The UMD men's basketball team defeated Crookston 89-61 in the Bulldogs' NSIC home-opener on Thursday. The win puts UMD at a record of 6-2 and leaves them with a spotless 2-0 mark to kick off NSIC play. 

This Golden Eagles squad is full of new faces still working to make everything come together. The first half served as a preview of what that could end up looking like. 

It was Crookston that jumped out to an early 12-6. Marcus Thompson was huge for the Eagles in this stretch, scoring the entire back-half of its points on his own. It's a lead that would be stretched out to as much as eight at a score of 17-9 and then again at 32-24. With 4:08 to go in the half, the Golden Eagles still maintained control, leading 35-29. All things considered, they'd hold the lead for 14:02 of the first half compared to just 3:02 for UMD. Half of that timeframe for the Bulldogs had been courtesy of a Jack Middleton three opening the game, giving UMD a 3-0 lead that they'd hold for a minute and change. The other minute or so, small of a span as it might have been, served as quite the statement. 

The Bulldogs closed out the final four minutes of the  first half on a massive 14-0 scoring run. Charlie Katona opened things up, nailing a three to cut it to a one-possession game at 35-32. He'd end this four-minute spurt with four points and an assist to show for it, part of his nine-point, six-rebound performance on the half overall. Middleton helped fuel a Bulldog lead just as he had earlier, this time with a jumper to make it a two-score game at 40-35 UMD with just 37 seconds left in the frame. The name behind the remaining eight points is Drew Blair. The redshirt-senior guard came alive late, scoring eight points in this closing stretch alone. To top it all off, Blair sank a buzzer-beating three, his second triple of this run, to send his team into the locker room up 43-35. 

It was Middleton that would close out the half as the team's leading score, heading into frame two with 13 points on efficient 5-9 shooting from the field. Blair had 11 points of his own, going 3-6 from beyond the arc in the half. All things considered, the Bulldogs shot the ball pretty well as a team in the frame. UMD worked at efficiency clips of 45.5% (15-33) from the field and 8-14 (57.1%) from three. So too were the Golden Eagles efficient, though- Crookston was 14-30 (46.7%) overall and 4-7 (57.1%) from three. 

Momentum is quite the force. In the second half, the Bulldogs demonstrated its power. 

It took the Bulldogs seven seconds to finish the job from the first frame and extend their lead to double-digits at 45-35 off of a Middleton two-pointer. The Golden Eagles would be able to trim it down to single digits a few times after that, but once an Austin Andrews free throw made it 52-42 UMD, the lead wouldn't dip like that again. For the remaining 17:27 of the game, it was all Bulldogs. In that span, UMD went on a 37-19 run. Dating back to that four minute frenzy to conclude the first frame, that means the Bulldogs ended the game on a 51-19 heater across just a hair over 20 minutes of play. It'd all culminate in an 89-61 win for UMD. 

Andrews proved to be big down the stretch. He scored all 10 of his points in the second half, doing so on perfect 4-4 shooting. Blair continued to contribute with eight points of his own in the frame. Otherwise, the Bulldog bench was the star of the half. In a hair shy of 11 minutes played at 10:57, Mattie Thompson scored 11 points on 4-4 shooting from the field, going 3-3 from three. Zach Lea came in and scored eight points on 3-3 FG shooting of his own.

It should be no surprise based on those numbers that UMD's team efficiency was electric in the second half. The Bulldogs shot 18-27 (66.7%) from the field and a massive 7-11 (63.6%) from three-point land. And it's not just that UMD was getting good looks- it's that these looks were being generated by strong ball movement. The Bulldogs out-assisted Crookston 12-2 in the second half. 

UMD's cumulative tallies from the game don't deviate too much from those numbers. UMD went a combined 33-60 (55%) from the field and 15-25 (60%) from three. They'd dished out 21 total assists by the night's end, more than doubling Crookston's figure of 10. Five different Bulldogs broke the double-digit mark on the game, chief among them Blair, who went 5-10 from three. Middleton had 17 on 7-12 shooting from the field and 3-4 shooting from three. This was kind of a trend: Thompson (15 points) went 5-6, Katona (12 points and a team-high seven rebounds) went 4-7 and Andrews (10 points) went 4-5. Not bad. Credit also to Joshua Strong, who helped make all of this happen with a Bulldog-leading five assists on the night. 

Crookston was led by a big game from Blaize Sagna, who ended the game with 17 points on 6-9 shooting. Sagna was also tied for the team-lead in rebounds with Chandler Meeks, another double-digit scorer that chipped in 10 points. Both had six boards on the night.

WORDS FROM WIECK
This game ended with UMD head coach Justin Wieck coming to the scorer's table wondering if his team had just set a school record for three-pointers made. When you induce that kind of response out of your coach, you must have done something right. 

Tonight's outing didn't quite hit the 20-three high the 2003-04 Bulldogs squad reached against Northland to set the record nearly 18 years ago to the day on Dec. 3, 2004. However, it was the most threes this team has potted since they had 16 against that same Northland team more than a calendar year ago on Nov. 26, 2021. Especially given the efficiency clip that paired with tonight's outing, you'll take that any day of the week. Wieck sure wasn't complaining. 

"We have a lot of guys who can knock them down from outside. and it's no secret we've been struggling from deep," Wieck said. "It was great to have a breakout game and have a ton of guys knock them down. We generated a ton of kick-out 3's, which is something we've really been focusing on."

Kick-outs. Passes. Dimes. Whatever you call them, it makes sense that they'd be something Wieck would highlight, because the stats sheet certainly reflects that distribution was a major part of the Bulldogs' game on Thursday in general. For a team with so many weapons to be so unselfish in generating chances for each other is a big deal. To Wieck, it's practice put into action. 

"We've been preaching the importance of ball movement and balance on the offensive end," Wieck said. "Our assist numbers have been up, and our turnover number has been down. Our offense is starting to find its groove."

On such a big night, why not close things out with a storybook ending? When it came time for the media to crown a player of the game on Thursday, they landed on a rotational rockstar: Mattie Thompson. What a performance the redshirt-freshman forward had coming off of the bench, efficient and proficient. This effort, nor Thompson's effort all throughout the 2022-23 campaign, didn't go unnoticed by Wieck. 

"Mattie has been tremendous all year," Wieck said. "He brings such a spark and energy to our team. He's been big time all year on both ends and is earning more and more minutes as we go. We have a deep team, and everyone has brought great value on the court."