NORTH DAKOTA STATE (4-1)Last Game: North Dakota State 57, Texas A&M Corpus Christi 45 on 11/16/19
Last Game with SBU: First meeting
Checkmate Unofficial Line: North Dakota State -4
Net Ranking: TBD
KenPom RPI: Stony Brook 214, North Dakota State 158
KenPom Prediction: North Dakota State 67, Stony Brook 64
Listen/Watch:TV:
http://bit.ly/BBallGm6VidNotables (stats to come):6-6/195 sr G Tyson Ward
5-11/190 sr G Vinnie Shahid
6-6/215 sr F Sam Griesel
6-10/250 jr F Rocky Kreuser
6-3/185 sr G Jared Samuelson
All right, boys, let's go win ourselves a tournament.
I watched the last 10 minutes of TAMUCC/NDSU to see what we're up against. My overall thoughts? Meh. They were all right, I guess. I thought TAMUCC defended us well and they gave NDSU trouble as well.
For the Bison, I'm not terribly worried about any one particular individual. Maybe Shahid? He's a compact guard whose shiftiness allows him to get into the paint to distribute or score himself. And he can shoot it – better than 36 percent from three last year. Good player but containable I think. Size-wise, Foreman makes sense for him. Of the game footage that I've seen the last two days, I feel like our perimeter defense combined with Gueye and Otchere (hopefully) guarding the paint make it tough on him.
Ward's their leading scorer but seems like a blue-collar kind of kid. Not a terrific shooter but a gamer.
Leave that to Samuelson (.462 from three last year), Cameron Hunter (.400) and even the big guy Kreuser (team-best .421 this year). Without seeing NDSU, I'm guessing you'd guess they can shoot it from deep. Well, they certainly aren't afraid to – 47 percent of their shot attempts last year; 45 percent this year. The conversion rate is down this fall though – just 32 percent even with a win over Mayville State included – but give it time as pretty much all five guys on the court can and will shoot it from deep. We've defended shooters well of late, including holding them to a paltry .300 make rate on threes last year. This year hasn't quite matched that, but I like what I've seen the last couple days. Sell out to defend the perimeter.
Inevitably, we'll get into a shooting contest with them, but we should feel confident going to the hole. Their on-ball defense wasn't anything special, I thought the help came late, and there isn't a big-time defender at the rim. I'm still waiting for somebody to penetrate, draw a big, and slip a nice dish to Gueye or Otchere for an easy dunk.
Let's not forget that pretty much of all of these guys helped NDSU win a first four game over North Carolina A&T in last year's NCAA Tournament, and they hung with Duke for a half until Zion and Co. picked up their game to start the second half. It's a battle-tested group.
Interesting nugget: not a single player on North Dakota State is from North Dakota. UND has two. I know it's not exactly fertile ground for basketball talent, but still, nobody?
A noteworthy stat: NDSU has shot 105 free throws to their opponents' 52. And this is a three-point shooting team. But Shahid and Ward have shown a propensity for getting to the line, and they're shooting over 77 percent from the stripe as a team.
A much less noteworthy stat: If we win this game, we'd get to 3-3 all-time in the state of Texas. It would become only the fifth state in our Division I history in which we have a .500 record or better (2 game minimum), joining New York (200-152), Maryland (16-12), Maine (10-7) and Michigan (2-2). Right now, we're sub .500 in 14 states as well as DC.
LFG.