THE OPENING TIP
UMD men's basketball (7-2, 3-0 conf.) has headed out for its first full NSIC road weekend. Destination: North Dakota. The Bulldogs first match up against Minot State on Friday, Dec. 9 at 7:30 p.m. before a meeting with Mary in Bismarck on Saturday, Dec. 10 at 5:30 p.m.
LAST TIME OUT
UMD was given a run for its money in the early goings of NSIC play last week, but the Bulldogs cashed out 2-0.
It started at home against Minnesota Crookston on Thursday. The Golden Eagles pushed the action early and maintained control for much of the first frame. With 6:26 left in the first half, Crookston was up eight at a score of 32-24. From there, UMD would start its slow ascent back to drawing even- that is if you consider four minutes "slow." Less than that, actually, because with 2:59 left in the frame, it was 35-35. The Bulldogs would close the half with eight unanswered points to bring a 43-35 lead into the break. The second half was all UMD. The Bulldogs outscored the Golden Eagles 46-26 in the final frame to take the game 89-61.
Saturday's meeting in Bemidji went a little differently. There was no real early command taken by either team in the first half of this one- the Bulldogs and the Beavers were neck-and-neck for the full 20. At the break, the score was 36-35. Even when UMD jumped out to a hot start in the second half to take a 52-44 lead with 14:17 left in the game, Bemidji came roaring back to make it 52-49 just over a minute later. The next time the Bulldogs would take an eight-point advantage at a score of 64-56 with 7:09 remaining, not only would they not let it go, but they'd just keep building. Soon they had the game's first double-digit lead at 67-57. From here, the Beavers would sometimes claw to within seven or eight points of a tie, but the Bulldogs were mostly in full control. UMD would eventually take the game 83-68.
THE C IN NSIC STANDS FOR CHARLIE
A focal point throughout the entire week was Charlie Katona.
Katona started things off with a 12 point, 4-7 shooting night against Crookston on Thursday. Along the way, the junior forward had also amassed seven rebounds, four assists and one steal/block. This served as the prelude to a performance on a whole different level on Saturday. Katona closed the day in Bemidji with 25 points, a season high, on 8-12 shooting from the field. Hope you haven't gotten tired of hearing "season high." Actually, not only were Katona's five steals on Saturday a high mark for him this year, but it was the most he's had in a game his entire career. This would have been enough, but he wasn't done yet. The forward also snagged nine rebounds and registered three blocks in the interim.
All things considered, Katona averaged 18.5 points a game last week on 63.2% shooting from the field. He also averaged eight rebounds, three steals and two blocks. These figures were good enough for the junior to win the second NSIC POW award of his career.
RANKINGS ROUNDUP
The Bulldogs mostly stood pat this week in the world of rankings. They were still at No. 4 in the Central when the D2SIDA'S newest Regional Rankings came out on Monday, though they did kick up a spot from No. 22 to No. 21 in the D2SIDA's Top 25 Poll. UMD continued to receive votes in the most recent NABC Coaches Poll.
STATS STATUS REPORT
Drew Blair leads the Bulldogs into this new weekend of competition with 20.6 points a game. Austin Andrews has been the biggest menace on the boards, leading the team with 8.1 rebounds a night.
In general, the Bulldogs have been shooting pretty efficiently. Seven players are operating at a clip of 50% or better from the field, with five of them doing so on 20 or more attempts. A particular figure to pull out of all of this is Joshua Strong's work from beyond the arc- he's shooting 51.6% from three so far this year, going 16-31.
Numbers like those help makes sense of the fact that UMD currently holds the 25th-best scoring offense in the country, averaging 85 points a night. Something else that helps fuel this figure is that the Bulldogs make it a point to get to the charity stripe for easier points. UMD shoots the eighth-most free throws per contest in the country at 26, making the sixth-most in the nation at 18.7 a game.
