It’s one of those games where the final score wasn’t indicitave of a tightly played contest.
The final was University of Cincinnati 76, Northern Kentucky University 60. But this was a one-point game in the second half with 16:27 to play until the top 20 in the nation mighty Bearcats from the Power 4, Big 12 used their will and pulled away. Simas Lukosius 3-point shooting certainly helped, too.
The Norse can take some positives away from this one, an 0-4 start to the season isn’t ideal, but three of those losses were pretty much chalked up before the season started in taking on ACC (Florida State), Big 10 (Purdue) and Big 12 (Cincinnati) opponents.
Here’s five positives from Tuesday night at a near capacity Truist Arena in a “Gold Out”:
Vinson getting going
Sam Vinson is nearly 11 months removed from a season-ending knee injury during the 2023-24 season on Dec. 21, 2023. Tuesday marked his best game yet in his return.
He finished with a season-high 16 points, adding four rebounds with two assists. He really got going in the first half with 11 points on 5-of-8 shooting.
“From a health standpoint he’s great. I think a lot of is just comfort. Playing well against this level of competition and atmosphere helps that, I think a lot of is just confidence he can go do the things he’s always done,” Norse coach Darrin Horn said. “The first basket he hit and rose up into that pull-up shot, that was great to see. He’s going to get there. He played much more aggressive and confident tonight.”
Vinson is sporting a heavy brace on the knee that was injured, but on Tuesday he showed the ability to get in the paint and rise up over the defender for shots. He’ll only continue to progress from here.
Rebounding
For the third time in four games, the Norse either finished tied or won the rebounding battle. They outrebounded a much bigger Florida State team, were even with Purdue and outrebounded Cincinnati 36-27 on Tuesday. Was the Nicholls State game an anomaly? The Colonels outrebounded the Norse 57-33, the biggest takeaway from NKU’s 61-59 defeat in that one.
Tuesday they handled their own on the glass, 36-27 and 15-6 on the offensive glass. Guard play is probably the biggest key in winning college basketball games, but if the Norse continue to rebound at a high level and win those battles, they’re going to win a lot of games in the Horizon League.
“Florida State is the second biggest team in college basketball statistically, outrebounded them. Purdue is huge, had 15 offensive rebounds against them and tonight’s team will be at the top of the Big 12 and advance in the tournament and outrebounded them and grabbed 15 offensive rebounds,” Horn said. “We have to play like that to be good because we’re not good offensively right now.”
Keeyan Itejere and Trey Robinson grabbed eight boards each on Tuesday, LJ Wells adding five, three of them on the offensive glass.
Transition defense
Despite 12 turnovers in the first half, the Norse allowed just four fast break points. They consistently made things difficult in transition for the Bearcats before UC started to find some open looks in the second half on missed rotations. UC finished with 12 fast break points.
“We gave up a three on a skip out and gave up two drop off passes that are day one rotation stuff. That’s on us as coaches to get them better defensively, but we’ve been pretty good in transition defense all year,” Horn said.
Cincinnati’s second half shooting numbers were lights out, they hit 17-of-23 shots from the field and Lukosius finished 6-of-9 from three, a few of those thanks to the missed rotations Horn was talking about.
Depth
NKU continued to show they’re going to go deep. Eight guys played at least 13 minutes and they got 16 bench points. Randall Pettus provided five points with two steals as he still searches to find his shooting form from the latter part of last season.
“Randall doesn’t have any confidence issues, I think Randall has to get locked into being the defender that he’s capable of being. Two loose balls that he didn’t come up with, he has to start making those plays,” Horn said. “He’s a scorer, gifted offensive player. We want him to go score the ball and let it fly. He just has to get committed to the little plays that lead to winning that will make him a more impactful, consistent player that lead to winning.”
LJ Wells put up four points with his five rebounds. If they can get those two going consistently with increased production, it will make the rotation even stronger.
Dan Gherezgher Jr. showed some flashes off the bench on Tuesday with five points and a rebound.
Schedule
Things lighten up a ton from here where victories should start to pile up. By the time conference play begins on Dec. 7, can the Norse get to 4-4 before a road conference trip to IU Indy on the 7th? They have Kentucky State on Saturday, College of Charleston on Nov. 27, Bellarmine at home on Nov. 30 and at Akron on Dec. 3. Charleston and Akron are certainly no gimmies, but definitely winnable games considering what the Norse have shown against the powerful opponents they’ve faced so far this season.
Obviously, the record doesn’t matter until Dec. 7 comes, when they start one of 20 grinding games in a conference that has shown plenty of parity in recent years.
Other out of conference games include University of the Cumberlands (Dec. 11), Norfolk State (Dec. 15) and South Carolina State (Dec. 21) before they play 18 straight Horizon League games starting on Dec. 29 at Robert Morris.
