Highland Heights, KY-In a matchup of two teams battling for position in the Horizon League standings, the Cleveland State men's basketball team fell just short on the road Thursday night at Northern Kentucky, falling 73-71. The game was a seesaw battle throughout. The Vikings had a look to tie the game at the buzzer, but Tristan Enaruna's layup attempt crawled off the rim as the clock hit zero. Cleveland State falls to 16-12 overall and 9-8 in the Horizon League. NKU improves to 15-13 and 10-7 in league play.
Enaruna registered his eighth consecutive game of 20 point or more, finishing with 25 points on 50 percent shooting from the field. He added seven rebounds and two assists over 35 minutes of game action.
Tae Williams recorded his third double-double of the season finishing with 14 points and 10 rebounds. Williams finished 5-of-7 from the floor and recorded an assist and three steals on the game.
Jalin Rice tied his career high with 11 points off the bench, helping the Vikings to a 23-10 edge in bench scoring for the game. Rice connected on five of his six field goal attempts including multiple critical makes with the shot clock running down in the second half.
Cleveland State got off to a fast start scoring eight of the game's first 10 points to open up an 8-2 lead less than four minutes into the game.
Cleveland State led by as many as 13 points midway through the first half. A Williams driving layup forced an NKU timeout and made it 27-14 Vikings with 7:30 to go in the half.
NKU slowly chipped away and ultimately outscored Cleveland State 19-6 through the rest of the half to tie the score at 33 going into the halftime break.
The second half saw the Vikings take control early once again, building a seven-point advantage by the midway point. Cleveland State led for over 29 of the game's 40 minutes. A Rice three at the shot clock buzzer put the Vikings in front 58-51 with 8:44 left to play.
NKU cut the Viking lead back to one at the game's final media timeout and pushed back in front with 3:58 to go. The Norse lead grew to five with 2:18 to go on a pair of LJ Wells free throws.
Cleveland State responded with an Enaruna three-point play to cut the deficit back to two, and following a pair of NKU free throws, Enaruna made another bucket to once again keep the deficit at two points with under a minute to play.
NKU drained the clock on its next offensive possession, and following a Marques Warrick three-point miss the Vikings secured the rebound and had one final chance. Head coach Daniyal Robinson called timeout with four seconds remaining to draw up a play.
Enaruna caught the inbounds pass and got a driving layup attempt from the left side as time expired, but his shot crawled off the rim allowing NKU to escape with a 73-71 victory.
The Vikings return to action on Sunday for a road matchup at Robert Morris. Action gets underway from Pittsburgh at 2:00 p.m.
