Northern Kentucky

[Queens_NYC]

Sunday, November 19th, 2023
2:00 PM
Fifth Third Arena
ESPN+

The Bearcats (3-0, KenPom #51) end their week-long break with a visit from Northern Kentucky (1-2, KenPom #206) this weekend.

The Norse will make the 9.4-mile trip across the Ohio River to visit Fifth Third Arena for the first time since December 4th, 2018, where the Bearcats won 78-65.

NKU opened the 23/24 season with road losses at Middle Tennessee State (74-57) and Washington (75-67) before picking up a home victory against D3 Depauw on Tuesday night (85-68).

Head coach Darrin Horn is in his 5th year in charge of the program and is coming off his first NCAA appearance with the Norse which produced a 63-52 first round loss to #1 seed Houston.

NKU returns three starters from last year's team in 4th-year 6'2 guard Marques Warrick (18.8 ppg in 22/23), 3rd-year 6'5 guard Sam Vinson (11.8 ppg in 22/23), and 4th-year 6'6 guard Trey Robinson (7.0 ppg in 22/23).

The Bearcats will eagerly look to avenge their 64-51 loss to NKU in Highland Heights last season - an affair that saw the Bearcats shoot 4-29 (13.8%) from the field in the 2nd half and 1-6 (16.7%) from the free throw line.

The Norse shot 6-11 (54.5%) from beyond the arc in that game, but have struggled to find that same shooting touch in the early stages of this season where they've made just 19.3% of their 3-point attempts (6-31) against their only two D1 opponents so far.

 

[sedziobs]

NKU is pretty small, similar to us right now. 6'6" Trey Robinson may be a guard, but he's playing a lot at the 4 this year, much like Skillings. They run 6'0, 6'2, and 6'5 on the perimeter. A trio of 6'8 to 6'9 guys rotate through the interior but only average 20 minutes each. They're good on the offensive glass though, and everyone constributes.

Aside from three point shooting, their biggest weakness so far has been turnovers. They coughed it up 18 times against Middle Tennessee, and starting PG Micheal Bradley had 3 turnovers in each game.

This seems like a good matchup for us. Our active perimeter defenders can exploit their weakness, and they don't have the size to take advantage of our lack of interior depth.

 

[sirthought]

I'll be at the game on Sunday!

Surprisingly my first game at the re-worked arena. I used to go regularly to the old place and just haven't gone for some (comfy couch) reason. A woman I'm dating is an NKU alum and surprised me with tix.

Hopefully NKU doesn't get hot from three again this time. I'd say that's less likely on the UC court.

 

[Queens_NYC]

I'll be at the game on Sunday!

Surprisingly my first game at the re-worked arena. I used to go regularly to the old place and just haven't gone for some (comfy couch) reason. A woman I'm dating is an NKU alum and surprised me with tix.

Hopefully NKU doesn't get hot from three again this time. I'd say that's less likely on the UC court.

Enjoy!

 

[Queens_NYC]

-12.5

 

[sedziobs]

We're dominating the boards as we should, and we finally started to create some turnovers in our big run to close the half.

 

[Queens_NYC]

Probably our best performance of the young season so far.

37-17 run from the 3:00 mark of the 1st half to the 10:00 mark of the 2nd half was the difference maker.

Really overwhelmed NKU with our length and athleticism.

Day Day, Skillings, and Vik all had great games. Newman and Simas were both solid in complimentary roles.

 

[sedziobs]

Everyone but Ody can hit shots. We can compete against good teams if we're hitting and we rebound like today.

 

[sirthought]

It was a fun game for the Cats. NKU was really struggling to get a flow. Skillings was Johnny on the spot multiple times. I'll take that!

I am a bit surprised they aren't working to create more open threes for Frederick. He needs more attempts, but doesn't create so well.

Newman is such a bonus this season.

 

[Queens_NYC]

It was a fun game for the Cats. NKU was really struggling to get a flow. Skillings was Johnny on the spot multiple times. I'll take that!

I am a bit surprised they aren't working to create more open threes for Frederick. He needs more attempts, but doesn't create so well.

Newman is such a bonus this season.

Hopefully that will improve with time. Wes was very complimentary of CJ in his postgame presser saying CJ does a lot of little things that impact winning on both ends of the floor.

He's still shooting 53.3% from 3 so far, so I appreciate that he's only taking good shots versus chucking for the sake of it like Davenport did.

 

[TheLongHaul]

It was a fun game for the Cats. NKU was really struggling to get a flow. Skillings was Johnny on the spot multiple times. I'll take that!

I am a bit surprised they aren't working to create more open threes for Frederick. He needs more attempts, but doesn't create so well.

Newman is such a bonus this season.

Newman has definitely proved me wrong so far! Though he is much better suited on a team like this that has a lot of options vs him needing to be the option.