St. Norbert tipped off it’s 100th season of college basketball Wednesday night at the Mulva Family Fitness and Sports Center, hosting long time former Midwest Conference rival Ripon. It was the 130th meeting between the schools, the most played rivalry in Green Knights history, a perfect way to get things started. The Knights prevailed in a wild and wooly, 82-77 overtime contest. SNC got off fast leading 9-2 until a power dunk by the Red Hawks Kolby Williams sparked the visitors. They hit 15 of 25 from the floor to build an impressive 40-29 lead at the half. The Knights came out firing in the second half and went on a run to get the game even in a span of five minutes. From there, it became a foul mouthed slugfest. Whistles dominated the second half with tempers flaring. Williams received two technical fouls and was disqualified, another Ripon player got T’d up and two technicals were called on the Red Hawks bench. St. Norbert’s bench also got a technical for chirping about a call. It became a free throw parade with very underwhelming results. 48 fouls were called in the game, 30 against Ripon. St. Norbert went to the line a whopping 46 times but made only 29 free throws. Ripon was 12 of 22 for the night. A three point hit from freshman Connor Pytleski got the game even at 72 late and both teams were able to make one more charity toss that sent the game into overtime. Aidan Harrington delivered a clutch three point play on a drive to open a five point lead in OT and St. Norbert held on from there. Carter Gebler led the Knights (1-0) with 16 points while Harrington finished with 15. Ripon (0-1) was led by Luke Meinholz with 24 as they fell in the debut of first year head coach Kenny Finco.
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