UND was quite busy in the past week or so, playing 4 games in 7 days, going 2-2 in that 4 game stretch.
Nov 15th: Pacific 93, North Dakota 63
UND started their home opener against a retooled Pacific team that brought in several transfers in the offseason, and came off a big win in Fargo against NDSU. For the first few minutes of the game, UND got off to a good start and lead 7-2 in the opening 3 minutes of the game.
Then Pacific went on a roll.
More specifically Luke Avdalovic, nailing 4 3s in the first half for the Tigers. It was apart of a half where they shot 65% from the field!
UND however, struggled from the field in the first half. They shot 28% from the field, and an alarming 5-13 from the free throw line. A lot of those misses were close shots around the rim that killed the momentum. This seemed to have bled into the team as many players were missing close shots and usually from the free throw line. The Tiger defense also made things difficult for UND all game long, putting pressure on the UND guards.
The 2nd half wasn’t any better for UND: Despite an improved shooting performance, Pacific continued to pour it on, shooting 60% from the field.
Matt Norman pour in 18 points off of the bench, going 5-10 from 3, continuing his hot shooting from beyond the arc. T had a nice night scoring 12 points and grabbing 7 rebounds in the process.
Nov 17th: North Dakota 77, Elon 73
No time to mope, UND hit the road to the Tar Heel state to take on Elon.
The biggest stories of the game was the emergence of a freshman from Bismarck and a reemergence of a senior from Marshall.
Mitchell Sueker had a promising senior season cut short due to an lower body injury. He tried his best to come back from it during the conference season, but he wasn’t the same and then shut it down for the rest of the year. Realising that it wasn’t the way he wanted to go out, he took advantage of his COVID year to come back. After a great exhibition game against Waldorf, the season didn’t start the way he wanted in the first three games, but against Elon, he put together his best game, scoring 15 points on 8-13 shooting, grabbing 9 rebounds and dishing out 5 assists.
The 2nd big story was the big night from freshman Treysen Eaglestaff. The freshman guard from Bismarck came in as a highly regarded scorer and on that night, flashed that scoring. He dropped 15 points on 6-10 shooting and was 3-6 from the 3 point line.
UND used a dominate night from the free throw line, going 17-20 from the free throw line. UND got contributions from BJ Omot (12 points), Caleb Nero (8 points) and Brady Danielson (9 points).
Although, it got nervy once again towards the end of the game as Elon chipped away with some timely turnovers and hitting some big shots. UND did salt the game from the free throw line.
With the win, UND exceeded their entire road win total from last year with 2.
Nov 20th: Montana State 81, North Dakota 71
After a quick trip to the Tar Heel state, it was good to get back home to take on an old BSC rival, Montana State. This was another measuring stick to see where UND stacked up against the best the BSC had to offer.
The big story was the game the performance from RaeQuan Battle. The junior from Washington brought his entire offensive bag, scoring 30 points and doing this in a variety of ways that UND just couldn’t solve defensively.
UND played well for about 25-30 in this game, especially in the 2nd half where the offense finally was able to get something going. The problem was that the experienced Bobcats always seemed to have an answer, whether it was Battle, the uber talented Jubrile Belo (16 points, 10 rebounds) or reserve Caleb Fuller (13 points, 10 rebounds). UND continued to have droughts of several minutes where they didn’t score and struggled with the perimeter pressure that MSU was applying.
Sueker lead the team with 18 points, BJ Omot had 14 points, and Eaglestaff had 10 points to give UND 3 scorers in double figures.
This game also was without the services of Elijah Brooks, who was out with a lower body injury.
Nov 22nd: North Dakota 92, Wisconsin-Stout 61
Lastly, UND took on the Blue Devils of Wisconsin-Stout, a D3 school.
It was exactly what UND needed to do against a non D1 team, they jumped on the Blue Devils early and it didn’t seem like they were in any danger of losing the game. Stout hit some tough shots in the first half to prevent the game from being a total runaway but in the 2nd half, the inevitable happened and UND crused to an easy win. Brooks was held out of this game to heal from his lower body injury.
The big story of the game was the continued development of freshman BJ Omot and Treysen Eaglestaff. Omot built off of his Bobcat game by scoring 18 points on 7-12 shooting. He once again looked decent from 3, hitting 2 of his 3 attempts from downtown. Eaglestaff continued his hot shooting, going 5-9 from downtown and scoring 17 points. He also dropped 6 assists to zero turnovers. These two continue to develop and progress and the last three games have been huge for their development. Continued development of these two will go along way to the improvement of UND.
UND used this opportunity to get some players that haven’t gotten a lot of playing time in the 31 point victory. One of these players was A’Jahni Levias. Levias was a player that was brought last season after a successful 1st season at the JUCO level and looked to be a big part of what UND did last year. Unfornately, he suffered an leg injury in the offseason and was unable to play in the 21-22 season.
In his first extensive playing time at the D1 level, he made the most of it. Scoring 15 points on 6-10 shooting. He was able to show all 3 levels of his game, attacking the basket and showing his range from 3. He also had great energy of the defensive side of the basketball.
Another player coming off a significant injury was Sophomore Brian Mathews. The 6’9 forward played a reserve role for UND last year, while dealing with a back injury. Against the Blue Devils, Mathews got his first career double-double, scoring 12 points and 12 rebounds. After a long offseason, it was good to see him and Levias get some success. Given the length of the season, you never know when your name is going to get called and when it is, you make the most of it.
Coming up for the team, well they get the rare opportunity of hosting a mini-tournament over the Thanksgiving Holiday. They get the action started tomorrow at 1 PM against Utah Tech, a transition D1 team out of the WAC conference that UND has played the previous two seasons.