Northern Kentucky University Norse men’s basketball head coach Darrin Horn joked about the fans not getting their money’s worth Saturday night considering all the overtime and close games they’ve seen at Truist Arena this year.
The Norse (13-8, 8-2) remained in a tie for the Horizon League lead with Milwaukee, taking control in the second half over the visiting Purdue at Fort Wayne Matadons (13-8, 5-5) to pull away for a 74-54 victory.
“I thought that this was our most complete game of the year on both ends mostly because I liked our approach and our focus,” Horn said. “The outcome and margin is less important to me. As we’ve talked about before where we haven’t played as well as we wanted or maybe we’ve lost about some of the inconsistencies as a team or from individuals as you go down the stat sheet. These guys were good. But these guys weren’t near to the level that we believe that they can be. I don’t think you had that (Saturday). I think everyone contributed within their role in the way that we need to. I thought we played with some freedom and confidence on the offensive end.”
Turnovers made the huge difference in this one as Northern Kentucky trapped at certain spots all over the court. The Norse had 10 steals off 18 Mastadon turnovers and outscored PFW, 20-8 off those turnovers. Sophomore point guard Sam Vinson led the Norse with three steals and four assists to go with 17 points and six rebounds.
“The one thing about our defense that’s good is our traps are random,” Horn said. “We don’t set them every time this happens. Our guys have the freedom to kind of go do that. I thought we were real aggressive in that and did a good job of not fouling and not letting people out of those traps. This is a hard team to defend.”
The Norse wound up with 18 assists to 13 for the Mastadons. Fifth-year senior guard Trevon Faulkner and freshman forward LJ Wells recorded four each to tie Vinson for the team-high. The Norse made a lot of shots before the shot clock hit zero.
“We practice that just running through our offense getting to the second and third action,” Vinson said. “The bench energy in this game was off the chart. They are always screaming out the shot clock so we always know how much time is left. We put in the work in practice then we just execute in the games.”
Northern Kentucky wound up shooting 51 percent from the field and knocked down 12 three-pointers range. Junior guard Marques Warrick followed up his game-winning shot on Thursday against Cleveland State with a team-high 19 points.
“There have been a lot of times where I have had a couple points or maybe even zero in the first half and I pop off in the second half and lead the team in scoring,” Warrick said. “I just try to stay with that same mindset that I have in the first half. Shots weren’t falling in the first half. I’m still confident. My teammates are still trusting me most importantly. I just kept putting them up.”
The Norse put four players in double figures and nearly a fifth. Faulkner scored 14 and junior guard Trey Robinson finished with 11. Fifth-year senior guard Xavier Rhodes added nine points.
“We played together for the whole 40 minutes and actually focused on defense,” Faulkner said. “That’s our identity. We knew if we started doing that better, then things like the offensive transition would be better and we would start getting out and running more.”
PFW won the rebounding battle, 29-27, but the Norse outscored the Mastadons, 10-4 in second-chance points and 28-24 in the paint.
The Mastadons made 45 percent of their shots including 33 percent from three-point land and 53 percent of their free throws. Fifth-year forward Bobby Planutis, fifth-year guard Damian Chong Qui and senior guard Anthony Roberts led the Matadons with 10 points each. The Norse held PFW’s leading scorer in graduate student guard Jarred Godfrey to eight points. Godfrey ranks second in PFW history for career scoring.
Godfrey came into the game averaging 17.9 points per game. He’d made 79 of 84 free throws entering the game including 48 of 49 in league play. Godfrey made 2 of 4 free throws in this game not scoring in double-figures for just the second time this year.
Tied at 13 with 8:29 left in the first half, Northern Kentucky used an 11-0 run to go up 24-13 with 5:21 left in the half. Robinson scored 11 straight for the Norse to give them a 27-16 advantage with 4:22 left in the half. Faulkner dunked it with 3:21 left to give the Norse their largest lead of the half at 29-16 before the Mastadons closed the gap to 29-23 at halftime.
“We were just knocking down a lot of shots,” Robinson said. “My teammates were just finding me. I knocked down the shots. They just felt good coming off the hand.”
The Norse lead hit 20 with 8:26 left in the game. Warrick hit a jumper with 4:09 left to give Northern Kentucky its largest lead at 69-43.
Northern Kentucky takes on Green Bay back at Truist Arena at 7 p.m. on Thursday.