucky 43 45—88
Youngstown State (19-12, 13-7 Horizon): Maxey 8-17 5-10 5-5 26, Harper 7-10 4-5 3-5 21, Carroll 4-6 2-3 4-4 14, Uijtendaal 2-5 2-3 0-0 6, Galette 2-9 0-4 0-0 4, Nelson 2-6 1-4 0-0 5, Dynes 1-2 0-0 1-3 3, Wilkerson 0-2 0-0 0-0 0, Kirkland 0-0 0-0 0-0 0; TOTALS: 26-57 14-29 13-17–79.
Northern Kentucky (16-15, 11-9 Horizon): Robinson 6-9 1-1 11-14 24, Dilling 7-16 7-14 2-2 23, Vinson 4-7 0-1 6-6 14, Itejere 6-6 0-0 0-0 12, Gherezgher 4-11 1-4 0-1 9, Wells 2-4 0-0 0-0 4, Pettus 1-5 0-4 0-0 2, Pivorius 0-0 0-0 0-0 0; TOTALS: 30-58 9-24 19-23—79.
KENTUCKY WESLEYAN 87, THOMAS MORE 81: One thing you can’t coach, Thomas More’s Justin Ray says, is history . . . experience. You have to live it. Understand it.
That’s the issue for a Thomas More team with just two seniors going down to the wire against a Kentucky Wesleyan team “without a freshman or sophomore on the floor,” Ray said. And the veterans the Panthers played had been through the wars, winning the league a year ago but losing their last three games.
“They haven’t forgotten,” Ray said, and even when TMU fouled the one Panther who was not an elite shooter at the end in their comeback bid – Edward Jones Jr. – “He was not missing,” Ray said, correctly, as Jones hit all four of his shots in Kentucky Wesleyan’s six-point win.
But the game story is the secondary plot line here. Losing those two seniors is the story. “Casey (George) and (Wyatt) Vieth battled their tails off,” Ray said as the guard pair have done for all four years with the Saints. Vieth led the final charge with 11 of his 14 points in the second half while George added 13 for the game.
“They are the last two guys from our Final Four (NAIA) team in 2021-22,” Ray said.
“After this year, nobody is going to know what I’m talking about” when he goes back to those NAIA days while building TMU into a top NCAA Div. II program.
“I’m a local kid, from St. Henry in Erlanger,” Vieth said, “I love this team and I have mixed emotions – sad and happy.”
“It’s a dream come true,” said George, of Pickerington, Ohio, “I’m very thankful.” And thankful for the chance to be “a part of that Final Four team . . . the leaders on that team showed us how to lead.”
As they did in this final regular season game for TMU. If the Saints won, they would get to host Tuesday’s playoff game for sure as the No. 3 seed in the GMAC. If they lost, it would be a bit of a crap shoot for the fourth hosting spot with the somewhat indecipherable formula the GMAC uses to determine seeds. TMU would need first-place Findlay to beat Lake Erie, which it did in overtime. And that secured the No. 4 spot for the Saints, hosting on Tuesday the No. 5 seed Lake Erie (19-9, 12-8), a team TMU split with this season, winning 79-75 at home, losing 87-75 on the road.
And the two TMU seniors will get another game at a Connor Convocation Center that was playing hurt Saturday with one side of the bleachers unable to be pulled out and the crowd of just under a 1,000 forced to sit on one side of the stands and on the hundreds of chairs placed on the floor for fans and the band and on the track around the top of the stands.
“They’re a veteran team,” Vieth said of Kentucky Wesleyan. “They hit shots down the stretch,” especially junior guard Quentin Toles from Canton, Ohio, who hit six threes on his way to 26 points. Fifth-year swing man Alex Gray hit three threes on his way to 17 points while 6-5 junior Logan McIntire hit for 13 more.
But mostly they hit 15 of 16 free throws compared to TMU’s nine of 16 in a game TMU lost by six. “The margin for error is razor thin,” Ray said, as is “the difference between a good team and a championship team . . . We’re a good team, not a championship team.” Not yet anyway. Maybe next week.
Playing championship ball is what 6-8 junior Mitchell Rylee is doing, with his 28-point, 11-rebound effort. Kai Simpson, a 6-3 redshirt freshman from Lexington, added 22.
But it wasn’t enough. “That’s a very good team,” Ray said of Wesleyan. “They deserved to win.”
What now? “Focus on Tuesday,” Vieth said. Which is why Ray made it clear how much he thinks of his senior pair.
“They could have gone elsewhere (after TMU left the NAIA),” Ray said, “but they showed loyalty and left this place better than they found it.”
SCORING SUMMARY
KENTUCKY WESLEYAN 44 43 87
THOMAS MORE 37 44—81
Kentucky Wesleyan (22-6, 16-4 GMAC): Toles 9-18 6-13 2-2 26, McIntire 5-11 1-3 2-2 13, Miles 4-9 0-4 1-2 9, Jones Jr. 2-8 0-3 4-4 8, Ringo Jr. 3-5 0-0 0-0 6, Gray 5-10 3-6 4-4 17, Mitchell 2-4 2-2 2-2 8, Tsynkevich 0-1 0-0 0-0 0; TOTALS: 30-66 12-31 15-16 87.
Thomas More (17-9, 12-8 GMAC): Rylee 13-16 0-0 2-5 28, Simpson 7-16 2-7 6-7 22, Vieth 5-9 4-8 0-0 14, George 5-13 2-4 1-4 13, Johnson 0-1 0-0 0-0 0, Crowe 1-1 0-0 0-0 2, Pouncy 1-3 0-0 0-0 2, Paris 0-4 0-4 0-0 0; TOTALS: 32-63 8-23 9-16 81.