Bison Begin Four-Game Home Stand Against IPFW, Oakland
1/19/2011 8:19:00 PM | Men's Basketball
THIS WEEK: The North Dakota State men's basketball team opens a four-game home stand this week against the top two teams in The Summit League. Seventh-place North Dakota State (9-8, 3-4) is scheduled to host second-place IPFW (11-6, 5-2) at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 20, and first-place Oakland (12-8, 7-0) at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 22, at the Bison Sports Arena (5,830) in Fargo.
KFGO-AM 790 in Fargo and Bison Radio Network affiliate KFYR-AM 550 in Bismarck will carry Thursday's game beginning at 6:40 p.m. with Scott Miller calling the play-by-play and Jeremy Jorgenson as color analyst. KFGO will have solo coverage of Saturday's game beginning at 7:10 p.m. Live stats and a free live audio stream will be available on GoBison.com, and live video will be available by subscription to NDSU All Access.
FOOD FIGHT: NDSU's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) began collecting food Tuesday, Jan. 18, for the Summit League Food Fight. Food will be collected all week leading up to NDSU's men's and women's basketball games with Oakland on Saturday, Jan. 22. Each Summit League school will hold a food drive at a designated game during the season. The school that raises the most amount of food (measured in pounds) will be deemed the winner and will receive The Summit League Food Fight trophy. Oakland won last year's Food Fight. Drop boxes for the Food Fight will be set up at the Bison Sports Arena all week. Students with current NDSU ID cards will have two chances to win $100. For every two canned goods a student brings to either the men's game against IPFW on Thursday, Jan. 20, or the games on Saturday, Jan. 22, that student will receive a ticket for a $100 drawing. Students can receive a maximum of 10 tickets each night. The first 150 fans that make a donation at Thursday's men's game or Saturday's games will receive an NDSU reusable grocery bag while supplies last.
THE SERIES: Thursday will be the 11th meeting between North Dakota State and IPFW dating back to 2005-06. The series is tied 5-5. IPFW won 68-59 in Fargo and 71-67 in Fort Wayne last year. The home team won the first six games as NDSU and IPFW split home-and-home series the first three years. ... Saturday will be the ninth meeting between North Dakota State and Oakland dating back to 2004-05. Oakland leads the series 6-2 after last year's 85-79 win in Fargo and 88-81 win in Rochester.
ABOUT IPFW: The Mastodons are 11-6 overall and tied with IUPUI for second place in The Summit League with a 5-2 record after last week's 86-68 home loss to Oakland. The Dons were picked to finish sixth in the league after three straight fifth-place finishes since joining the league with NDSU and South Dakota State in 2007-08. Ben Botts is one of three starters back from last year's 16-15 team that went 9-9 in the league. Botts is shooting 47.5 percent from the 3-point line and leads four players in double figures with 14.4 points per game. Frank Gaines is IPFW's second leading scorer (12.8 ppg) and leads the Mastodons in rebounding (6.5 rpg). Zach Plackemeier is the top assist man with 4.5 per game and Trey McCorkle leads the team with 14 blocks. Head coach Dane Fife (Indiana, 2002) is in his sixth season at IPFW with a 75-91 record.
ABOUT OAKLAND: The Golden Grizzlies are 12-8 overall and have a two-game lead in The Summit League with a 7-0 record after winning 86-68 at IPFW last Saturday. Oakland scored 41 points in the final 14 1/2 minutes of that game. The Grizzlies were ranked 10th in Monday's CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major Top 25 poll. Summit League Player of the Year Keith Benson is the top returner from last year's 26-9 team that won the league with a 17-1 record and beat IUPUI in the Summit League championship. The Golden Grizzlies lost to Pittsburgh 89-66 in the NCAA first round. Four of Oakland's losses this year have come to Top 25 teams Purdue, Illinois, Michigan State and Ohio State. OU beat No. 7-ranked Tennessee 89-82 in December. Benson leads the team with 16.6 points, 10.2 rebounds and 3.7 blocks per game. UMKC transfer Reggie Hamilton is second in scoring with 15.6 points per game and is first with 4.8 assists per game. Hamilton has made 50 three-pointers and Travis Bader has made 47. Head coach Greg Kampe (Bowling Green, 1978) has a 457-331 record in his 27th season at Oakland.
