Panthers suffer 12th straight setback to Northern - Kentucky Wesleyan College Athletics

Kentucky Wesleyan College Athletics

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David Palmer caused all kinds of problems for Kentucky Wesleyan College on Thursday night.

The 6-foot-9, 250-pound center for Northern Kentucky University helped lead the Norse to a 67-62 win over No. 13 KWC at the Bank of Kentucky Center in Highland Heights.

"There's nobody like him in our league, and there are very few players like him in Division II," Panthers coach Todd Lee said. "You go up to shoot the ball, and he sends it into the fifth row. When we penetrated, he's coming over and changing shots. He blocked four shots and probably changed another eight shots."

Palmer finished with 13 points and nine rebounds in 32 minutes.

He was the main reason KWC fell to 18-3, 7-2 in the Great Lakes Valley Conference.

But Palmer's presence on the court was a two-fold plus for NKU (10-8, 3-7). KWC had to pay so much defensive attention to Palmer that it left more open shots available for Dennis Gagai and Scott Bibbins.

Gagai is a 3-point shooting specialist who made 5-of-7 from long range and one free throw for his 16 points. Gagai had just become eligible to rejoin the NKU lineup this week.

Bibbins was 7-of-9 from the free-throw line on the way to 15 points.

NKU made 9-of-19 on 3-pointers. That also helped the Norse win their 12th straight over KWC.

"Like any really good player, we had to spend a lot of energy, time and effort guarding Palmer," Lee said. "When he caught the ball, we had to get guys to him, and that opens up other things for other players."

What scoring the Panthers got came from the outside, and mostly at the hands of Desmond Stephens and Marico Stinson.

Stephens scored a game-high 24 points, hitting 7-of-17 from the floor and 8-of-10 free throws. Stinson finished with 18 points and seven rebounds. He made 4-of-5 from 3-point range. No other Panther scored in double figures.

Andree' Wilson and Jay Ivey, the two primary post players for KWC, had a tough time getting anything going offensively against Palmer.

"We didn't have anybody score inside," Lee said. "We took some bad shots and didn't execute. There were some sets we wanted to run, and guys were in the wrong position."

The Panthers made 19-of-54 from the field for 35.2 percent and 7-of-14 from 3-point range for 50 percent. They were 17-of-19 on free throws.

Although NKU held a 60-53 lead with 1:31 left, the Panthers still had a chance within the final 40 seconds. They got two free throws from Stephens, then a steal and a 3-pointer by Stephens with 36 seconds to go in regulation, cutting NKU's lead to 60-57.

From there, the Norse hit 7-of-8 free throws to seal the win.

KWC travels to Indianapolis on Saturday.

"It doesn't get any easier," Lee said.

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