Before the college basketball season even begins, the Northern Kentucky men’s basketball team might as well book their travel to Indianapolis in March.
For the fourth straight season, the Norse are headed to Indy after a 81-74 victory over Oakland on Thursday night in Highland Heights in the Horizon League Conference Tournament quarterfinals.
Now they’ve got some unfinished business to tend to.
The players and coaching staff really don’t want to hear anything about last year. So when they were asked questions about it after the game, their focus is targeted on Monday for the Horizon League semifinals and then if they win that, Tuesday for the championship and a berth in the NCAA tournament.
“Just really trying to stay poised and in the moment. Not trying to get too high or too low because we know we got we got to finish the job. Last year we came up short of that, but it’s just taking it a day at a time and just staying in the moment and trying to just compete with my brothers as much as possible,” Norse fifth-year senior Trevon Faulkner said.
Faulkner’s seen it all. He’s been a part of two league championship teams. Been a part of last season’s heartbreaking one-point loss to Wright State in the championship. The fifth-year senior finished with 12 points and four rebounds, helping the Norse to an 18-8 advantage in bench points.
NKU has now positioned themselves for some redemption, although the Raiders won’t be part of that equation this year, walloped by Milwaukee in the quarters Thursday night.
The Norse are now looking at a matchup with Youngstown State, the regular season league winner. One thing the Norse has on the Penguins is experience in these situations, Youngstown State looking for their first ever NCAA tournament berth.
NKU is on to Monday thanks to some sharpshooting from deep, knocking down 13 three-pointers on Thursday at Truist Arena in front of a crowd that helped them deliver down the stretch.
When Sam Vinson was whistled for his fourth foul on a questionable offensive foul, that’s when the crowd was most audible.
“The crowd was great tonight. It was great having that packed house, student section was great. Like we’ve said before, they’re really our sixth man and we really needed them. Things like that when they get mad at calls and go crazy or when someone hits a big shot and goes crazy, it just hypes up the team and gets us going,” Vinson said.
And things were tight, the Golden Grizzlies erasing a 11-point second half deficit to tie things up at 53 with 11:48 to play.
But as he has all season, Marques Warrick rose to the occasion, hitting a 3-pointer, Warrick finishing 5-of-7 from deep and scoring a team-high 22 points.
“Just the mentality. Ball movement is one thing and their defense allows us to shoot some three’s, but the mentality when we’re open with a little bit of space, we’re going to let it go,” Warrick said.
Vinson followed with one of his own to give the Norse some breathing room. Vinson finished with 12 points, three assists and three steals as he battled through foul trouble.
NKU locked in defensively from there, allowing three points over the next 6:32 to extend their lead to 10 with five minutes to play.
With a dynamic player like Jalen Moore, Oakland is never out of a game. The way Moore rises to the occasion in clutch time, as the Norse saw on Jan. 6 when they let a late lead slip away to the Golden Grizzlies, he started to inch them closer. They’d get within six with 1:28 to play after Moore hit three free throw to make it 74-68.
But unlike nearly two months ago, the Norse weren’t having another comeback on their home floor. They made things tough on Moore, the first team All-Conference member finishing 6-of-18 from the field and 21 points.
“We worked on it all week long just guarding him and how he plays, how he drives, how he can get to the free throw line getting contact. We just worked on having a stick hand and staying down on step backs and pump fakes and staying down and not letting him get to the free throw line and get going,” Vinson said.
Chris Brandon’s offensive rebound with less than a minute to play sealed the deal for the Norse when they were up five and the Golden Grizzlies electing not to foul and letting their defense try and do the job. They did, forcing Warrick into a tough fall away jumper, but Brandon was there to corral the rebound and fouled.
“The impact that he has on the game is huge,” Norse coach Darrin Horn said. “Marques is our best player and everyone knows that, but with Chris and his ability to do things like that, there’s no one more important than he is. There’s nobody else on the floor that could do that. We think when he’s playing that way, he’s as good as anybody in our league at those things.”
Brandon finished with 13 points and 13 rebounds, five of them on the offensive end.
Oakland couldn’t inch any closer from there, setting up the Norse matchup with the Penguins Monday night at 7 p.m. at Indiana Farmers Coliseum. The two split their regular season meetings, NKU winning 77-73 in overtime on Dec. 1, the Penguins winning the rematch 74-56 on Feb. 4.
At the time, NKU didn’t know who they were facing after the game, an hour earlier start than the three other quarterfinal games on Thursday. They didn’t care either.
“It’s March, man, you got to show up and play the next one and play anyone on that given night. Whoever it is, you got to play your best regardless of who you’re playing against, so I’m not really concerned. We’ll find out, we’ll prepare for them and try to be as ready as we can on Monday night,” Horn said.
NKU jumped out to a 23-12 lead thanks to five 3-pointers in the first eight minutes of the game. Oakland answered with a 11-3 run to get within three thanks to force feeding the paint and holding an early 12-2 edge on points in the paint. NKU responded, scoring 10 of the next 15 for a 36-28 advantage before taking a 41-32 lead into the half.
The lead blossomed to 11 in the second half before the Golden Grizzlies tied it up, but Oakland never led in the game.
Both teams shot it well, NKU finishing 49% from the field, Oakland at 50%. The Norse finished 13-of-29 from deep, Oakland 8-for-19. Both teams hit 18 free throws, the Norse on 27 attempts, Golden Grizzlies 22.
NKU was able to win the rebounding battle 34-24 and committed nine turnovers to Oakland’s 14.
All four top seeds in the league are headed to Indianapolis.
In other Horizon League conference tournament action, Youngstown State survived Detroit, 71-66, the Titans Antoine Davis finishing three points shy of the all-time NCAA scoring record set by “Pistol” Pete Maravich. Milwaukee won 87-70 over Wright State while Cleveland State needed overtime to defeat Robert Morris, 75-70.
