Women’s Basketball Falls to SDSU, Clinches Outright Summit League Title vs. UND

It had been 7,669 days since North Dakota State beat South Dakota State on the campus of NDSU in women’s basketball. The Bison had an opportunity last Wednesday night to not only end that drought but also clinch an outright Summit League championship.

Almost exactly 21 years to the day, the Bison looked to continue their 23-game winning streak. The Bison would struggle early on as South Dakota State would outscore NDSU 15-10 in the first quarter.

The Bison shot just 31% in the first quarter and looked like a completely different team from the previous 23 games. “I thought this was going to be a possibility with our team, and quite honestly, I didn’t even recognize our group even two minutes into the game,” said Jory Collins.

“They came ready to play right away, I think we could all kind of feel that,” said Avery Koenen. Koenen’s struggles would continue into the second quarter as she ended up not scoring a single point as SDSU outscored NDSU 14-11 to take a 29-21 lead to the locker room.

“She was getting pushed off her spot,” said Collins. SDSU made it a point to take Koenen out of the game, and they did just that. “They [SDSU] came out, and they were more dialed and more physical in every sense of the word to start the game,” said Collins.

The Bison would find a little rhythm and match SDSU’s 12 points in the third quarter, but would still trail by eight heading into the final quarter of play. The 3,708 fans packed inside the SHAC started getting restless as the Bison would have multiple shot clock violations due to SDSU’s tough defense.

“Obviously, a great crowd and super disappointed in our performance,” said Collins. That disappointment would continue into the fourth quarter as the Jackrabbits would put the dagger into NDSU’s hopes of winning with 10 points from Madison Mathiowetz, including a pair of three-pointers. “You can tell she’s a senior,” said Collins.

NDSU’s single-season winning streak record came to a halting end at 23 games in a 59-44 defeat and dropped to 14-1 in conference play.

Collins referenced multiple times in the postgame presser that he wanted to win for the large crowd and was disappointed. “I’m frustrated for our fans more than I am for our own kids,” he said. “Knowing we were gonna have a big crowd, I wanted us to be at our best and be able to go out and play the way we can play, and just disappointed that we didn’t.”

Collins also alluded to some players dealing with an illness this week in the postgame presser, which could’ve contributed to the poor performance. “We had some people dealing with some sickness and just did not have any kind of physicality or juice, and they [SDSU] did,” said Collins. “We had people worrying about breathing rather than boxing out.”

The Bison will still be the number one seed in the Summit League tournament next week, regardless of what happens. If they want to clinch the regular season title outright, they will have to win on Saturday afternoon against UND. “We just want to come back, we want to win Saturday. We are playing for a full-on championship, and we’re hungry for it,” said Karrington Asp.

Things wouldn’t be handed to the Bison, though, as UND would come into the SHAC with nothing to lose on Saturday afternoon. Not to mention star point guard Jocelyn Schiller injured her ankle the morning of the game, leading to her missing the game. She is expected to be back on Thursday for their first round Summit League tournament game.

NDSU only got out to a 17-15 lead on the Hawks after the first quarter. The second quarter didn’t get much better. In fact, it got worse. UND got hot from the three-point line, outshooting NDSU 23-22 to give NDSU just a 39-38 lead heading to halftime.

Koenen led the team in the first half, putting up a quiet 13 points. NDSU had the same look as on Wednesday against SDSU.

It felt like they were scared to take a shot from the three-point line. That completely shifted after halftime as NDSU went on a 10-2 run to start the second half.

NDSU put up 32 points in the third quarter but gave up 21, leading to a 71-59 lead heading to the fourth quarter. The Bison held on in the fourth quarter with a final score of 95-70 inside the SHAC giving NDSU its first outright Summit League title in program history.

In what could be Koenen’s final game inside the SHAC, she put up another double-double with 29 points and 15 rebounds. Molly Lenz and Abby Krzewinski each had 14 points of their own as well.

The Bison advance to 15-1 in conference play along with 26-3 overall. The Bison had an all-time regular season, and they will look to lead that into the postseason.

They will take on the winner of #8 UND and #9 Omaha on Thursday, March 5, at approximately 2:30 in the quarterfinals. If they win that, they will take on the winner of #4 Oral Roberts vs #5 St. Thomas for a trip to the Summit League championship game.