To say non-conference play ended badly for UND is a bit of an understatement.
First: Caleb Nero suffered an lower body injury when he landed on a San Jose State players foot in the 2nd half of a blowout loss. Then in practice before the Dixie State matchup, not only did Mitchell Sueker suffered the same fate (only this time on a teammates foot), it was announced that reserve Brenden Howard was leaving the team.
So, with the continued absence of Levias, along with the injuries to Nero and Sueker and the departure of Howard, left UND with only 8 scholarship players available plus the walk-on Anderson and very thin on the bigs.
Oh, and the first conference opponent happens to be your arch-rival NDSU with two of the better bigs, and possibly the best 4-5 tandem, in the conference in Rocky Kreuser and Grant Nelson. Most people though that it would have ended in an NDSU blowout.
NDSU did still win the game 86-76, but UND made them fight for 40 minutes and nearly pulled the upset off.
The biggest positive to take away is the continue emergence of Paul Bruns. After dropping 21 points against Dixie State, the young freshman from South Dakota put together his best game in a UND uniform. He had 27 points on 9-18 shooting, including going 6-10 from 3. He always seemed to have the big shot when UND needed it the most. He also set a career high with 11 rebounds, showing that he wasn’t afraid of mixing it up down low. He has certainly stepped up as the number 1 option for UND and could be on his way in taking home some hardware at the end of the season, if he keeps this up.
The other big positive was the play of Tsotne Tsartsidze. He also had his best game in a UND uniform and handled himself quite well against the NDSU bigs. He dropped 18 points on 7-12 shooting and went 4-4 from the free throw line. He also grabbed 7 rebounds. In the last 3 games, T has shot around 60% from the floor (averaging 14 ppgs in those 3 games) and grabbing around 8 rebounds a game in those 3 contests. This has been a nice development for UND down low, especially when Sueker has been gone with an injury.
UND however, didn’t have answers for the North Dakota Natives Grant Nelson and Boden Skunberg. Nelson dropped a career high 24 points and gave UND bigs fits. He helped to cover for Kreuser, who only had 6 points (all of them on free throws). Skunberg gave NDSU 14 points off of the bench and was helpful in hitting those soft shots when UND was in their zone.
UND also had trouble towards the end of the game, getting the necessary stops or making the shot necessary to really get back into the game. NDSU showed their grit and made championship plays (getting the extra possession, getting the necessary stop on defense, winning those 50-50 balls). They also were starting to hit the soft shots that UND was giving them in the zone (Eady was starting to make a bit of a living on them towards the end). UND could do one or the other, but couldn’t string them together in the last 4 minutes. You could see that the lack of depth and length was starting to affect them at that point.
As Sather has mentioned, no one is going to feel sorry for UND and their situation. They just need to make the most of it until the injured players come back. While this performance was a better showing and the continue emergence of Paul Bruns as a bright young star in the conference. UND needs more from their returners and to see T continue to develop as a post player. Hopefully getting Nero and Sueker back will help to boost the team as UND gets deeper into conference play. UND heads home for 2 games against the South Dakota Schools, starting with USD, who they have won 4 straight against.