Bison pundits too quick to judge women’s team
The Bison’s 85-80 win against IPFW on Saturday put a cap on what was a surprisingly good season for the women’s basketball team.
NDSU finished the season at 14-11 and 7-3 against fellow Division I Independent teams — quite an improvement compared to last year’s 9-17 and 1-6 marks.
Despite the progress, many people believe there is a clock set on Bison coach Amy Ruley’s time left here unless things turn around.
Such people have no understanding of what it takes to turn a Division II program into a successful Division I team.
Look at the facts from this season. The Bison lost both of their exhibition games to start the season. Normally this would not matter, except the games were against Bemidji State and Minnesota State-Moorhead.
At that point, most people predicted the Bison to finish with no more than six or seven wins. A .500 season was simply out of the question.
Then, a funny thing happened. The team started to win.
First, they took a couple on the road to win a Thanksgiving tournament. Then, they came back home and beat a solid Wisconsin-Milwaukee team.
Two weeks later came the team’s shining moment of the year, a 14-point win over the University of Minnesota.
With Amanda Girodat and Emily Moran both out early in the season with injuries, Ruley found a way to get them both to thrive in her offense when they returned, which resulted in a fantastic late season surge.
The Bison have not lost to a team other than South Dakota State since January 25.
The Jackrabbits are probably the main reason for some of the criticism aimed at Ruley.
SDSU has had a phenomenal year and will probably earn a berth in the Women’s National Invitational Tournament.
While NDSU had much more success at the Division II level, SDSU has gotten the jump in Division I. So, because a similar program is having success, does it really mean something is wrong with NDSU? I don’t think so.
While the Bison obviously do not have the talent the Jacks have right now, forget about them and just look at this season’s Bison.
How many coaches out there could have won as many games as Ruley did with this roster? Not many.
Ruley has a solid recruiting class coming in and at least four starters returning next year as NDSU gets set to play in the Mid-Con.
While it may take a couple years to reach where Ruley wants the program to be, there is absolutely no doubt she can get there.
Just wait and see, Ruley is going to have a couple of Mid-Continent Conference Championships to add to her North Central Conference and NCAA Championships.
Just remember who said it first.