After a 1 year reprieve, the UND women are back in the Summit League Tournament. They will be taking on Oral Roberts in the first round Sunday Afternoon, with the winner of that one getting South Dakota State on Monday.
UND has certainly showed great improvement from the previous year. After only winning 2 games last year, UND improved to a 15-14 regular season record and went 9-9 in the Summit League. Which was good enough for a 5th place finish.
With that said, the last two weeks have been a rough patch. UND is going into the tournament with not a lot of momentum right now, losing their last 4 games. The last loss certainly was the biggest gutpunch, losing down in Fargo against NDSU, getting swept again by the hated Bison for the 3rd year in a row. While UND fans can point to the fact that they finished ahead of NDSU in the standings, it still is tough to lose both games against your arch-rival.
This week, 2 UND players were honored by the Confernence by their outstanding play throughout the year. Kacie Borowicz was given 1st Team All-Summit Honors, while Melissa Leet found her way to the all-defensive team. No suprises with these two. Borowicz led the Summit League in scoring, was 2nd in assists, and was 2nd in the nation from the free throw line. Leet certainly deserved her honor, leading the summit in blocked shots with 2.2 a game and also was 10th in the conference in rebound.
If there was one quibble, I thought Olivia Lane should have gotten some consideration for at least an all-honorable mentioned. While Lane’s scoring wasn’t as high as the others on that list, he was one of the better rebounders in the conference, finishing 2nd in rebounding. She certainly was worth of some honor.
Attention turns now to Sunday: Oral Roberts and UND has split the two meetings this year. UND used a dominate defensive effort to hold ORU to 34 points in a victory in Grand Forks. Oral Roberts then responded in Tulsa with a dominate free throw shooting performance (28-29 from the free throw line) to take an 89-73 win in Tulsa.
Can UND rediscover their form from January/Early February and make a surprise run in Sioux Falls? We are going to find out starting tomorrow.