Dantez Walton and Trevon Faulkner scored 18 points to lead the Norse. Walton scored 10 in the second half when the Norse pulled away.
"I'm going to keep on saying it changes, if there's a guy playing better than Dantez Walton, I'd like to see him," NKU coach Dsrrin Horn said.
Walton was one of five NKU players that logged over 35 minutes against a team that forces up tempo basketball by pressing for 40 minutes. Tyler Sharpe played all 40 minutes and Bryson Langdon along with Falkner ran up and down the court the entire game.
"We turned the ball over 21 times but give credit to Eastern. They are good at what they do," Horn said. "I'm proud of our guys and the conditioning that they put in to hold up against a team that presses like they do."
The Norse survived 21 turnovers against a team whose strategy is to force a lot of turnovers and spark their own offense with a transition game. Eastern came into the game with second in the nation with 21.8 turnovers forced per game. They are also fourth in steals per game with 11. Indeed they stole the ball from NKU 11 times.
"We talked about it at the eight minute time out," said 40-minute man Tyler Sharpe. "I don't think the were getting up the floor as fast in the second half. They got tired toward the end and we took advantage of that."
Notrhtern's late run indicates that. The score was 56-48 at the eight minute timeout. Eastern cut it to four with a layup by Houston King at the 6:52 mark but NKU put the game away with its run that ballooned the lead to 19 points, 74-55 with 1:23 left in the game.
A 3-point shot by Adham Eleeda at the 3:24 mark gave the Colonels a 14-point lead, extending a 14-0 run over a three- minute stretch to turn the game into a rout.
The game was tied after 20 minutes at 35-35. Eastern led by as many as 12 points, using the 3-point shot. The Colonels scored 21 of its 35 points from behind the arc on 7-for-14 accuracy.. It was contrary to their season stats coming into the game. The Colonels (3-6) were shooting 31% from the outside.
Northern (7-3) turned the ball over 10 times against the Colonels pressing defense in the half. The Norse stayed in the game with 10 points from the foul line as the Colonels were whistled for 11 fouls.
NKU has been a success by any objective measure in its eighth year of NCAA Division I play and just its fourth season as a member with active status, making two trips to play in the big tournament in March.
Eastern won last year's contest in Richmond on a last second shot and still leads the series 6-4 all-time but the Norse is becoming the type of dangerous team that the big schools shy away from.
To compare Eastern played its long time bitter rival Western Kentucky at home. They also traveled to Lexington, losing to the big boys, the Kentucky Wildcats 91-49. They play the other major program in the state the Louisville Cardinals on Saturday the 14th at noon.
Northern in the Horizon Conference has scheduling challenges but indicated that they would like to extend this series beyond next year's commitment to play Eastern.
Sharpe from Mt. Washington Kentucky put it this way. "It would be a rivalry any time you play in-state schools. With us three or four mid major teams (EKU, WKU, Murray, Belmont and Morehead State) There should be a little chip on our shoulders. There is a difference in the energy when an instate teams comes in to play."
Horn, a native of Lexington, played at Western Kentucky when there was a grudge-match rivalry between Eastern and Western.
Could the newly knighted Division I Norse be the new rivalry since Western has moved on from the old Ohio Valley Conference days. Eastern coach, A.W. Hamilton, is a native of Georgetown, Kentucky and played his college basketball at Marshall another of Eastern's traditional rivals.
"I've known A Dub a long time. I had respect for him when he was a player coming out of high school," Horn said. "I've watched his coaching career and I think he's got the right stuff. His team plays the right way,. He has a definite vision of how he wants his team to play. They are recruiting to it and playing that way."
"I think this is a good game," Horn continued. "There is one more year on the contract. It is definitely something that we would look at again. We've got some scheduling challenges that I don't want to get into tonight with adding league games. I don't know how that is going to work. But yes, I like this game. Basketball matters in this state."Eastern
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