The Real Test Begins: Regular Season Recap and Summit League Tournament Preview

(Photo Credit: Dave Wallis, The Dickinson Press)

Sorry for the long hiatus folks. I was temporarily indisposed… aka binge watching college basketball from other conference… HOWEVER I’m back at long last to recap the Bison’s excellent regular season and preview the upcoming Summit League Tournament where we’ll find out if the Bison can make a second consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament.

Photo Credit: Colin Mulvaney, The Spokesman-Review

First things first. South Dakota managed to pull off the upset like we suspected they would against SDSU in the final game of the season, ensuring that even after a brutal beatdown for the Bison at Oral Roberts, NDSU still grabbed a share of the Summit League Regular season title this year. This accomplishment is both impressive and deserved. This Bison team appeared to be in full rebuild mode after losing so many key contributors from last year’s team. However, Dave Richman, in his first year as a head coach and Lawrence Alexander (in his final season of college basketball managed to pull the Bison together, and push them to a share in the regular season. Had that Oral Roberts loss cost the Bison the lead in the Summit it would have been incredibly unjust. After the year these guys have had it would have felt incredibly unfair for them to come so close and yet fall just short. So thankfully the Coyotes bailed us out. I would have never thought at the beginning of the season that this Bison team would be able to win a share of the Summit League Title, but after seeing how far they came and how fast they developed it only seems right that they ended the regular season atop the standings alongside SDSU.

However, there can’t be two 1 seeds in the Summit League Tournament. So even though the Bison technically tied the Jackrabbits this season, we had to go to the dreaded tiebreakers. The Bison tied the Jackrabbits in the first two tiebreakers (head to head win % and wins vs. ranked opponents [both teams had 0]) but in RPI ranking the Jackrabbits edged out the Bison, meaning we slipped to the #2 seed. Now, this wouldn’t have been such a bad thing except that IUPUI and Denver finished the season with the same conference record (6-10). Moreover, Denver got swept this season by IUPUI this season. This means that even though IUPUI (10-20 overall) is certainly the 2nd worst team in the Summit (and the team NDSU should play in the first round) and Denver is the 3rd worst team (12-17 overall), NDSU has to play Denver in the opening round because IUPUI has the edge in head to head winning percentage (100%). Yaaaaaay. Congrats on your 2 seed guys!

 

Now, again… both IUPUI and Denver sucked this year. So that shouldn’t be such a tough game right? Right. Until you remember that Denver took the Bison to overtime in both our regular season meetings. Denver is a horrible matchup for NDSU. They’re a tough matchup for anyone in the Summit because of their unique style of play as we’ve discussed ad nauseum here. Moreover, its incredibly difficult to sweep a team in the regular season, and even more difficult to beat them three straight times in a season. Especially when they’re a team as well coached as Denver. Add to that the fact that NDSU ended Denver’s season last year as well when they beat them in the Summit League Tournament and the matchup becomes all the more intimidating from a revenge perspective.

NDSU has obviously owned Denver since they joined the Summit League last season, but this year’s 2 wins were anything but easy. I just hope Coach Richman and LA have the rest of the guys ready for the hot spotlight of postseason play, because this is where one game means everything.

But let’s assume the Bison get through Denver. Then we have a rematch against an Oral Roberts team (that just so happens to get to play IUPUI in the first round… which is totally fair… I’m not bitter or anything…) that is soaring with confidence after blasting NDSU to close out the regular season. Its not just that they’re confident because they’er playing well. They’ve confident against us specifically because they just housed us. Now, that game was at home as opposed to a neutral site like this next one, but I’m just hoping Richman gets the guys fired up for revenge and we absolutely annihilate them this time. Then would come the real test, a rematch with SDSU.

[Photo Credit: Joe Ahlquist, Argus Leader]

SDSU had a horrendous start to the Summit League Season, but since then has clearly recovered and proven to the rest of the league that they are clearly the best team in the Summit. They’re better than NDSU. No buts about it. However, the Bison have beaten them once before this year. Yes that game was in Fargo and this game will be played in South Dakota, but I have full faith that, if the Bison are lucky enough to make it to the Finals, the Bison Nation will show up and make that anything but a road environment. That game would be the most important one of the season for the Bison, but all the pressure would be on the Jackrabbits, and I would hope that would help the Bison play loose and confident.

