The Northern Kentucky University men’s basketball team was able to pull off a season sweep of Green Bay with a 58-57 victory in Wisconsin on Wednesday.
Marques Warrick hit the game-winner with five seconds to play, pushing the Norse up to a tie for fourth in the Horizon League standings. The win also moved NKU (14-12, 9-6) within 2.5 games of Green Bay (17-10, 12-4) and Oakland for first place in the conference.
The game was a definition of a grinder with seven ties and 12 lead changes. Both teams struggled to shoot it, NKU at 37% from the field, Green Bay at 35%. The Norse made a difference in points in the paint with a 28-18 advantage and got 10 points off turnovers compared to Green Bay’s two.
LJ Wells led NKU with 13 points and nine rebounds. Keeyan Itejere added 12 points, four rebounds and three steals while Randall Pettus added 10 points off the bench. Trey Robinson pitched in nine points with eight rebounds while Warrick was held to his second lowest point total of the season with seven points.
The win makes the race for a top four seed, a first round bye and a home postseason game a lot more interesting. After the top two, Youngstown State is in third at 11-5 in the conference, the Norse tied with Wright State at 9-6, the Raiders currently holding the head-to-head tiebreaker with one more meeting in the final game of the regular season.
The Norse have one more contest in Wisconsin on Saturday against Milwaukee at 8 p.m. NKU won the first meeting between the two, 90-72 on Jan. 18 in Highland Heights. After that is a four-game sprint to the finish with the Norse having two home games against Cleveland State (Feb. 22) and IUPUI (Feb. 25) , and then closing out the season on the road at Robert Morris (Feb. 28) and Wright State (March 2).
The margin for error is slim for the Norse, Cleveland State and Milwaukee a game behind NKU and Wright State in a tie for sixth. In order to get a first round bye for the conference tournament, NKU would have to finish in the top five of the conference. A top four seed would equal a home game before the tournament shifts to Indianapolis for the semifinals and championship. If the Norse finish outside the top five, they’d need to be in the top eight to host a first round game before playing on the road in the quarterfinals.