North Dakota Preps

Well the Bison are now 1-1 after an unimpressive victory over Minot State. The defense gave up way too many points and the first half effort was not there until towards the last 3 minutes of the half. They need to play a lot better than that if they want to be competitive this year.

gobison#6 wrote:Well the Bison are now 1-1 after an unimpressive victory over Minot State. The defense gave up way too many points and the first half effort was not there until towards the last 3 minutes of the half. They need to play a lot better than that if they want to be competitive this year.

Well they weren't very impressive in the exhibition games against MSUM (Division II) and Concordia (Division III). They were actually losing for much of the first half against Concordia.

A few early observations after watching the MSUM, Concordia, and Minot State games:

-The Bison will struggle at the point. Vaughn is a solid player, but he's a 2, not a true 1. Teams will push the pace and apply constant pressure, that will cause the Bison problems. Vaughn will struggle on both ends against quicker guards and if he's the point he'll almost always be playing quicker guys. Can't tell about Lundberg. Pennick is best suited to spot duty, the longer he's on the court the less effective he becomes. Zastrow has the skills/tools and mindset, he's the best 1 they've got now. Being the lead guard is alot to ask of a true freshman, he'll get beaten up physically if he has to play extensive minutes.

-Tveidt is a stud. He'll have to take over games for stretches on both ends of the court for the Bison, he's capable of doing it. If teams find ways to neutralize him, Bison struggle big time. Carlson is a good complimentary player, finds ways to score, board, make plays without much being run for him. Guys his size who are more athletic will cause him problems, and there are plenty of those guys out there. I can't tell if he's got a consistent mid-range jumper, if he does, it will help keep more athletic players honest.

-Who will step up inside? Someone has a chance to earn some big minutes. Maybe they do it by committee; Sussenguth, Flowers, Nagel, Aaberg sharing minutes. I don't expect much offensively from the interior.

-Freshmen: Zastrow, Felt, Aaberg. Wish they all could have redshirted, but that's water under the bridge. Felt can shoot the ball, good offensive instincts, he'll struggle defensively. Teams will attack him when he's on the court. Aaberg will be good, but he's a big young guy and he looks young. He needs time to gain strength and pull everything together, almost all young big guys need some time. He'll show flashes this year but won't be consistent.

Bison will take a step or two back. Point guard and post are areas of concern.

I have a feeling that in the post Flowers will be one of there better players if he thinks. He has a tendency to look a little confused on the court. I think Carlson plays a better post game than he does outside which is alright because post play is needed. Sussenguth and Aaberg should be decent players off the bench. Nagel is just a big dude who will only play when up by a lot because he takes up space down low and that is it.
Your point about Vaughan not being a true 1 is correct, but he is a good leader so if they can just get him to get it up and a play started he works just fine there. As you said though a quicker guard will always beat him. Pennick is just for defense and I also don't know about Lundberg. Felt and Zastrow are gonna be good I can already tell. Tveidt is definitely this years stud.

The bison were very well in contention to beat Utah Valley, a team who played a fairly reasonable game against Minnesota, this was all while the three frosh combined for a pedestrian 11 points. This team, along with the freshmen, will continue to grow as the season carries along and will eventually create an identity for themselves. The bison WILL be a very respectable team in the Summit league. As far as the exhibition games and the Minot state game, the bison just simply played up to the level of their competition.

Mr. Knowitall wrote:As far as the exhibition games and the Minot state game, the bison just simply played up to the level of their competition.

gonna be a long year if they had to play "up" to the level of competition of Minot State, haha

baseball wrote:

Mr. Knowitall wrote:As far as the exhibition games and the Minot state game, the bison just simply played up to the level of their competition.

gonna be a long year if they had to play "up" to the level of competition of Minot State, haha

Haha I really meant to say down. They're obviously not going to come out with the same type of fire in a game with Minot like they would against a team like Oakland or SDSU.

Not really about this season so much but NDSU's win over Wisconsin was named fourth biggest upset in college basketball for this decade. The win over the #8 Marquette team was bigger but it happened after the Wisconsin win sos that it wasn't as shocking. BTW, kind of weird that NDSU gets more media coverage from Sports Illustrated and ESPN for these wins than they get from local media. For example,when NDSU beat Wisconsin, the Grand Forks Herald's coverage consisted of a an opinion saying, "So what?" and "Big deal." Nice!

Forgot the link:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multim ... ent.7.html

(hopefully I haven't posted this twice.)

NDSU has suspended forward/center Dejuan Flowers indefinitely. I thought he would have a little bit better numbers at this point than he does so his loss doesnt come off as huge to me. What are some other opinions?

gobison#6 wrote:NDSU has suspended forward/center Dejuan Flowers indefinitely. I thought he would have a little bit better numbers at this point than he does so his loss doesnt come off as huge to me. What are some other opinions?

A big reason for his suspension was that Coach Phillips thought it was more important for Dejuan to focus on school and graduating to get ready for the real world pretty much.

gobison#6 wrote:

gobison#6 wrote:NDSU has suspended forward/center Dejuan Flowers indefinitely. I thought he would have a little bit better numbers at this point than he does so his loss doesnt come off as huge to me. What are some other opinions?

A big reason for his suspension was that Coach Phillips thought it was more important for Dejuan to focus on school and graduating to get ready for the real world pretty much.

OH...and the shoplifting incident on Monday!

Run4Fun2009 wrote:

gobison#6 wrote:

gobison#6 wrote:NDSU has suspended forward/center Dejuan Flowers indefinitely. I thought he would have a little bit better numbers at this point than he does so his loss doesnt come off as huge to me. What are some other opinions?