However, we’d still have to make it that far. Denver scares the piss out of me, and obviously I’m dreading a rematch with Oral Roberts if thats what comes. Nothing will be easy to end the season here when the stakes are so high. The Summit will likely never put 2 teams into the NCAA Tournament so the Summit League Tournament is always going to mean more than the entire regular season. For now though let’s just take things one step at a time. Here’s hoping for a 3rd win over Denver on the season. Good luck guys and go Bison!

Sweet Sweet Revenge: NDSU vs. USD Recap

Well that was certainly fun. Apparently LA really liked making history in his last game so he decided to do it again. Alexander had 31 points and shot 8/10 from three, setting the school record for 3s in a single game as NDSU took care of business in absolutely brutal fashion against USD, winning 71 – 47 in Fargo.

South Dakota honestly never had a chance in this one. For the first 12 minutes of the game Lawrence was the only Bison player to score, and it didn’t even matter. He outscored the Coyotes 15-12, and kept the ship afloat until a Chris Kading broke the drought for the rest of the team with a bucket, and Carlin and Paul Miller followed suit. At that point it was well and truly over, even with 25 minutes of basketball left to play.

LA was obviously the show in this one. The Rage of Lawrence rained down upon the Coyotes to the tun of 11/14 shooting, 31 points, 5 rebounds and 2 assists. He led all scorers, and was obviously one of the main reasons NDSU extended its home winning streak to 23 games. However, he wasn’t the only player who showed up for the Bison. As far as scoring was concerned Paul Miller was next on the list for the Bison, but the true freshman also had a spectacular all around game for the Bison with 11 points 7 (!!!) rebounds 1 assist and 1 steal. I don’t even know how bad this team would be if Paul Miller hadn’t turned out to be such a revelation this year.

(Photo Credit: Jeff Becker, Valley News Live)

Its hard enough to be competitive in D1 Basketball with only 7 real contributors on your team, but if it weren’t for Paul we would only have 6 and wouldn’t even be close to a winning team. With him? The Bison are 9-2 and in 1st place in the Summit. I have been so impressed by him all year, and can’t believe that we still get to watch 3 more seasons with him.

Image via Inertia Sports Media and http://milehighmids.tumblr.com/post/79239754283/it-ends-again-with-an-awful-loss

But back to the game. Carlin Dupree also had a really nice game with 10 points 3 rebounds 2 assists and 1 steal. Just another solid all around performance for Dupree. Its no secret that I really like the guy and am dazzled by his athleticism, but its true that he hasn’t really broken out this season. However, he is a solid contributor night in and night on and a lot of the time is honestly the guy who makes our offense run. It’s his athleticism and ability to drive to the basket that creates opportunities for our spot up shooters, and even if its not always visible in the stat line Carlin is incredibly important to this team. I have a feeling this will be much more obvious next year once LA graduates. LA really broke out this year once he was no longer playing in the Shadows of Braun and Wright. Its not that he didn’t have these skills already, but rather the team simply didn’t need him to carry them in those years. I think the same will wind up being true for Carlin. Once LA graduates there will be a bit of a power vacuum that I expect guys like Carlin, AJ, and Paul will fill very nicely.

Image via NDSU Athletics and http://couriernews.chicagotribune.com/2014/12/19/college-report-elgins-kory-brown-rolls-doubles-north-dakota-state-wins/

In any event, those 3 were NDSU’s primary scorers on the night, and no one else did anything particularly noteworthy scoring wise, but Kory Brown had yet another monster rebounding night with 11 boards to lead all players. Kory’s energy, work ethic, and determination are just a joy to watch. He’s exactly the kind of hard working glue guy that ties a team together. Every time that wants to win games needs a guy like Kory, and I absolutely love watching him play. Add in the fact that he’s a great wing defender AND our best rim protector, and I couldn’t really care less if he ever scores on a given night. The points are just gravy. Kory also had 5 assists (led the team) to go with his 6 points 11 boards 1 steal and 1 block, so all in all a spectacular game for him.

AJ had an off night, and Kading cooled off from that 2 game stretch he had been having. Dexter had 5 points and 3 boards but he picked up 4 fouls in only 16 minutes of play, so not exactly the kind of performance I had learned to expect from him after that great stretch to end nonconference and begin conference play. However, in the end we only really needed that 4 man effort to handily dispatch the Coyotes and avenge that earlier loss. And thank goodness we won this one in such impressive fashion, because things are about to get a whole lot harder.

