Here’s a quick recap of Friday’s action
South Dakota State at North State: SDSU 68 NDSU 67
The Jackrabbits led most of the game and then the Bison battled back. A Charlie Easley dagger 3 gave the Jackrabbits a late lead. North Dakota State couldn’t get the buzzer-beating shot off as Douglas Wilson played some instructional tape defense on Rocky Kreuser. Some other notes
- With Boden Skunberg’s return the Bison were at full strength for the first time in a while
- Baylor Scheierman had one of those Baylor Scheierman games. 16 points, 6 rebounds, 6 assists. While SDSU is sort of proving they are a team without a star, Scheierman is providing the closest thing to one
- Easley was mentioned above and started with Freidel missing the remainder of the season, came through with the biggest shot of the game
- Grant Nelson continues to show promise. 4-6 from the field including 2-3 from 3. 10 points and 5 rebounds.
- Both team’s stars had to work for what they got. Rocky Kreuser and Sam Griesel were a combined 10-27 from the field and Douglas Wilson was 2-10 and had only 4 points.
North Dakota @ Omaha: Omaha 72-62
Omaha with their first Summit League win and first win since December. Omaha was playing with only 6 scholarship players and likely will the rest of the season. Omaha jumped out to a big lead and then North Dakota stormed back. Then the last 8 minutes of the game UND scored 4 points and Omaha pulled away.
- Filip Rebraca was fantastic. Scoring 22 and grabbing 13 rebounds.
- The biggest issue for North Dakota is Rebraca really had no help on the scoring end of the floor
- Matt Pile had a 16 point 14 rebound game last week and another great game yesterday as Pile compiled a 17 point, 13 rebound performance while adding 3 blocks
- Freshman Lamel Robinson started for Omaha and put in 16 points. Robinson has been putting together solid performances much of the second half of the Summit League schedule
- Ayo Akinwole with 16 points and what has to be a career-high 10 rebounds. He also added 6 assists. The senior point guard has been the one consistent during this tough season for the Mavericks.
Denver @ Kansas City: Kansas City 68 Denver 57
Denver and Kansas City were tied at half and it looked like Denver might put themselves in a position to give themselves a shot to win this game especially since KC rarely pulls away from teams. Kansas City put the hammer down in the second half basically not letting Denver score the first 10 minutes of the half and building a 15 point lead and were able to finish a relatively comfortable win.
- Arkel Lamar missed another game with an injury, but Marvin Nesbitt Jr. returned just in time to provide some of what the Roos miss with Lamar out.
- Nesbitt who has played in only 9 games this season because of injury scored 20 points in his return and was a huge boost for Kansas City.
- Zion Williams played all 40 minutes and scored 11 points and grabbed 11 rebounds. I should mention he is a 6’4 guard.
- Kobey Lam earned his first start and paced Denver with 15 points
- Robert Jones did some real damage in the first half down low for Denver, including getting Josiah Allick in foul trouble. Jones was pretty silent in the second half though.