Shooting woes doom Bison
Team hits just 29 percent of shots
North Dakota State’s game against Minnesota was reminiscent of the last time the Bison played a Big Ten conference team.
The previous opponent was Wisconsin and NDSU benefited from the Badgers’ dismal 22 percent shooting percentage.
On Monday at Williams Arena, the Gophers were aided by NDSU making only 19 of its 65 shot attempts as they downed the Division I Independent Bison 63-49 before 10,327 fans.
“ I thought that we set basketball back 15 years the first 15 minutes of the game, and I don’t think it got a heck of a lot better after that,” NDSU head coach Tim Miles said.
Miles was referring to the beginning of the game when NDSU scored just nine points in 15 minutes.
To add to their shooting woes, the Bison turned the ball over 10 times in the first 10 minutes of the contest.
Neither team could buy a bucket in the beginning of the first half.
With 7:47 left in the first half, Minnesota led the Bison 6-5. Over the next 49 seconds, the Gopher’s Lawrence McKenzie, a transfer from Oklahoma, scored 8 points to give the Gophers a comfortable lead.
After McKenzie went to the bench for rest, the Bison had one of their only bright spots of the night, outscoring Minnesota 9-2 over the next 2:45.
At halftime, NDSU trailed the Gophers 23-18 and went to the lockerroom in search of answers.
“ To credit Minnesota’s defense, they are a very athletic team, and they disrupted what we were doing on offense,” said NDSU forward Brett Winkelman, who made just 3 of 11 shots. “That took us out of our flow, and we had bad shots as a result of that.”
Coming into the game, it appeared the Bison would have the momentum.
Three nights earlier, the Bison played on the road in Idaho and defeated the Vandals 91-76.
Against Idaho, NDSU’s shooting was a polar opposite than it was against the Gophers, making 63 percent of its field goal attempts.
Minnesota was fresh off an embarrassing loss to Division II Winona State.
Add NDSU’s success over Big Ten school Wisconsin and only a 13-point loss to Minnesota last year and the Bison looked like a team who could compete with the once prestigious Gopher basketball program.
“ I thought last year was easy for us because we had nothing to lose,” Miles said. “Nobody really expected too much. This year our players thought we could win the game.”
In the second half, the Bison started to make more shots, but still only made 36 percent of their attempts.
The Gophers pulled away for good when they outscored the Bison 13 - 4 to extend their lead to 18 with 4:23 remaining in the game.
One thing that was clear was that the Gophers were not going to let NDSU’s Ben Woodside be the deciding factor.
Woodside was last season’s leading scorer for NDSU and caused fits for Wisconsin, but the 5-foot-11-inch sophomore was unable to generate any offense against Minnesota.
Woodside had trouble against a much bigger player as 6-foot-5-inch Kevin Payton guarded him most of the night.
“ I know how good Ben Woodside is,” Minnesota head coach Dan Monson said. “I also know Kevin Payton did a good job on him today and I thought he was a big key for us.”
Miles said he was aware that they were going to key on Woodside.
“ I thought Minnesota did an excellent job defensively on him (Woodside),” Miles said. “They were going to make a commitment that he wasn’t going to beat him and he didn’t.”
NDSU’s lone senior, Andre Smith, tried to pick up the slack by scoring 17 points and adding a career-high 17 rebounds.
The Bison won’t have much time to sulk; the team travels to Texas Tech this Friday in a much-anticipated game with the Red Raiders.