NDSU is about to run into a season defining stretch with their last 5 games. Their schedule wound up being heavily backloaded this season as they play all 3 of the other teams in the Summit’s top 4 and play 3/5 road games to close out the season (@Denver, @SDSU, vs. IUPUI, vs. IPFW, @Oral Roberts). This test will be incredibly tough, and to completely honest a 1-4 finish isn’t entirely out of the question.

 

Playing on the road in Denver is one of the toughest environments in the Summit League, so while Denver is certainly having a down year, their crowd could easily pick them up and rally them to an upset. Moreover, NDSU struggled mightily with Denver’s unique play style (Princeton Offense and Matchup Zone) when they played them at home, and nearly lost that game in Fargo (needing overtime to win, and even a big mistake by a Denver player to even get to overtime). I can only imagine things will be even more difficult when they’re in Denver.

[Photo Credit: Steven Branscombe, USA TODAY Sports]

Then they follow that up with a trip to SDSU, the #2 team in the Summit, and the only team besides NDSU with a reasonable hope of winning the League. SDSU is great. Honestly I think they’re the best team in the League regardless of their record. Cody Larson is a bonifide star and Scott Nagy has built a real contender around them. If they make the NCAA tournament I wouldn’t put it past them to upset a better team, and NDSU will now have to face them in Brookings. The Jackrabbits are undefeated at home in Conference play and have been wining their conference home games by an average of 23.5 points per game. These are not just wins they are absolute beat downs. Add in the fact that NDSU nearly lost to them at home as well, and I wouldn’t be shocked at all to see the Bison lose their shot at a regular season title here.

After that brutal mini-run the Bison finally get a break and get to return home to play IUPUI which should be a guaranteed win. IUPUI is not good. They’re just not. It isn’t their year this year. And NDSU is spectacular at home. This will be a game that NDSU absolutely cannot afford to lose, as they could easily be riding a 2 game losing streak coming into it.

Steve Forbes (Photo Credit: Michael Hickey, Getty Images North America)

They’ll finish that home stand with a second tilt against IPFW. IPFW narrowly beat the Bison in Fort Wayne, and this game will be another must win for the Bison in my opinion. Moreover, its a game I think they can win. IPFW barely beat them at home, so with a Fargo crowd behind them I can’t imagine the Bison losing. However, the Mastodons used that win over NDSU to completely jump start their season. They opened Summit League play 1-5 but have rattled off 5 straight to push themselves into 4th place at 6-5. This game will be no means be easy.

(Photo Credit: Michael Wyke, Tulsa World)

And finally, to close off the season the Bison have to travel all the way down to Tulsa and take on the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles. ORU is always a tough out and even more so at home. Billbury and Emegano are true studs, and NDSU has their work cut out for them in this one.

So in the end I think there is absolutely no chance NDSU get’s through this gauntlet undefeated OR winless to end the season. However, anything else from 4-1 to 1-4 is possible. The entire season will come down to this five game stretch. I’ll consider NDSU’s year a resounding success no matter how they end the year here, but I’d be lying if I said Coach Richman and the guys haven’t raised my expectations exponentially throughout the course of the year. This stretch really scares me, but I’m also incredibly excited to see NDSU tested so harshly to close out the season. At the end of the day for Low-Major Conferences like the Summit where only 1 team will ever make the NCAA tournament in a given year, the conference tournament champion is all that really matters on a national stage. The regular season title is only important to fans of the league. So in that sense I’m very thankful that NDSU will play a gauntlet like this just before the gauntlet that is the Summit League tourney. If anything is going to get them battle-hardened and ready for the tourney it will be this stretch. I just hope it comes with some exciting wins as well.

Image via NDSU Men’s Basketball Twitter https://twitter.com/NDSUmbb/status/552211481001861121/photo/1

A Historic Night for an All Time Great: NDSU vs. Omaha Recap and NDSU vs. USD Preview

The Bison beat the Omaha Mavericks in Fargo tonight, 64-57 in a truly history night. Not only was tonight the 22nd straight home win for the Bison, it was also Lawrence Alexander’s 83rd career win to make him the winning-est Bison basketball player of all time. That is a truly staggering number. Eighty three wins and his career isn’t even done yet. It has been an absolute joy watching LA this season. He has been out of his mind all year long. He has somehow dragged this young Bison team kicking and screaming into first place in conference (IPFW knocked off SDSU tonight putting the Bison back in first place by a half game over the Jackrabbits) when by all accounts this was supposed to be a rebuilding year. The Bison lost nearly their entire roster off of last year’s NCAA tournament team including three of the best players to ever put on a Bison uniform in TrayVonn Wright, Marshall Bjorklund, and Taylor Braun. And yet… tonight, Lawrence surpassed them all. Not only in this wins category, but to see him leading this young team, turning them into a contender has been an absolute delight. I’m so glad to have had the privilege to watch this guy play, and I wish him nothing but success in whatever he chooses to do when he finally graduates this spring.

