The Northern Kentucky men’s basketball team was 95 seconds away from doing something they hadn’t achieved in Division I before with a 5-0 start in Horizon League play.
But Oakland’s Jalen Moore had other plans.
The Norse (9-7, 4-1) let a 62-55 lead slip away with 1:35 to play, the Golden Grizzlies (5-11, 3-2) finishing the contest on a 9-1 run to escape from Truist Arena with a 64-63 conference win.
Moore, named the Horizon League Player of the Week last week, was held scoreless in the first half, but scored 17 in the second half, including 12 of them coming in the final three minutes of the game.
“Credit Oakland for the plays they made, specifically Jalen Moore. That kid is dynamic down the stretch, has been in so many games in his time in this league and I don’t want to take anything away from the plays and the shots that he made and the way that they played down the stretch,” Norse coach Darrin Horn said.
Trey Robinson’s triple with 1:35 to go seemed to be the clincher in a hard fought game where no one led by more than eight the entire way. But Moore was fouled on a 3-point attempt on the ensuing possession, trimming the Golden Grizzlies deficit back down to four at 62-58 with 1:16 to play.
A flopping technical was then whistled on Oakland, sending Marques Warrick to the line for a freebie, connecting to make it 63-58. But the Norse were unable to tickle the twine from there.
Moore nailed another trey with 42 seconds remaining to make it a one-possession game at 63-61. After an empty possession and time winding down, Moore took it down the floor in transition and was fouled once again on a 3-point attempt.
“We were clearly aware what he can do and we spent 15 minutes in practice the last few days working on it and we just didn’t go out and execute any of it down the stretch. From that standpoint, pretty disappointed. That’s on me to figure out how to make sure our guys understand that better and do it in game action,” Horn said. “We fouled him twice on 3-point shots when we had multiple reps the last two days working on staying down against him on step backs, not fouling him, not jumping into him and making him make tough shots over us.”
He’d hit all three, the Norse getting one last shot. Warrick received a pass and raced down the floor, his layup attempt blocked out-of-bounds with 1.2 seconds remaining. After each team called timeout, Warrick got the ball at the top of the key, his 3-point attempt coming up empty, the Norse suffering their first loss at home since a season opening loss to Kent State on November 7, snapping an eight-game home winning streak.
“If you can get your best scorer the ball and get him a halfway clean look, then that’s good. That’s what you want. We got our best player the ball, got him a shot. But we put ourselves in that situation by not hitting shots and what we did defensively in the last two minutes,” Horn said.
After Oakland jumped ahead 19-18, 10 minutes into the game, the Norse were in control for the majority from there. The defense that got them to 4-0 in conference play really started to make its mark, holding the Golden Grizzlies to four points over the next six minutes as they built their largest lead of the night to 29-21.
Much like they did the rest of the way, Oakland hung around, getting within five at the half, the Norse taking a 33-28 lead into the break.
Oakland took their first lead since the 10-minute mark of the first half at 45-44 on a Moore layup with 7:48 to play. That was quickly answered by a Norse 9-2 spurt on a Sam Vinson floater, two Robinson free throws, a Warrick 3-pointer and a Trevon Faulkner mid-range jumper. Chris Brandon followed to get NKU’s lead back to eight at 55-47 with 4:04 remaining.
The two proceeded to trade baskets from there, ending with Robinson’s triple at the 1:35 mark.
“I think bigger picture, disappointed in the fact that I thought our guys were starting to play with the kind of confidence and swagger on both ends that we need to play with to be good. Tonight, really thought we played pretty frustrated and live and die by every shot that did or didn’t go with or every defensive play that did or didn’t go good. We’ve got to find a way to get them through that, but we’ve got to get a pretty veteran group in a lot of spots so at some point we need to see that response as well,” Horn said.
Warrick led the Norse with 16 points, Robinson with 11, Sam Vinson putting up eight points, nine assists and four steals, adding to his impressive 2.7 steals per game tally.
The Norse got a lift off the bench from Imanuel Zorgvol with four points and seven rebounds as Chris Brandon drew the ire of the coaching staff in the first half on the defensive end.
“That’s when we talk big picture, the challenges when we didn’t play well early. You look down the sheet of eight or nine guys played, you got three or four that aren’t anywhere close to where they can be. We don’t need Chris to get 18 and 15 every night. But they posted with underclassmen or guys that don’t have the experience level that he has three times in the first half and it just turned into layups. If he does that, he’s not going to be very good and we’re not going to be very good,” Horn said. “It’s my responsibility to figure out how to get those guys to do that. But at some point there’s going to be a player response on some of that to where you’ve got a level of pride and an understanding who you need to be.”
The Norse bench outscored the Golden Grizzlies bench 18-10, Faulkner adding seven points, A’lahn Sumler with five.
It’s a quick turnaround for the Norse as they’ll host Detroit Mercy on Sunday at 2 p.m. What comes with that is another dynamic scorer in Antoine Davis who recently surpassed the 3,000 career point mark.
“Antoine Davis is just as hard to guard as Moore, if not more. We’re not good enough to just show up and win against anybody. But we’re good enough to beat anybody when you play well. I would say that’s true once you get into league play for every team in college basketball,” Horn said.
