Herd now look ahead to East Tennessee State
On Tuesday night NDSU men’s basketball headed east for a game against the Indiana State Sycamores. The Bison could not hold on in Terre Haute, Indiana and fell to 5-4 after a 71-60 loss.
Indiana started strong going on a 15-2 run to start the game. At that point, NDSU’s only two points had come from a pair of free throws from junior, Rocky Kreuser.
The Bison’s first points from the field did not come until almost 11 minutes into the first half. The points came from a Vinnie Shahid jumper.
However, it would be another five minutes before the Bison would score again. This time, it was another jumper for two, but this one from senior, Tyson Ward. This brought the score to 6-20, Sycamores, with just 4:39 left in the half.
The points really started flying after this with the Bison getting 13 more points and Indiana getting 11.
The surge in points for NDSU was largely due to the three three-pointers made by the team including one from sophomore, Tyree Eady, in the final 30 seconds.
Going into the locker room, the Bison only had a 24.1 field goal percentage and 18.8 three-point percentage.
In the second half, it was the Bison’s turn to come out swinging. They went on a 17-4 run to start out giving them a one-point lead. The run was led by Kreuser who had two threes during the fun.
However, it did not last long and the Sycamores retook the lead where they would stay for the rest of the game. After the score hit 42-52 in Indiana’s favor, it would never come within 10 points again.
The second half was a lot stronger for the Herd. NDSU ended up outscoring the Sycamores 41-40 in that half and improved their shooting percentage substantially. In the second, they made 48.1% from the field and 41.2% beyond the three-point line.
At the end of it all, Shahid had the most points for the Bison, scoring 19. Behind him was Kreuser with 14. Eady ended up with nine points on the night all from three-point shots.
Kreuser also led the team in assists with 11. Tyson Ward followed him with seven.
This was the third loss in just four games for NDSU with the others coming to 4-5 Utah Valley team and a 6-3 Stony Brook team. The Sycamores were just 3-4 coming into this matchup, now 4-4.
The Bison men’s basketball team’s next matchup will be this Saturday, Dec. 7t. They will be hosting the 7-1 East Tennessee State University Buccaneers at the Sanford Health Athletic Center at 7 p.m. The Buccaneer’s only loss is to the nationally-ranked Kansas University Jayhawks, so it should be a tough match for the Herd.