A big reason for his suspension was that Coach Phillips thought it was more important for Dejuan to focus on school and graduating to get ready for the real world pretty much.

OH...and the shoplifting incident on Monday!

That was in his post but I edited it out because I don't think legal troubles need to be disscussed here.

Indy5 wrote:

Run4Fun2009 wrote:

gobison#6 wrote:

gobison#6 wrote:NDSU has suspended forward/center Dejuan Flowers indefinitely. I thought he would have a little bit better numbers at this point than he does so his loss doesnt come off as huge to me. What are some other opinions?

A big reason for his suspension was that Coach Phillips thought it was more important for Dejuan to focus on school and graduating to get ready for the real world pretty much.

OH...and the shoplifting incident on Monday!

That was in his post but I edited it out because I don't think legal troubles need to be disscussed here.

ah k...well I was just adding what I heard...but that's understandable

On a different note...last night the Bison played one of their most complete games of the season with a win over Centenary and a dominating performance turned in for Tviedt and a career night for Fargo-native Austin Pennick

Run4Fun2009 wrote:

Indy5 wrote:

Run4Fun2009 wrote:

gobison#6 wrote:

gobison#6 wrote:NDSU has suspended forward/center Dejuan Flowers indefinitely. I thought he would have a little bit better numbers at this point than he does so his loss doesnt come off as huge to me. What are some other opinions?

A big reason for his suspension was that Coach Phillips thought it was more important for Dejuan to focus on school and graduating to get ready for the real world pretty much.

OH...and the shoplifting incident on Monday!

That was in his post but I edited it out because I don't think legal troubles need to be disscussed here.

ah k...well I was just adding what I heard...but that's understandable

i thought it was ok to put in there but i understand why you took it out. I figured if i just mentioned it and didnt turn it into anything personal against him it was fine.

gobison#6 wrote:

Run4Fun2009 wrote:

Indy5 wrote:

Run4Fun2009 wrote:

gobison#6 wrote:

gobison#6 wrote:NDSU has suspended forward/center Dejuan Flowers indefinitely. I thought he would have a little bit better numbers at this point than he does so his loss doesnt come off as huge to me. What are some other opinions?

A big reason for his suspension was that Coach Phillips thought it was more important for Dejuan to focus on school and graduating to get ready for the real world pretty much.

OH...and the shoplifting incident on Monday!

That was in his post but I edited it out because I don't think legal troubles need to be disscussed here.

ah k...well I was just adding what I heard...but that's understandable

i thought it was ok to put in there but i understand why you took it out. I figured if i just mentioned it and didnt turn it into anything personal against him it was fine.

I wasn't making it personal either...I just thought mentioning it would clear up half of the reason for him being suspended

I know you guys didn't mean to make it personal but I figured that this probably isn't the place to talk about it. Plus I wanted to avoid anyone making it personal.

yeah i know there was a good chance someone would say something bad about it so i completely understand where you are coming from on it.

well ndsu should or at least could of won the other night but they faltered down the stretch and didnt really show up in the overtime.

Another close game ending in a loss last night. Iowa State 73 NDSU 71. Vaughan missed a 3 pointer that would have won it in the final seconds.

Does anybody think Sussenguth should start over Aaberg? He has more experience and is stronger down low with his body.

gobison#6 wrote:Another close game ending in a loss last night. Iowa State 73 NDSU 71. Vaughan missed a 3 pointer that would have won it in the final seconds.

say what you will about no moral victories, but when you go to a Big XII school and lose by a single basket thats a good thing. considering the Big XII was something like 114-1 at home in the non-con.

Another loss puts the bison to 6-12 i believe. The last five or six losses though have been close though. This season wont produce anything big, but i think the fact that they are losing games by like an average of only 5 points shows next season could be a good one.

digger wrote:A few early observations after watching the MSUM, Concordia, and Minot State games:

-The Bison will struggle at the point. Vaughn is a solid player, but he's a 2, not a true 1. Teams will push the pace and apply constant pressure, that will cause the Bison problems. Vaughn will struggle on both ends against quicker guards and if he's the point he'll almost always be playing quicker guys. Can't tell about Lundberg. Pennick is best suited to spot duty, the longer he's on the court the less effective he becomes. Zastrow has the skills/tools and mindset, he's the best 1 they've got now. Being the lead guard is alot to ask of a true freshman, he'll get beaten up physically if he has to play extensive minutes.

-Tveidt is a stud. He'll have to take over games for stretches on both ends of the court for the Bison, he's capable of doing it. If teams find ways to neutralize him, Bison struggle big time. Carlson is a good complimentary player, finds ways to score, board, make plays without much being run for him. Guys his size who are more athletic will cause him problems, and there are plenty of those guys out there. I can't tell if he's got a consistent mid-range jumper, if he does, it will help keep more athletic players honest.

-Who will step up inside? Someone has a chance to earn some big minutes. Maybe they do it by committee; Sussenguth, Flowers, Nagel, Aaberg sharing minutes. I don't expect much offensively from the interior.

-Freshmen: Zastrow, Felt, Aaberg. Wish they all could have redshirted, but that's water under the bridge. Felt can shoot the ball, good offensive instincts, he'll struggle defensively. Teams will attack him when he's on the court. Aaberg will be good, but he's a big young guy and he looks young. He needs time to gain strength and pull everything together, almost all young big guys need some time. He'll show flashes this year but won't be consistent.

Bison will take a step or two back. Point guard and post are areas of concern.

I was going to make a comment about the year so far and last night's game against the Kangaroos, forgot I had written this back in November. Guess I don't have to add anything.