The Northern Kentucky University men’s basketball team was mere seconds away from a Wisconsin sweep of Horizon League conference opponents, but a last second 3-pointer took away their hopes of improving their position in the conference standings.
Angelo Stuart’s 3-pointer with a second left lifted Milwaukee past the Norse on Saturday, 73-72. The loss dropped NKU to 14-13 overall and 9-7 in conference play, putting them in a three-way tie for fifth with Cleveland State and Milwaukee.
The back-and-forth affair featured seven ties and 19 lead changes. No one led by more than six.
Marques Warrick led the Norse with 20 points, Trey Robinson adding 15 points and six rebounds. LJ Wells finished with 12 points and six rebounds with Michael Bradley chipping in eight points with eight assists. Randall Pettus, who was named back-to-back Horizon League Player of the Week on Monday, tallied nine points three rebounds, two assists and two steals.
The Norse owned the paint with a 44-28 points in the paint advantage and scored 19 points off turnovers compared to the Panthers eight. Milwaukee made up for it with a 39-12 edge in bench scoring and 18-10 in second chance points.
While NKU played a clean game with just nine turnovers compared to 16 assists, they can point to the free throw line for the narrow loss, hitting just 9-of-16 attempts.
The loss puts NKU’s chances at a top seed for the Horizon League conference tournament very slim. They trail first place Oakland by 3.5 games with four games to play and are three games out from second place Green Bay. There’s still hope for a top three seed, however, trailing Youngstown State by 1.5 games and a game out from fourth place Wright State. With four regular season games remaining, the Norse will need to win all, if not three of four to try and secure a top four seed, a first round bye and a home postseason game.
They start their four game sprint to the finish on Thursday with a home game against Cleveland State on Thursday at 7 p.m. From there, they host IUPUI on Sunday at 2 p.m. and then close out the regular season slate with road contests at Robert Morris (Feb. 28) and Wright State (March 2).