Through it all, the Bulldogs have been running a disciplined operation- in more ways than one. UMD has the 23rd-best assist/turnover ratio nationally at 1.44. And while the Bulldogs work hard to get fouled themselves, they don't do much fouling back. UMD is 21st in the country in fouls per game at just 13.8.
SCOUTING REPORT ON MINOT STATE
Minot State's story as a member of the NSIC is a brief one.
Before their days in the Northern Sun, the Beavers (primarily) resided in the since-defunct North Dakota Collegiate Athletic Conference (NDCAC), which fell within the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). Their tenure there saw them win 18 regular-season titles, their first coming in 1932 and No. 18 coming sixty years later in 1992. Minot also won the NDCAC Tournament in both 1986 and 1995.
The conference rebranded ahead of the new millennium, going from the NDCAC to the much more user-friendly Dakota Athletic Conference (DAC). The Beavers secured one more piece of regular-season gold (2005) and two more postseason titles (2005 and 2008) in this era.
2011-12 marked the beginning of Minot's history as a DII program, as the school announced its departure from the DAC on its way to becoming DII independent. It's safe to say things could have started better for the Beavers- Minot would go 4-25 in its first season in the division, the worst record in the school's recorded history. This didn't deter Minot, which would stay at the DII level the following season- this time, as part of a conference.
However, the program did decide to shake things up at the head coaching position ahead of the 2012-13 campaign. Enter Matt Murken.
Murken joined up with the Beavers before that inaugural NSIC season and has stuck with them ever since. Under his watch, Minot's only dipped below double-digit wins twice, one of those instances being in a COVID-shortened season in which the team only played 16 games. Inherently, it's also been up to Murken to help the Beavers to their first taste of real success in their new home. He first did so in 2015-16 with Minot posting its first winning season in the NSIC at 15-14. After a 14-15 campaign the following season, the Beavers would break out with a 20-10 result in 2017-18. A two-year lull would follow, but in the last two seasons, it's been back to above .500 for the Beavers. In 2020-21, they went 9-7. Okay, shortened season- we'll see what happens in a full year. What happened was Minot's fourth winning campaign in their NSIC tenure at a 15-10 record, thus recording their first stretch of back-to-back winning seasons in this new era.
It took Murken, this program at large, a decade, but it seems as if the Beavers are finally starting to put the finishing touches on their foundations in this new land.
But then, an obstacle: ahead of this season, three of Minot's double-digit averagers graduated. This included their leading scorer from a season ago in Melvin Newbern, who not only had a team-high in points per game (15.1 on 56.4% shooting) but also led the team on the boards with 8.8 rebounds a contest.
A season like this serves as a litmus test, a way to determine whether or not the Beavers are really ready to rise within the ranks of the NSIC. Roster turnover is inevitable- what isn't written in stone is that a team will be able to recover from it. Good teams find a way to all the same.
Right now, Minot's still waiting for the color on the paper to change.
It's been far for doom and gloom for the Beavers through seven games, though. Minot currently sits at 4-3. En route to this record, the Beavers have found meaningful contributions from all kinds of places.
One shouldn't have been much of a surprise. Cam'ron Dunfee was the lone double-digit scorer from last season's campaign to return to the roster. So far in 2022-23, the redshirt senior's picked up right where he left off. Dunfee's averaging a team-high 12.9 points a game this season.
Another important Beaver has been a bet that's paid off for Murken and co. so far: Khali Broadway. Minot rolled out the red carpet for Broadway to make the jump to the DII level after three seasons with JUCO North Dakota State College of Science (NDSCS). In his last season at NDSCS, the guard averaged 16.8 points a game along with 3.2 assists and 3.9 rebounds. As a Beaver, Broadway's averaging 10.6 points (third on the team) and 4.1 boards a game.
But Minot's early results have gone far beyond the work of a seasoned senior swansong or a JUCO product in the midst of a positive transition. No read on this team would be complete without shedding some light on the underclassmen.
