CHICAGO – A 79-72 victory for the Northern Kentucky men's basketball team at UIC on Friday night provides the Norse with at least a share of the Horizon League Regular-Season Championship, the first DI regular-season title for any NKU team since reclassifying six years ago.

The win moves Northern Kentucky to 21-8 on the year and 14-3 in the Horizon League standings. NKU is one game ahead of Wright State after the Raiders fell at IUPUI earlier today. UIC is now two games back of the Norse at 12-5 in league play and is 17-13 overall.

STAT LEADERS

• Lavone Holland II had a game-high 25 points. He shot 7-of-15 from the floor, 2-of-5 from three, and made 9-of-11 at the charity stripe.
• Carson Williams chipped in 14 points and six rebounds. He made 6-of-12 from the floor.
• Jordan Garnett closed out NKU's double-digit scorers on the night, adding 10 points. He also grabbed six rebounds.

TURNING POINT

• With the game tied up at 61 and 5:31 remaining in the contest, Drew McDonald and Jordan Garnett buried 3-point shots for the next two scores of the game. Holland followed with a pair of free throws to extend Northern Kentucky's run to 8-0. And, the Norse held on for the 79-72 win.

FIRST HALF SUMMARY

• Northern Kentucky used a 13-4 run to extend a three-point lead out to a 32-20 advantage with 4:28 left in the half.
• UIC scored the next three points at the free throw line, but NKU ran off 7-0 run to push its lead to 16.
• A tip-in from Williams with 3.2 seconds left in the stanza helped NKU to a 41-26 halftime margin.
• Holland had 12 points in the frame and Williams scored nine.
• NKU's defense limited UIC to just 32 percent shooting (8-of-25) and 33 percent (3-of-9) from three. It also forced eight turnovers, which the Norse converted into eight points.
• The Norse converted 16-of-38 (42 percent) attempts from the floor and made 5-of-11 (46 percent) from long range. NKU had just four turnovers in the frame.
• Thanks to five first-half rebounds from Jalen Tate, NKU also led the battle of the boards, 24-16, at intermission.

SECOND HALF SUMMARY

• UIC opened the second half with a 14-2 run to cut NKU's advantage to three points just 3:36 in the second half.
• The Norse extended their lead back to eight with 12:33 remaining and then gain at the 9:32 mark.
• Starting at the 8:35 mark and the Norse leading, 60-54, the Flames went on an 8-1 run to tie the game and set up NKU's 8-0 run.
• The Norse made 12-of-24 field goal attempts in the half, including 3-for-8 (37.5 percent) from three.
• The Flames converted 45.9 percent (17-of-37) in the half but were just 3-of-12 (25 percent) from three.

NORSE NOTES

• Tonight's win guarantees NKU will earn one of the top-2 seeds in the 2018 Little Caesars Horizon League Basketball Championship next weekend.
• NKU finished the game shooting 45 percent (28-of-62) from the floor and 42 percent from three (8-of-19).
• Northern Kentucky won the battle of the boards, 40-38, marking the fourth-straight game and eighth of the last nine games in which NKU outrebounded its opponents. McDonald led NKU with seven boards, but Garnett, Jalen Tate, Holland and Williams each corralled six.
• Ten Norse played in the game and all 10 players scored.

UP NEXT

• Northern Kentucky heads to Indianapolis, the site of its first-ever NCAA Division I Tournament appearance a year ago, with a chance to claim the Horizon League title outright. NKU and IUPUI will take to the hardwood at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 25 to close out the regular season.