When Milwaukee met Northern Kentucky last month, it was Norse big man Kael Robinson who sent the Panthers to their doom with nine three-pointers.
This time around, with Robinson unavailable, it was local product Dan Gherezgher who crushed the Panthers with his jumper.
Gherezgher, the Brookfield East graduate who was 2 for 16 shooting in the Norse’s win on Jan. 9, drained five triples over the course of Northern Kentucky’s 67-62 victory Feb. 7 but it was his pull-up jumper with 15.2 seconds left that served as the big blow.
Needing a three to tie after Gherezgher’s shot, Josh Dixon turned the ball over with 2.7 seconds left to send the Panthers to yet another loss, this one dropping them to 5-10 in Horizon League play.
Sitting in 10th place in the conference, Milwaukee is currently staring down a trip to the play-in game of the Horizon tournament in March.
Coming in, the Norse found themselves also in dire need of a win, entering on a five-game losing streak after a 6-3 start to Horizon play.
Milwaukee went punch for punch with NKU for the majority of the first half and led, 26-20, with 5:08 to play when Chandler Jackson, who had a team-high 11 points, hit a three. But a Gherezgher three on the next possession sparked a 16-3 run over the next four minutes.
The Panthers seemed that they might be done for when a Gherezgeher layup preceded a a five-point possession from Donovan Oday thanks to a technical foul on Aaron Franklin. That turned a two-point game into a nine-point deficit in the matter of 20 seconds.
But the Panthers, as they’ve often done while undermanned, clawed back with a 12-0 run in which they held the Norse scoreless for nearly six minutes.
Dixon kept hope alive late with a pair of clutch shots down the stretch, sinking a pull-up jumper and a corner trey to draw within 63-62 with 50 seconds to go.
But it was Gherezgher, who finished with a game-high 22 points and hit five threes, who had the final laugh, dropping in a jumper with 15.2 seconds left. When a flummoxed Dixon couldn’t find an open shot amidst a Norse double team and lost the ball, all that was left for the Panthers was yet another deflating loss.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Dan Gherezgher helps Northern Kentucky beat UW-Milwaukee basketball