Men’s Basketball Finishes Season Strong with Senior Day Against UND After Taking a Loss at St. Thomas, Clinches 1st Seed

The last of the Summit League regular season games happened this week for NDSU. This week’s opponents were the best in the Summit. NDSU first traveled to Saint Paul to face the St. Thomas Tommies, who ranked second in the conference, and then celebrated the seniors with a game against the archrivals, the University of North Dakota.

In a battle of the number one vs number two in the Summit League, this was the game that the Bison would like to flush. NDSU won the previous matchup against the Tommies in Fargo, 68-65.

In the first 10 minutes of the first half, NDSU was down 28-13. The Tommies had six threes in those 10 minutes to stretch the lead. It didn’t get better as the first half seconds trickled down. NDSU found themselves in a 23-point hole as they went into the tunnel, down 50-27.

The Tommies just dominated the Bison in almost every statistical category, but they got killed in the shooting category, with shooting over 57% from the field and 47% from three, making 10 in the first half.

Unfortunately, in the second half, the lead was growing rapidly. With 12 minutes remaining, the Tommies’ lead grew to 32 after Carter Bjerke hit one of his seven threes in the game. Their biggest lead in the game would be 34. St. Thomas controlled the rest of the game and won 84-62. For NDSU, Treyson Anderson and Damari Wheeler-Thomas led the team in scoring with 11 each.

After the St. Thomas beatdown, NDSU needed to refocus its attention on the Fighting Hawks to finish the regular season strong. But, more importantly, for Coach Richman’s team, it was Senior Day for Noah Feddersen, Tay Smith, Markhi Strickland and Damari Wheeler-Thomas. Also, another milestone was achieved in the SHAC: a new attendance record of 5,426 people, along with the 2,944 who attended the women’s game.

NDSU was struggling against UND’s aggressive press in the first half. They had six turnovers in the first 10 minutes of the game, which resulted in a 19-11 lead for the Hawks after a Marley Curtis free throw. But, NDSU and Tay Smith turned it on with 4 three pointers to finish the first half.

With Smith sparking three pointers and Feddersen being dominant in the paint, the herd went into the break up 13, 44-31. More importantly, the defense for the Bison held the Hawks to 32% from the field and 23% from three.

In the second half, NDSU had an efficient explosion on offense. At the sub-14-minute mark, Emil Skytta hit a jumper, and NDSU’s lead ballooned to 20 points at 55-35. Then, Wheeler-Thomas set into action with his three-pointer jumper, making the score 71-46 with under 10 remaining.

With under five minutes left, Smith hit the exclamation mark three-pointer to extend their lead to 33. The Bison dismantled the Hawks and ended up victorious, 96-63. After UND had an early nine-point lead at 17-8, NDSU went on a game run of 88-46 to stay on cruise control the whole game.

This NDSU team also hit another mile mark after their win against UND, their record improved to 24-7 and 14-2 in the conference. Those 24 wins broke a tie with the 2008-2009 team and the 2013-2014 team.

Coach Richman had this to say in his intro after the win to the media: “Grateful and Proud, proud to be a bison.” I believe that perfectly demonstrates the mood going into the Summit League title.

NDSU will head down to Sioux Falls to take on either Kansas City or Oral Roberts in the #1 vs #8 matchup in the quarterfinals on Thursday, March 5, at 6 p.m. The game can be watched on Midco Sports or the Summit League Network and listened to on 107.9 The Fox and Bison 1660.