But now on to the game. All in all the first half wasn’t much fun to watch as the Bison found themselves down 33-28 at halftime. Early turnovers were a problem as the Bison had 3 in the first 5 minutes and found themselves down 9-8 early. It didn’t get much better as the half went on either as NDSU ended the first half with 7 turnovers. Omaha really dictated the pace of play for the entire first half which clearly caused the Bison a lot of problems. They were helping the Mavericks generate extra possessions by taking (and missing) far too many shots early in the shot clock, and the overall increased pace clearly flustered the guys, judging by that insane number of turnovers. However, as expected the pace wasn’t all bad for all the Bison. It gave Carlin a chance to showcase his absurd athleticism yet again, and he had one truly impressive coast to coast fast break where he more or less beat the entire Omaha team by himself. The only problem is we don’t have 5 Carlins on this team… we have one. So clearly Coach Richman would need to change things up and get the guys to control the pace and slow the game down more in the second half.

In the second half Omaha Forward Mike Rostampour elbowed his own teammate Marcus Tyus in the face, and ended up knocking him out of the game. This, in turn, gave the Bison a chance to make a little run (even including a Chris Kading 3, and nearly a second but he was barely within the line… either way exciting to see from your starting center). And with a little help from the Awoken Giant Dexter Werner the Bison finally managed to take a 41-39 lead. Dex has been pretty quiet the last few games which has been very disappointing after that spectacular tear he went on to end non-conference play and begin Summit League play

For Omaha the eral story all night was Marcus Tyus who remained on fire even after getting his face busted open by his own teammate. He was 3/3 on his first three triples and scored 18 pts total on the night to lead all scorers (tied with LA), and he, Rostampour, and Carter late really paced the Mavericks. However, in the end NDSU’s defense won out over Omaha’s pace. The Bison held Omaha to 19 points TOTAL in the second half. So while Omaha’s pace definitely set the stage for the first half, the Bison

With about 6 minutes left in the game a Paul Miller 3 finally allowed to Bison to pull away. Miller’s three put the Bison up 55 – 48. The 7 point lead was NDSU’s biggest of the night to that point, and from that moment on it really looked like NDSU was in control. Even after a 5 minute scoring drought lasting until around 90 seconds left in the game the Bison never relinquished the lead, and ground out another tough, important home win.

Image via http://www.mysummitleague.com/chris-kading-player-profile/

But the biggest story to me out of this one was that we got another big game from Chris Kading! At around 1:50 seconds left in the game Kading came up with a monster block to wake the Bison back up, and carry them into the victory. He had another big rebound late in the game to ice it away, not to mention those big shots we already mentioned earlier. Kading may be on the verge of stringing together his best stretch of games yet this season which I’m all in favor of. It’s a shame that its coming at the apparent expense of Dexter Werner whose production has regressed, but I have complete faith that he’ll bounce back soon. He even had some Big Dex plays tonight so he’s clearly not that far off. But again, for tonight the story is Kading who just seemed to be in the right place at the right time in all the right moments tonight. (Other than… y’know… the fact that Lawrence Alexander is now the winning-est Bison Basketball player of all time).

And just like that the Bison are back in first place in the Summit. The dream is alive!!! Somehow this young Bison team which essentially consists of 7 core guys is leading the Summit League, and sitting in the drivers seat to win the regular season conference title and maybe mayyyyyybe sneak back into the NCAA Tournament for a second consecutive season. Now, they clearly have their work cut out for them with road games against Denver, SDSU, and Oral Roberts, and a home tile against IPFW still on the schedule, but hey… the ball is in their court. Win out and the title is all theirs, which is something I could never have imagined at the beginning of this year. It’s truly spectacular. But if we’re going to finish this fairy-tale story it all needs to start with a little revenge against the University of South Dakota this weekend.

