Marques Warrick Becomes NKU'S All Time Leading Scorer as Norse Defeats Detroit Mercy, 79-67
by Sean Mackey
It took 17 years before former NKU guard, Craig Sanders’ all time scoring record was broken by arguably the most talented Norse player of all time, Drew McDonald. Just 5 short years later, Northern Kentucky senior, Marques Warrick was chasing history once again as the Norse welcomed the 0-25 Detroit Mercy Titans to Truist for a late afternoon matinee. Warrick was just 20 points short of breaking Drew McDonald’s all-time scoring record of 2,066 points. The Norse were also trying to build off of a huge OT victory over Oakland on Thursday…..the Titans were trying to get any win at all. Unfortunately, for Detroit Mercy, NKU wasn’t going to allow that to happen on their home floor while they defeated the Titans 79-67 and Marques Warrick put himself in the record books.
LJ Wells started the game with a bang, completing a nice dunk to get the crowd at Highland Heights going. However, most of the first half consisted of NKU playing down to the competition for the first 8 minutes of play. Loose balls going out of bounds, missed shots and slippery hands was the story but NKU was able to get into a rhythm and build at one point a 13 point lead. Warrick had 10 points during the first 20 minutes. LJ Wells chipped in 6 points and 9 rebounds as well. NKU led 35-23 at the end of the half.
While the game already felt seemingly in hand, the crowd went into Warrick watch during the final half. He needed just 10 more points and his teammates weren’t going to let him walk away from Truist without the broken record. While Warrick seemed to force a few bad shots, his break came with 4:35 left in the game when he was fouled on a 3 point attempt from the corner. Warrick buried the 3 free throws and completed his mission. With the exception of Jayden Stone & Marcus Tankersley’s intermittent scoring, the Titans never seemed to put together any sort of defining run. The Norse ran away with the half at one point leading by as many at 19 points. When the final buzzer ended, the Norse had won their second straight and had a brand new, all-time leading scorer in Marques Warrick.
Warrick ended the game with 22 points and 5 assists. Trey Robinson continued his impressive stretch of productive games with 10 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals. Michael Bradley dropped 16 points, 6 assists and 3 steals as well. Jayden Stone & Marcus Tankersley scored 24 points each to lead Detroit Mercy.
After the game, NKU Head Coach Darrin Horn said “I am really proud of our group today, and the play with energy on the defensive end. If our bigs play like this today, we feel like we have a team that can really compete.” On his record breaking game, a visibly emotional Warrick said “just a lot of emotion that has gone into this. A lot of hard work. Since I was a little kid I knew this was what I wanted to do. I just continued to stay with it with my coaches and teammates over the years. I just put in a lot of work trying to get to this point. This is one of the reasons I came here. Not individually though. The first reason was to win championships and to continue to build NKU on a Division 1 level and I feel like that’s what we’re doing. I was un-recruited in high school so you know, there’s a lot that goes into it.”
Marques Warrick and the Norse look to make it three straight on Valentine’s Day as NKU travels to Green Bay to take on the Phoenix Wednesday evening (2/14/24, 7:00 p.m., ESPN+).