HOME AND AWAY: North Dakota State lost its fourth and fifth straight road games last week at Western Illinois and IUPUI, but the Bison carry a seven-game home court winning streak heading into this week's action. NDSU is 6-0 at home and has not lost at the Bison Sports Arena since Feb. 25 against IUPUI. The Bison are just 1-8 on the road this year with the only win coming in the Summit League opener Dec. 4 at South Dakota State. Here's a comparison of NDSU's stats at home and on the road this year:
|
Pts |
FG% |
3FG% |
FT% |
Reb |
TO |
|
|
NDSU Home |
84.0 |
.542 |
.469 |
.647 |
34.5 |
12.7 |
|
Opponents |
63.0 |
.424 |
.307 |
.728 |
26.8 |
16.8 |
|
NDSU Away |
71.6 |
.415 |
.354 |
.720 |
38.7 |
13.8 |
|
Opponents |
77.2 |
.441 |
.363 |
.731 |
38.1 |
11.6 |
PLAYER OF THE WEEK FELT TIES TWO RECORDS: North Dakota State guard Mike Felt was named Summit League men's basketball Player of the Week by the league office on Monday, Jan. 10, after shooting 11-for-17 from the 3-point line and 10-for-10 at the free-throw line in home wins over Oral Roberts and Centenary. Felt scored a career-high 22 points in the 80-74 win over ORU. He went 4-for-6 from the arc and made eight straight free throws in the final 65 seconds to seal the win. Felt was 7-for-11 from the 3-point line and scored a game-high 21 points in the 76-60 win over Centenary. He tied the NDSU single-game record for most 3's made in a game held by five other players, and tied the single-game record for free-throw percentage going 10-for-10 against ORU. It was the first career award for Felt, who entered the week averaging 3.5 points per game and 9-for-20 from the 3-point line.
BISON 8th NATIONALLY IN 3-POINT SHOOTING: North Dakota State ranks eighth in 3-point shooting in the NCAA Division I statistics through Sunday, Jan. 16, with a .413 team 3-point percentage. The Bison have shot at least 40 percent from the arc in 10 of their 17 games. Michael Tveidt leads the team with 27 made 3-pointers and a .519 percentage, and Mike Felt is second with 21 and a .488 percentage. Northern Arizona leads the nation shooting 45 percent from the 3-point arc followed in order by Portland, South Dakota State, Rider, Arkansas-Little Rock, Illinois, Richmond and NDSU.
BISON IN THE SUMMIT LEAGUE STATS: North Dakota State ranks second in The Summit League in opponent field-goal percentage (.443), total rebounds (35.0 rpg) and offensive rebounds (12.4 rpg), and third opponent 3-point percentage (.340) in the league-only statistics through Saturday, Jan. 15. Individually, Mike Felt is tied for first in free-throw shooting (1.000), ranks fourth in 3-pointers per league game (2.5) and is fifth in 3-point shooting (.536), Marshall Bjorklund is tied for seventh in free-throw shooting (.810) and is 10th in rebounding (5.9 rpg), Taylor Braun is sixth in field-goal shooting (.600), Freddy Coleman is tied for third in steals (1.7 spg) and tied for ninth in assists (2.7 apg), and Michael Tveidt ranks ninth in 3-point shooting (.462) and 10th in free-throw shooting (.808). Tveidt and TrayVonn Wright are part of a four-way tie for ninth in blocked shots with 0.7 per game.
TVEIDT 17th ON SCORING LIST: Senior forward Michael Tveidt became the 28th NDSU player to reach 1,000 career points against UC Santa Barbara on Nov. 13 when his third of five 3-pointers gave the Bison an 11-2 lead at the 14:51 mark of the first half. Tveidt ranks 17th in school history with 1,206 points through 108 games. The last player to reach the milestone was guard Mike Nelson in 2007-08. Tveidt also has a chance to become only the 15th player in school history with both 1,000 career points and 500 career rebounds. He has 406 rebounds.
RECORD HOME CROWD: North Dakota State set a single-game home attendance record on Saturday, Dec. 11, at the Fargodome when a crowd of 10,709 turned out to see the Bison and the University of North Dakota meet for the first time as Division I opponents. That passed the estimated crowd of 8,500 against UND on Jan. 31, 1981, and the exact count of 7,002 against South Dakota State on Feb. 9, 1996. It was the first meeting between the longtime Division II rivals since the teams split a home-and-home North Central Conference series in January and February 2004. UND leads the series 156-127.
