Having lost three straight and dropping all the way to eighth in the Horizon League standings, Thursday night’s home contest with Oakland was pretty much a must win without saying it out loud for the Northern Kentucky University men’s basketball team.
The Norse got a much needed victory over the Golden Grizzlies, 99-89, in overtime. The win gets them back to .500 on the season at 12-12 and 7-6 in conference play.
Things looked bleak for the Norse in the late stages of the contest, trailing 75-69 with 4:38 to play after Oakland hit 3-pointers on three consecutive possessions. But they’d end regulation on an 11-5 run to tie things up at 80 headed into the extra period. Both teams had their chances to win it in regulation in the final minute, but Oakland missed a free throw, 3-pointer and layup while the Norse couldn’t convert on a 3-pointer in the closing seconds.
NKU opened the overtime with an 8-2 run and never looked back as Oakland never got closer than three from there in the extra session.
Michael Bradley’s game could be described as brilliant, the Norse guard scoring 26 points on 9-of-13 shooting to go with eight assists, three rebounds and just one turnover.
The Marques Warrick watch continues as he’s now 19 points shy of Drew McDonald’s all-time scoring record for the program. Warrick finished Thursday night with 20 points and 2,047 career points, needing 20 points on Saturday at home against Detroit to break the program record.
Trey Robinson and Keeyan Itejere posted double-doubles, Robinson with 20 points and 11 rebounds and Itejere with 13 points and 10 rebounds, hitting all six field goal attempts.
Randall Pettus scored 13 points off the bench to go with four rebounds and four assists.
The Norse dished out 26 assists on 36 made baskets as they shot a blistering 58% from the field.
Oakland dropped to 15-10 overall and 10-4 in the conference.
The win moved NKU up to sixth in the Horizon League standings, 3.5 games out of first place Green Bay. NKU has seven more conference games left starting with winless Detroit on Saturday at 4 p.m.