Friday, March 10, 2000
NKU looking to make a name for itself
Team has no stars but has 25 wins
BY GEOFF HOBSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
In the five-year rollicking revival of Northern Kentucky men's basketball, the Norse have been everything from underdogs to underachievers.
They can add underloved as they begin play today at the NCAA Division II Great Lakes Region tournament at the Owensboro (Ky.) Sportscenter.
“We felt like we should have ended up in the same bracket with Southern Indiana, Gannon and Michigan Tech,” NKU coach Ken Shields said. “And we had no one on the all-league team. Our charge is monumental, but we know we were good enough to win 25 (games).”
If the Norse (25-6) can solve the physical, half-court game of Northern Michigan (24-5) at 3p.m. today, they will play the tournament's host, Kentucky Wesleyan (27-2), on Saturday. NKU is winless in 12 games against Wesleyan on its home floor.
But first, the Norse must be good enough to stop Northern Michigan's 6-foot-9 post man, Kevin Coduti. NMU has all its players back from last season, when Coduti scored 23 points in the first half of a first-round NCAA win over Lewis.
Throw in 6-7 do-it-all Cory Brathol, who had 36 points in NMU's 73-70 victory over Michigan Tech in last weekend's Great Lakes Independent Athletic Conference final, and the Norse will need to have their 3-point periscopes locked.
Craig Sanders, a 6-3 sophomore swing man, leads the long-range shooting, hitting 40 percent of his team-high 192 3-point shots, but his main assignment is making sure Brathol doesn't have a monster game.
“We have to throw it inside, especially early,” said NKU guard Kevin Listerman. “We need to get some easy baskets, and that should open up our 3-pointers.”
Listerman, a senior from Covington Catholic, should know. He has helped steer the Norse to 103 wins and two national title game appearances and has earned the right to help Shields run his summer camp the same way he runs the point.
He knows this team has accomplished more with less than any team since LaRon Moore and Reggie Talbert turned the corner for the program in the 1994-95 season and Paul Cluxton and Cliff Clinton kept the ride going from '96 to '98.
“We're much more of a no-name team,” Listerman said. “We don't have any all-conference guys, nobody all-region, but we've got guys who have talent, played hard and kept the success of the program going.”
The Norse do it with four guys who have taken at least 80 3-pointers this season and have made at least 40 percent.
And they do it with guys such as guard Craig Conley and forward Adam Norwell, juniors who are the first off the bench.
Shields thinks he may have an edge with nine players who play at least 16 minutes a game and none of them playing more than 26 minutes a game. No NKU player averages more than 12 points a game, but the Norse are averaging 80.
Conley, a LaSalle graduate, hits 43 percent of his 3-point attempts, and Shields thinks his quickness is a key against a bigger NMU team. Shields thinks Norwell, a bruiser from Anderson High School, is the “X” factor. He's 6-6 but has 6-10 heart and resolve.
Shields thinks Norwell's knack of scoring in the paint while drawing fouls can offset or beat whatever Coduti gives NMU in the post against NKU's 6-9, 235-pound junior Zach Wieber.
“They don't call the fouls in the NCAAs. They let you play and that's how we like it. Physical,” Norwell said. “Take it right to them and go for the jugular.”
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