Image via USD.edu

USD absolutely stole a game against the Bison 3 weeks ago when the two met in Vermillion in front of a packed house and raucous crowd. Students had just returned from Christmas break a few days earlier, and the Bison were caught on the road by an inferior team. This time around, however, with a Bison home crowd in their back pocket and a chip on the shoulder from the loss, I can’t possibly imagine the Bison dropping this one.

For one thing, they’re just better than the Coyotes. USD’s team essentially breaks down to 3 guys. Kasperbauer, Bos, and Larson. Beyond those three the Coyotes really struggle to score, and while Tre Burnette is an excellent rebounding, if you don’t score points you can’t win the game. So with the top of NDSU’s roster being better than the top of USDs and with NDSU being a generally deeper team (in terms of talent if not numbers) there is no reason why the Bison shouldn’t extend that home winning streak to 23 games. If they lose it will be an enormous upset.

All that being said, however, USD is nothing if not tough. They beat Western Illinois tonight to push their Summit League record back up to .500 at 5-5, and have refused to give up on this season, no matter how disadvantaged they may be on paper coming into a particular game. They have wins over NDSU and IPFW, and aren’t afraid of tough road environments (they won at Denver earlier this year, one of the toughest arenas to play in in the Summit, and their win over IPFW came in Fort Wayne… the Bison lost in Fort Wayne earlier this season). So as always anything is possible. South Dakota could come out hot, and their three guys could all go off on us. They could play like the same team that won in Denver and Fort Wayne, ignore the crowd, and grit out a win. But after seeing LA become the greatest winner in the history of Bison Basketball, I just have a hard time believing that’s what we’re in store for this Saturday. So congratulations Lawrence, and Go Bison! Time to set the score straight, and put the Coyotes back in their place.

Bison Lose to USD 71 – 67 : USD Recap, WIU Preview, and Where We Stand in the Summit

That was a pretty freaking miserable game. I’m still pretty mad to be honest so I’m going to keep these thoughts short.

Image via http://www.yankton.net/river_city/article_0be90c73-3e79-5f80-8e23-930549c311a4.html

It really was those 3 guards, Bos, Kasperbauer, and Larson, who beat us. More so than that though it was just Kasperbauer (on offense) and Larson (those freaking rebounds). I know we’re a team that lacks size, but how the heck did we allow a 6’3″ Shooting Guard to grab 14 rebounds? That’s horrible. And Kasperbauer just got hot. There wasn’t a ton we could do about that. And we’ve stopped teams that had 1 hot shooter all year thus far (Emegano of ORU for instance) so I guess it wasn’t something we would normally give a lot of thought to anyway.

Jacobson didn’t have nearly the game I thought he would considering the defensive mismatch on him. Only 8 points and 4 rebounds. Very pedestrian numbers. I was thinking more like 18 points and 4 rebounds.

Photo Credit: Colin Mulvaney, The Spokesman-Review

The fouls are what really hurt us in the first half (Coach Richman eventually had to turn to Ishola, which would normally be fine but this wasn’t just a hostile road environment, those people were downright rabid), but it all snowballed from there. And here is where I want to give credit to those USD fans. Holy crap did they make that a hostile road environment. First game back for the students and they let us know. Mental mistakes everywhere, including the crucial “stepping out of bounds” play that lost the game for us. NDSU had 3 or 4 chances to win this game, and it just didn’t happen. I give at least some of the credit for that to those fans.

But now the greater ramifications.

Win this game and NDSU would have maintained their 1 game lead in the League and remained the only undefeated conference contender (it would have put them up to 4-0 in conference). Moreover, it would have knocked USD down a peg and reduced NDSU potential competitors for the regular season title down to two (SDSU with a 3-2 record and Oral Roberts with a 3-1 record). Now it’s become a 4 way race and NDSU not only let USD grab a share of the conference lead (NDSU, ORU, and USD are now in the 3 way tie at 3-1) but they opened the door wide open for every two win team in conference to claw their way back into the race. NDSU had a real opportunity with these next two games to really distance themselves in this conference race and set themselves up with a legitimate chance to win this thing. Now they have no better chance than anyone else in the conference, and have allowed several of the more experience, battle hardened teams (Such as ORU and SDSU) to catch back up and take advantage of NDSU’s inexperience.

