THE OPENING TIP

UMD women's basketball will celebrate the coming of 2023 by hosting a pair of conference matchups in Romano. The Bulldogs first square up against Northern State on Saturday, Dec. 31 at 1:00 p.m. before meeting up against MSU Moorhead on New Year's Day, also at 1:00 p.m. Fans between the ages of 3-17 can get tickets to Sunday's contest against the Dragons for free.

 

LAST TIME OUT

This weekend's slate of opponents might look a wee bit familiar… That's because this is the lineup UMD was supposed to face off against before the holiday break. 

Alas, Minnesota weather is Minnesota weather- and it had different plans. 

What transpired instead was a bit of a schedule shuffle. Materializing from this was a new Sunday matinee matchup against an entirely new opponent, one that was fitting given all of the snow: the St. Cloud State Huskies.

At first, it seemed as if the Bulldogs were going to run away with this all-dogs matchup. UMD dominated the first quarter, taking a commanding 19-7 lead into the second frame. But quarter two would belong to the Huskies, as St. Cloud countered with a 13-7 run to draw within six at a score of 26-20 heading into the break. The Huskies were able to carry this momentum into the second half and outscore UMD once again in the third quarter, 21-19. They even came within a point of knotting things up when a Kelsey Peschel three-pointer made it 35-34 with 3:45 left in the frame. Still, St. Cloud was never quite able to take the lead-or break even. The Bulldogs had secured their advantage all the way back at a score of 5-4 and never really felt like giving it up. Though it was often only by a single possession, a lead is a lead. This is a trend that continued throughout the fourth quarter. Once the Bulldogs took a two-possession lead at 53-48 off of a Brooke Olson layup with 4:22 left in the quarter, though, they led by two scores (or more) the rest of the way. UMD went on to outscore St. Cloud 19-14 in the final frame en route to a 64-55 victory. 

Olson led the charge for the Bulldogs in the scoring department with 25 points on an efficient 8-12 (66.7%) shooting. Two other UMD players broke double digits on the night, Ella Gilbertson scoring 14 points on 6-9 (66.7%) shooting and Maesyn Thiesen closing with 13 while going 4-8 from the field. Thiesen also had a team-high five assists. Meanwhile, Taytum Rhoades was all over the court this past Sunday. She ended the night with a team-high seven rebounds and two steals to go with two blocks (tied for the team lead), four points and three assists.

 

RANKINGS ROUNDUP

The Bulldogs jumped into the Top 25 in the newest D2SIDA Media Poll for the first time this season, landing at No. 25. It's the first time UMD has made an appearance in these rankings (besides just receiving votes) since the team was No. 12 back on March 8, 2022. The Bulldogs held firm at No. 4 in the D2SIDA's Central Region rankings. UMD continued to receive votes in the most recent WBCA Coaches Poll.

 

STATS STATUS REPORT

Olson continues to lead the Bulldogs in the scoring department entering the new year with 18.7 points a contest. She also maintains her stature as the team's leading rebounder, now with 6.5 boards a night. Thiesen is UMD's leading distributor with 3.7 assists per game. 

Hakamaki's only been more and more efficient as the season's gone on. She's shooting 50% from the field right now, 48.6% from three. She leads the team in both fields. And when she's not scoring, she's swiping- the junior guard averages a Bulldog-high 2.18 steals a game. 

As a team, the Bulldogs are doing a pretty good job at swatting. UMD is 12th in the country in blocks per game, averaging 4.7 a night. 

 

SCOUTING REPORT ON NORTHERN STATE

There are few names as prestigious in the world of collegiate women's basketball as Curt Fredrickson.

Fredrickson was behind the bench at Northern State for a season short of four decades. One thing he certainly wasn't short on is wins- he did a lot of winning. Fredrickson amassed an overall winning percentage of 73.4%. Hey, that's pretty good! How many games did he coach? 500? 600? Uh… 800?

Try over 1,000. His record with the Wolves was 846-306.  That's the most wins any coach has ever had with one program in Division II history. It also happens to be the 12th-most wins any coach has had across the totality of women's collegiate history, spanning across all NCAA divisions as well as the NAIA.

There's a lot written within the margins of those 846 victories. Notes on six different NAIA division titles, two outright NAIA National Championship wins. Written in different-colored ink are goings-on about four NSIC division titles, an NSIC regular season championship and two NSIC Tournament crowns. Hard to do all that without a little help from your friends, friends in this case being rosters that included five All-Americans during Fredrickson's tenure.

