Phew. Another gritty win for the Bison. They knocked off the Denver Pioneers tonight 61 to 50. A double digit victory that looked anything like a blowout after the first half. You could tell right away with that first half, that this was going to be anything but easy for the Bison. Jacobson had a good half, scoring 9 and adding 4 rebounds and an assist. And LA had a solid performance with 6 points and 3 rebounds. But as a team the Bison never managed to find their rhythm offensively for the entire first half. Luckily for them the Pioneers never really did either, but despite several flashes of promise for NDSU the half still ended miserably with the Bison down by 4, 27-23.
The second half didn’t start out all too peachy and bright for the Bison either as Denver opened the half by adding to their lead, pushing it to 6 at 29-23. However, the Pioneers then promptly went cold, doing scoreless for a 6 minute stretch while the Bison went on a 13-0 run and took a 36-29 lead. Again, this came largely on the backs of Alexander and Jacobson, the teams present and future offensive all stars respectively. Its great to see Jacobson stepping up in this late season and developing some consistency, because when we lose LA next season, we’re going to need Jacobson to pick up the Lion’s share of LA’s production if we want to have any hope of being competitive again.
And Jacobson was REALLY feeling it in this one. 14 points in the second half alone, and 23 in the game (a new career high). Jacobson has really stepped up of late and the Bison certainly needed it tonight. If Alexander and Jacobson can both keep this up through the Summit League Tournament (and beyond?) NDSU could make themselves a real nightmare match-up for opponents. It was one thing when teams could key on Alexander all year long throughout the regular season and hope to grind NDSU’s offense to a halt, but if Jacobson is going to put up anything close to these numbers at a consistent rate, opponents won’t be able to key on either of our key offensive threats without leaving themselves mortally open to the other.
Things weren’t all peachy offensively in the second half though. Missed free throws continued to be a problem. Especially frustrating in that it was guys like LA missing free throws, and as a team the Bison were 24 for 40 from the charity stripe… 60%… not exactly what you’d hope for in Tournament time. Moreover, the Bison found their old nemesis foul trouble returning as LA picked up his 4th foul with 8 minutes left in the game while Brown and Kading both already had 3. That meant the Bison had to leave both Alexander (the Summit League Player of the Year) and Brown (NDSU’s best defender) on the bench in crunch time. Not exactly what Summit League Coach of the Year Dave Richman would ask for. However, Jacobson continued to come up huge and carry this team on a career night for him, Paul Miller started to heat up late, and Big Dex came up with some important rebounds, clutch free throws, and one nasty block to help keep the Bison afloat while their star rode the pine.
By the time LA finally got back in, however, he was able to hit a couple clutch free throws to push the Bison lead to 11, and Chris Kading came up with back to back blocks in the closing 2 minutes to ensure that even though both Kading and Alexander had fouled out, the game was too far out of reach for the Pioneers to end the Bison’s season tonight. So hey, rough start but a beautiful ending right? NDSU absolutely crushed Denver in the paint scoring 34 of their 61 points in the paint compared to only 24 points for the Pioneers. Denver essentially plays 4 guards, and Coach Richman wisely decided to abuse them inside as a result. It worked. The Bison got the win. The season stays alive, and the NDSU’s dream of a second consecutive NCAA Tournament could still become a reality. If it does, however, it will likely mean going through Oral Roberts, which I for one am dreading.
Of course there is a possibility that Marcellus Barksdale could play out of his mind and lead the IUPUI Jaguars to an upset victory over Scott Sutton’s crew, but… I mean… let’s not be silly
In all liklihood we’ll play Oral Roberts this Monday night, and while the Golden Eagles are certainly a very talented team (they proved as much with that 16 point beat-down of the Bison) NDSU is better. If this same Bison basketball team that played tonight and ferouciously dominated the paint shows up again Monday night, ORU won’t stand a chance of beating us without another 34 point game from Obi Emegano. This will not be an easy game, but its one the Bison should win. And I certainly hope they do. The only way this season could get any sweeter is if we could avenge both the ORU loss and the SDSU loss in a 2 day span, all while punching our ticket to the Big Dance. So let’s start dreaming folks!
Where is North Dakota? 