The St. Thomas Men’s Basketball team tonight is playing the North Dakota State Bison tonight. The Bison have become a Championship game regular in Sioux Falls, making it each season for the better part of a decade. It has been since 2017 that NDSU has lost a game in the first round of the tournament.
How the other games went:
2/22/24 NDSU 64 St. Thomas 50
This game is exactly the kind of game UST needs to avoid which would be to allowing NDSU to have their way in the paint, and hope that they themselves can makeup for it from deep. The Bison had a ton of second chances, and took all of them away from UST. NDSU in that game had a whopping 30 defensive rebounds. Meaning that UST was missing a lot of shots, and the bison were scooping them up. UST went 8-16 at the rim in this one and 6-25 from deep. The Bison at the rim went 11-15.
1/25/2024 NDSU 66 St. Thomas 79
This is the game that UST should look to have tonight. A Parker Bjorklund showcase. He had 32 in this game, including 5-10 from deep. Parker has been the leading scorer in 5/6 games against North Dakota State. The Tommies in this game were out rebounded, but were able to be a very impressive 17-21 at the rim. Dobbs and Raheem’s drives and finishes at the rim were impressive, as they did not miss getting the ball in the hoop at the rim the entire game, going 3-3 and 4-4 respectively.
How the teams have played recently:
St. Thomas and NDSU finished their last two games completely opposite. NDSU finished the year losing by almost 20 points per game to the South Dakota Schools. What was also strange is that NDSU lost to South Dakota by more than SDSU. The same South Dakota that was summarily bounced from the tournament on Friday, only a week earlier was beating the Bison handedly.
St. Thomas on the other hand finished the year with two blowout wins. The Unexpected becomes the ordinary but watching Denver beat the hottest team in the league yesterday, the UMKC roos, made me more confident. 8 days ago St. Thomas beat that Denver team by 25, albeit with an early Bruner exit.
How the game needs to go:
Given the length of the Midco media timeouts, it favors a team like NDSU which is top-heavy in terms of talent. If UST makes it further in the tournament their depth is going to be a bigger and bigger advantage. St. Thomas is better than the Bison shooting from everywhere but one place, the three point line. St. Thomas is more reliant than ever on three point shooting, taking shots from there 45.7% of the time, compared to the Bison’s 35.7%. NDSU is ranked 327th in the country defending the perimeter. UST needs to get hot and stay hot, as NDSU can’t prevent them from getting the deep looks they need.
Prediction UST 75 NDSU 60