Notice all of that's in the past tense. Northern State is about a half decade removed from Fredrickson's final season at the helm. The former coach now enjoys a retirement that leaves him as a member of four different hall of fames- although he'd already found entry into all of them before he'd even stopped coaching. 

The Wolves have had exactly four coaches behind the bench in their history. Diane Evans kicked things off with eight years of winning basketball. Only in her last season behind the bench, though, did her team play more than 15 total games, since schedules were a little different in the early 1970s. Bob Olson registered a quick 18-5 campaign in 1983-84- in-between Fredrickson's two runs with the program, the first having been between 1977-82.

Fredrickson's almost all that Northern State has ever known. Still, the program's had a pretty decent amount of time to get a feel for its first new coach since the 80s- Paula Krueger.

Krueger came into Northern ahead of the 2018-19 campaign having already built up a pretty stout resume. Across nine seasons as the bench boss of fellow DII program Colorado School of Mines, she had a record of 133-125 to her name. In 2009-10, Krueger led the Miners to a 20-9 record en route to their first ever NCAA Tournament bid. 

But filling Fredrickson's shoes was always going to be a massive undertaking. Thus far for Krueger, it's been a process.

Krueger has yet to register a winning record with the Wolves, though she came tantalizingly close in both 2019-20 (where the team went 14-16) and this past season, which saw Northern close at 13-15. So far, Krueger's Wolves have an overall record of 49-63.

If she's going to break through that .500 mark for the first time with her new program this season, she's going to do it with the help of a few friends of her own. Fredrickson's legacy may loom large over the program as a whole, but right now, the Wolves are led by three upperclassmen that only Krueger has ever coached. Their efforts are showing that she's done a pretty good job. 

Last year, Kailee Oliverson led all Northern players in scoring. Thus far in her redshirt junior campaign, she's doing it again. Oliverson's averaging a team-high 11.9 points through nine games played, having missed the team's last two contests. Then there's a player like Laurie Rogers. The do-it-all forward nearly averaged a double-double last year, scoring 10.4 points a night alongside a team-high 8.2 boards a game. Need blocks? She had those, too- 2.8 per night, which also led the team. It's been more of the same for the senior this year. Rogers is currently averaging 11.7 points, 7.8 rebounds and 2 blocks. Rounding out the Wolves' trifecta of seasoned scoring leaders is Rianna Fillipi. So far, Fillipi has run along a similar vein of consistency as Rogers. An 11.8 PPG, 4.3 assists and 2 steals stat line from last year has transitioned into 10.1 PPG, 3.5 assists and 1.7 steals through 11 games in 2022-23. 

If there's one thing that can help a team's offense, it's keeping the ball in the hands of that offense. It's safe to say Northern is pretty strong when it comes to this practice. The Wolves' 1.27 assist/turnover ratio is 11th in the country. Northern turns the ball over just 10.2 times on average- that's the best mark in all of Division II Women's Basketball. This discipline is dangerous when paired with the Wolves' rebounding capabilities. Northern heads into the weekend averaging nearly seven more boards than UMD, 40.18 compared to 33.1.

It seems as if a key to success for the Bulldogs on Saturday, then, will be for the team to play like a pack of ball hawks. Scoring an advantage in the time-of-possession battle would be massive for UMD in their pursuit of a victory. 

 

SCOUTING REPORT ON MSU MOORHEAD

The Dragons have a legendary coaching tenure of their own to speak on- one that still has gas in the tank.

Karla Nelson's been the head coach at MSU Moorhead since the first full season of the new millennium, taking over before the 2000-2001 campaign. She's set a standard in these first 22 years that'll be tough for the remaining 978 to maintain. In this time, Nelson's accumulated an overall record of 391-231, a 62.9% winning percentage. She was the fastest coach in all of MSU Moorhead basketball history to hit the 300 wins mark. That sure makes sense, because Nelson's teams failed to close a year below .500 for 21 straight seasons. 

Success like that is bound to earn you some hardware. In Nelson's tenure with Moorhead, she's led them to four NSIC North titles and four outright NSIC regular season trophies. And though the Dragons haven't been able to take home NSIC Tournament gold with Nelson at the helm just yet, it sure hasn't been for a lack of opportunities- the team's made the conference tourney each of the last 22 seasons. 