Honestly after seeing that game I don’t really believe NDSU will win the Summit. Which should be fine because when the season started I didn’t think this conversation would even be worth having. SO that’s an improvement anyway. However, I’m just so worried about this young team playing on the road. USD has done a spectacular job to force their way into the conversation for a regular season title, but they’re not the class of the Summit. They are not the kind of team you can drop road games to if you want to win the League. Lose on the road at Oral Roberts? Fine. Its all the way down in Oklahoma. Far from home. And they’re an experienced team full of talented veterans. Same goes for Denver and IPFW. But USD is right in NDSU’s backyard. Not a long road trip at all and they’re a team that is no more skilled than NDSU (and honestly I still believe NDSU is full of far better players).

Image via NDSU Men’s Basketball Twitter https://twitter.com/NDSUmbb/status/531919355177496576/photo/1

All in all things will be ok. NDSU is still in the hunt for the regular season title, and I’m going to have a lot of fun watching them try to contend all year. Like I said, to start the year I never even considered that as a possibility so I am BEYOND proud of this team for being where they are and am ECSTATIC over Coach Richman’s early success. There is so much to be positive about with this season so far that I have no idea why I’m being so negative. This team is incredibly fun to watch. They play hard. Work hard. And win games. They’ve been achieving far ahead of schedule all season, so it should be fine if they slip back a bit, but they’re so good right now I can’t help but want them to stay in this race to the end. And hell. As fun as they’re making the regular season title race right now, we all know the only title that really matters is the Summit League Tournament Title since that’s where you punch your ticket to the NCAAs. And as we know, anyone can win that thing. So if this team just stays competitive all year they definitely have a chance to get hot and win a few games there. I think they have the talent to do so, and it will all start with the upcoming Western Illinois University game.

Western Illinois is very similar to the University of South Dakota in terms of narrative this season. They were a team that was supposed to be near the bottom of the league (but one of the best of the worst if that counts for anything) but have made themselves surprisingly competitive all season long. They’re 7-9 overally right now which obviously isn’t great, but they’re 2-3 in League play which we know, thanks to the Bison’s loss, puts them only 1 game out of the lead in the win column. They knocked off IPFW and Omaha to open conference play, but are currently on a 3 game losing streak, so its not like they’re world beaters. Moreover, with NDSU at home for this one, and coming off a close loss the absolutely need this win. If we’re going to be dropping road games to the middle tier teams in conference, then we sure better go undefeated at home the rest of the season to make up for it if we want any chance at the regular season title.

Image via WIU Leathernecks Athletics

Western primarily works with an 8 man rotation, but their team is overwhelmingly dominated by one player, Garret Covington. Covington is only a sophomore which is scary when you start to think we have to play him for two more years, and he’ll only get better, but anyway he’s plenty good right now too.  The 6’5″ guard averages 16 points 4 rebounds and 2 assists per game. Moreover, because of his size he can probably play anywhere from the 1 through the 4 in the Summit League (since it seems like every other team, including the Bison, has a radically undersized power forward anyway) but going inside really isn’t his game. The guy just gets buckets, and I promise you he will do the same against NDSU.

The rest of their team, however, isn’t that intimidating (although neither was USDs). They’ve got a little size with Mohammed Conde, Jalen Chapman, and Tate Stensgaard, and all three of those guys grab a fair number of boards (6, 4 and 4 respectively), but its not like they have a dominate post present like SDSU has with Cody Larson. And none of those guys scare you very much on offense. They can score, but won’t run you out of the gym (unless one of them decides to go all Denell Henderson on us again…).

As far as their guard play outside of Covington they’re solid but not great. Jabari Sandifer is their secondary scoring option and primary setup man, and he’s good at both jobs averaging 9 points and 5 assists per game. J.C. Fuller can score and so can Jamie Batish off the bench, but I think the other guard that I’d be on the lookout for is 6’6″ swingman Mike Miklusak. If he comes to play his size could be an issue for NDSU, and he’s a solid player averaging 6.5 points and 4 boards per game.

So its not like Western isn’t without talented players and strong matchups. They have the talent to upset NDSU. However, with the Bison player at home it would be an upset. Losing on the road in conference is one thing, losing at home would be a whole different mess. Luckily, I don’t think the Bison will make as face this reality at this time. They’ve been great at home. They really thrive on that home crowd, and are honestly the more talented (although, again, not the deeper) team here. Hopefully a trip back to Fargo is exactly what the Bison need to get back on track, and get back to exceeding every expectation I have of them. Also, you can be certain Richman would rather walk through hot coals than drop a home game after a tough loss. Good luck Western. I have a feeling you’re gonna need it.

(Brendan Maloney/USA TODAY Sports)