MOST OFFENSIVE BOARDS IN 11 YEARS: North Dakota State's 25 offensive rebounds in the 82-75 win at South Dakota State were the most for an NDSU team since a Division II game against Montana State-Billings on Dec. 11, 1999. The Bison converted 28 second-chance points and had a 55-37 advantage in total rebounds. NDSU freshman TrayVonn Wright had nine of the offensive boards and his 15 total rebounds were the most by a Bison player since February 2008 when Brett Winkelman hauled in 15 caroms in a home win over Western Illinois.
TVEIDT NAMED CO-PLAYER OF THE WEEK: North Dakota State forward Michael Tveidt was named Summit League co-Player of the Week on Nov. 15 by the league office after averaging 18.7 points, 3.7 rebound and 2.0 assists per game in the Basketball Travelers Invitational. Tveidt shot 53.8 percent from the floor including 69.2 percent from the 3-point line (9 of 13). He scored a game-high 27 points in the five-point overtime loss to Oregon and also led the Bison with 18 points and a career-high five 3-pointers against UC Santa Barbara. South Dakota State guard Nate Wolters shared the award after averaging 18.0 points and 6.0 assists in road wins over Eastern Illinois and Iowa, including career highs of 25 points and nine assists at Iowa.
OVERTIME GAMES: North Dakota State is 5-4 in overtime games since 2007-08, including a 2-2 mark in OT last year. NDSU has lost its last two overtime contests, 65-64 to Oral Roberts in last year's Summit League quarterfinals and 97-92 in this year's regular-season opener at Oregon.
FIRST LOSING SEASON: North Dakota State won at least 16 games each of its first five years as a Division I program, but the Bison are coming off their first losing season after an 11-18 finish last year. It was the first sub-.500 team since 2001-02 under first-year head coach Tim Miles and only the fifth since 1972-73 when coach Marv Skaar took over the Bison program. NDSU's 18 losses were the most since 1971-72 and the second most in school history. The Bison finished sixth in The Summit League with an 8-10 record and lost to Oral Roberts in the Summit League quarterfinals, 65-64 in overtime.
TVEIDT, CARLSON PRESEASON PICKS: North Dakota State's top two scorers from a year ago were both named to the Preseason All-Summit League team by a vote of the league's coaches, sports information directors and media. Senior forward Michael Tveidt was picked to the first team and junior forward Eric Carlson was picked to the second team. Tveidt was NDSU's leading scorer with 15.7 points per game last year and ranked fifth in The Summit League. Carlson was NDSU's second leading scorer (14.8 ppg) and led the Bison with 6.9 rebounds per game. He ranked sixth in the league in scoring and rebounding.
BISON PICKED FOURTH IN SUMMIT: North Dakota State was picked to finish fourth out of 10 teams in The Summit League in a preseason poll of the league's coaches, sports information directors and media. Defending champion Oakland received 29 of 34 first-place votes, Oral Roberts was picked second with three first-place votes, and IUPUI was third with two top votes. South Dakota State, IPFW, Western Illinois, UMKC, Southern Utah and Centenary rounded out the fifth through 10th spots in order.
THE SUMMIT LEAGUE: This is North Dakota State's fourth season in The Summit League after spending three seasons as a Division I independent. Other members are Centenary College in Shreveport, La.; Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW), Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI); University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC); Oakland University in Rochester, Mich.; Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla.; South Dakota State University, Southern Utah University; and Western Illinois University. Centenary will drop to Division III next season and the University of South Dakota will join to keep the league at 10 teams for 2011-12. Southern Utah will leave to join the Big Sky Conference in 2012-13.
THE COACH: Saul Phillips (Wisconsin-Platteville, 1996) is in his fourth season as head coach at North Dakota State with a 62-46 record. Phillips directed North Dakota State to its first Summit League championship and NCAA Division I tournament appearance in 2009, and was one of 10 finalists for the Hugh Durham Mid-Major Coach of the Year award. A Bison assistant for three seasons, Phillips came to NDSU from Wisconsin, where he was director of basketball operations for three years under Bo Ryan. He was an assistant for two seasons each at Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Lake Superior State and a graduate assistant at Wayne State in Nebraska for one year.
BISON FEEDBACK: Join North Dakota State head men's basketball coach Saul Phillips and head women's basketball coach Carolyn DeHoff for "Bison Feedback" from 7 to 8 p.m. Tuesday nights on KFGO-AM 790 in Fargo. Bison play-by-play voice Scott Miller hosts the call-in program and takes your questions for the coaches all season long. Bison Feedback can also be heard live on GoBison.com.