All of this is pretty becoming of a four-time NSIC Coach of the Year.

The scary part is that it only just recently seemed as if Nelson was reaching the peak of her powers. From 2015-2019, Moorhead registered four-straight 20+ win seasons. Two of Nelson's Coach of the Year honors came during this stretch- as did three of her team's four NSIC North/NSIC Regular Season trophies. In the span of 2016-19, no other team touched either of those titles but the Dragons. In Moorhead's 2018-19 campaign, what was Nelson's 19th season behind the bench, the team set a program record in wins with 27. They'd make it all the way to the NSIC/Sanford Health Tournament Championship before losing to UMD. Oh well- there's always next year.

And that year was still a winning one for Moorhead, as the team closed with a record of 17-13. Then came a wonky, COVID-shortened 2020-21 season. Even then, the Dragons squeezed across the .500 line with a 7-6 record. Maybe it wasn't the prettiest, but the streak continued. 

All good things must come to an end. In 2021-22, for the first time in 22 tries, the Dragons ended the season with a losing record of 9-14. Moorhead maintained its NSIC Tournament streak, but it lost in the first round to Southwest Minnesota State. 

Life is a difficult balance of trying to learn from history while also trying to shoo it away in favor of living in the now. Extremists on either end of this spectrum sure would have had a lot to say about the Dragons heading into the 2022-23 campaign. Just as quickly as one side might have been ready to write them off, the other would've started jotting down the team's accolades over the last half decade and beyond. The reality was that nobody could've known for sure what this new season would hold for Moorhead. 

The reality now is that there's few teams in the NSIC that have started as hot as the Dragons.

It didn't look like this would be the case right out of the gate. Moorhead went 1-2 in its first three games, losing its first NSIC matchup of the year along the way on the road against Northern State. Since then, though… watch out. The Dragons have won five of their last six games, including three of their last four conference duels. Their average margin of victory across those five Ws has been 22.4.

Lots has gone into this successful stretch for Moorhead. For one thing, a dynamic offense sure never hurts. The three Dragons that lead the team in points per game? They also lead the way in average assists- and each average a pretty penny of them. Take Mariah McKeever, for example. The junior has parlayed a 10.2 PPG average in her sophomore campaign into a team-leading 15.2 points a night this season. Still, she averages 2.7 assists a contest. That's third on the team. Probably worth mentioning her 7.2 rebounds a night, too. Then there's Natalie Jens. Jens averaged 10.2 points as a freshman last year, so she seemed destined for the strong sophomore season that she's had so far. The guard's averaging 14.2 points per game this season (on 51.1% shooting from the field) all while leading the team in average assists with 3.2. Not bad for your second year in the league. Meanwhile, Payton Boom's putting together a pretty strong senior swansong. The center's averaging 13.6 points (on a whopping 59.6% shooting percentage) and 7.2 rebounds to go along with a 2.9 assists a game mark that's second on the team. Yes, 2.9 assists- as a center. This team really knows how to dish out the ball. 

When they're not operating an unselfish offense on one end of the floor, they're shutting down opposing offenses on the other. The Dragons have the 20th best scoring defense in the country, holding foes to an average of just 55.6 points a night. A major part of that figure is that Moorhead simply refuses to let team's get comfortable from beyond the arc. The Dragons have held opponents to an average three-point efficiency of just 22.5%. That's the seventh best defensive effort of that type in the entire country.

It may just be a matter of which team can find a way to break through in the face of stout defense on Saturday. Every bucket is going to matter just a little more. 

 

THE BROADCAST

Can't make it to Romano this weekend? Catch the action live through the NSIC Network by clicking the links below:

vs Northern State (Saturday, Dec. 31 @ 1:00 p.m.): bit.ly/3BAtwVL

vs MSU Moorhead (Sunday, Jan. 1 @ 1:00 p.m.): bit.ly/3j50Qhh

 

UP NEXT

The Bulldogs will head out on their first road trip of 2023 next weekend with a pair of in-state stops on the docket. UMD first travels to St. Paul for a game against Concordia on Friday, Jan. 6 at 5:30 p.m. before making the trek to Mankato for a contest with the Mavericks on Saturday, Jan. 7 at 3:30 p.m.