Northern Kentucky Norse will dance in first year of NCAA tournament eligibility
Only a handful of NCAA tournament automatic bids have been handed out, but we might already know the best story in this year's tourney field. America, meet the Northern Kentucky, your 2017 Horizon League champ. The Norse -- yes, that's their nickname -- took down Milwaukee 59-53 in the conference's title game Tuesday, behind 20 points from junior guard Lavone Holland II.
The story isn't really about the particulars from Tuesday, however, but the road the Norse (24-10) took to get here. With the win, Northern Kentucky clinched its first NCAA tournament berth, in its first year eligible for the Big Dance.
https://twitter.com/NKUNorse/status/839292311028772864
The school has been a DII power, making 12 NCAA tournaments in a 15-year stretch, and playing in back-t0-back title games in 1995-96 and 1996-97. The Norse were competing at the DII level as recently as 2010-2011 (for perspective, the year Kemba Walker led UConn to the national championship) before announcing the move to Division I. They played three seasons in the Atlantic Sun before moving to the Horizon last season.
However, due to NCAA rules they weren't eligible for the NCAA tournament until four years into their Division I membership with 2016-2017 marking the first time they could compete for a spot in the Big Dance. They did that by taking advantage of a wild Horizon Tournament that saw the top three seeds lose in the quarterfinals, and where the Norse faced No. 5 seed Wright State, No. 9 seed Youngstown State and No. 10 seed Milwaukee to win the title.
Regardless of the path they took, it doesn't change the fact that the Norse are going dancing.
