Northern Kentucky tried every Power Five basketball team in America looking for a game where a veteran Norse team, picked to win the Horizon League, could move up in class. It took a while but finally Washington State said OK.
Turns out NKU needn’t have tried so hard. Kent State’s Golden Flashes, picked to win the Mid-American Conference, showed up Monday for the Norse opener with a 23-win team from a year ago that has all the Power Five conference power you could ask for. And NKU didn’t have to travel 2,500 miles for the matchup.
Big, strong, deep, talented, with great long-range shooters, willing to play defense and compete at every position, Kent State took the Norse out of their game from the get-go. Well, from their first 10 missed shots anyway — and didn’t let them back in except once at the end of the first half when the closest NKU got was three points – 32-29 – after trailing 12-1 and 15-3.
And then the Golden Flashes ran away and left the Norse in their wake, a disappointing 79-57 loser at Truist Arena in a game that wasn’t as close as the final score. And that sent the crowd of 2,785 home early.
“We knew it was going to be a challenge,” NKU Coach Darrin Horn said of his team’s ability to handle Kent State’s physicality and depth. And they did for a while, competing for rebounds, defending the dribbler and fighting for loose balls.
But that only goes so far. “It’s hard to overcome bad offense,” Horn said. “We were so bad offensively, it’s hard to maintain that (defense).”
Indeed, when two of your preseason All-Horizon Conference players shoot a combined six for 25 (Marques Warrick two for 13, Trevon Faulkner four for 12), there’s very little you can do.
Horn called out his team’s “lack of aggressiveness” to make the plays they must be able to make.
That both Warrick and Faulkner must score off the dribble and Kent State was big enough and quick enough not to let them, the NKU offense stagnated in both halves, finishing 18 of 60 from the field, a cool 30.0 percent.
“That’s a little bit of it,” Horn said of the physical mismatches. But not all of it.
From long range, NKU was way worse, hitting just five of 27 from behind the arc – an even cooler 18.5 percent.
“It was tough to get good looks,” said Chris Brandon, NKU’s lone bright spot and the only player with the physical ability to compete with Kent’s superior athletes after a career-high 17-rebound game.
The downside, of course, is that the only way you get a chance to grab that many rebounds is if there are a whole bunch of missed shots. And Kent State wasn’t missing, just NKU.
At 6-foot-8 and 220 pounds, Houston native Brandon was the lone NKU player who looked like he could line up with Kent State’s guys. Even more, he said, “I felt like I was more physical than they were,” although it often seemed as if he was all alone out there.
But even with those 17 rebounds (nine on offense), Brandon scored just six points, hitting on a mere three of eight from the field.
Much of that ineffectiveness came from the long arms, aggressive play, and depth of the Golden Flashes’ front line that was bigger and maybe quicker at every spot.
“I guess you could say that,” Brandon said. “Our guys have to be more ready to catch and shoot when they get the ball,” he said, himself included.
“I loved his aggressiveness,” Horn said, “even if he didn’t finish plays. He’s an elite, elite player.” And he was going against “as physical a team as there is,” Horn said.
But when you go “six minutes or more without a basket” to start, not much else matters, Horn said.
And now you must go on. Cincinnati’s Bearcats will be here in eight days for what could be the first sellout in Truist Arena history. And there’s the return to the Horizon Conference for the title run that the Norse feel should have been theirs before the tournament championship game meltdown against Wright State.
The two games back-to-back, however, leave NKU with a scoring deficit of 38 points in their last 48 minutes of basketball. “We’ve got to get these guys ready to play at the pace we need them to play,” Horn said. “And your good players have to play well.”
And you can’t play 40 minutes with just eight assists. And you can’t let teams take out your best players the way Kent State did in physical-ling up Warrick.
“The biggest thing is you have to play through it, you’ve got to adjust,” Horn said. NKU knew what was coming for Warrick. “It’s up to us coaches to help him get through that.”
With Warrick shooting 15.4 percent from the field, it’s obvious NKU can’t get where it hopes to go without figuring something out for the 6-2 junior guard from Lexington.
Sam Vinson, who hit Northern’s first shot of the season 5:50 into the game with the Norse down 12-1, came back from a twisted ankle and put up 12 points on four of 11 shooting. Faulkner finished with 13.
But among them, NKU’s three preseason All-Horizon League players combined for a minus-76 points in the plus-minus category.
The one other thing Kent State had going for it was a terrific player, as good as any NKU will see all season, in senior guard Sincere Carry, who led all scorers with 20 points including five of seven from three-point range where the Golden Flashes hit a sizzling 54.2 percent (13 of 24).
“He can get his own shot,” Horn said.
No one on NKU could. Not against Kent State. Not on this night.
BOX SCORE
KENT STATE 35 44 79
NORTHERN KENTUCKY 29 28 57
KENT STATE: 4-2-1-11, Hornbeek 3-0-0-6, Jacobs 1-0-4-6, Carry 7-5-1-20, Santiago 3-2-0-8, Davis 4-2-0-10, Payton 2-0-0-4, Sullinger 4-2-0-10, Rollins 0-0-0-0, Gillespie 2-0-0-4, Odusipe 0-0-0-0: TOTALS: 30-13-6-79.
NORTHERN KENTUCKY: Brandon 3-0-0-6, Vinson 4-1-3-12, Warrick 2-0-2-6, Rhodes 2-0-3-7, Faulkner 4-2-3-13, Robinson 1-0-1-3, Zorgvol 0-0-4-4, Pivorius 2-2-0-6, Mason 0-0-0-0; TOTALS: 18-5-16-57.