One in particular is making it pretty hard not to notice him: Jaxon Gunville. Look up the definition of progress, and you'd likely see Gunville's headshot lingering around somewhere. In his freshman season, the guard averaged 8.3 points a night. Now, he's averaging 11.7 a contest, good for second on the team. Perhaps even more important, though, has been the growth of other parts of his game. He's more than doubled his rebounding output from a season ago, going from 1.4 boards a night to three. And wait until you hear about how much he's polished his work as a passer. Last year, Gunville worked at a rate of just 0.4 assists a game. Now, he's leading the team with three a night. Not bad for a sophomore.
What these last two underclassmen have lacked in scoring, they've showcased around the boards. Freshman Caleb Van De Griend scores six points a night, but he does so while grabbing a team-leading eight rebounds a contest. Right behind him is sophomore Connor Hollenbeck, who averages 5.7 rebounds to go along with 7.4 points and 2.3 assists a game.
As Mulken and Minot enter decade two of their tenure in the NSIC, they'll hope to do so by sustaining the success they found towards the end of decade one. A massive step in this direction would be earning a victory against a tough UMD squad on the Beavers' home court. The Bulldogs sure would like to haul that progress, if only for one more night.
SCOUTING REPORT ON MARY
Minot State and Mary are no strangers to one another, even before each team's days in the NSIC.
The Marauders were also tenured members of the NDCAC for multiple decades. They found particular success under the 16 year reign of Al Bortke, during which the team went 335-157. Jim Feeney carried Mary into the 2000s with a nine-year stint from 1995-2004 that saw it go 144-110. Then, a bit before their conference contemporary Minot, the Marauders jumped to the NSIC ahead of the 2006-07 season.
Mary's still getting acclimated to being under the Northern Sun. The team had a breakout year in 2010-11, finishing 23-6 and second in the conference with an 18-4 record in conference play, but it would take until 2015-16 for it to have another winning season. That year, the Marauders went 19-12. This holds as Mary's last campaign to end above .500.
It stands within reason that if you want to win, surrounding the program with people that are familiar with little else than winning isn't a bad idea. Mary made strong strides in doing that when it hired Jack Nelson as its head coach before the 2021-22 season.
Nelson's been all over the map since his coaching career started in 2007, but wherever he's gone, success has followed him. There's hardly enough space here for Nelson's laundry list of accolades, so take his recent three-year stint with fellow NSIC program Sioux Falls as a microcosm of his abilities. As an associate head coach with the Cougars from 2018-21, Nelson helped them to a 48-24 overall record, a 66.7% winning percentage. USF found themselves in the national rankings all three seasons, and they landed all the way within the top ten twice. In 2020, Sioux Falls won the NSIC's South Division with a 22-8 record.
It's safe to say that Nelson would like to keep winning during his first venture as a head coach in Bismarck.
Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was a new-look Mary squad developed in a season. Still, progress was made for the Marauders in 2021-22. 11-17 record aside, Mary won its first road NSIC Tournament matchup in program history when it took down Winona State 82-70. The team did so with help from a monumental effort from Kai Huntsberry, who posted 29 points in that game. Huntsberry had been an enigma all year for the Marauders, averaging a team-high 19.6 points to go along with a team-leading 4.3 assists. Through it all, he also grabbed 4.7 rebounds a game, too. This was enough for the junior guard to win the NSIC Newcomer of the Year award by the season's end.
But Huntsberry's talent wasn't just being recognized in-conference- teams at a higher echelon of competition were taking notice. So much was proven when the guard transferred to Division I program North Texas ahead of this current season.
This presented Nelson with quite a challenge. For help, he maneuvered the transfer scene himself. The fruits of that work? Zyon Smith.
Smith came to Bismarck by way of Highland, Kansas, where he enjoyed a three-year stint at Highland Community College. His final season there saw him average 14.2 points a game on top of a career-best average of 4.2 rebounds. So far this season, it sure looks like Smith's talents are translating to the DII level. He's leading the Marauders in points per game with 12.9.
But a team is never just one player. For the Marauders to have landed at their current 5-2 record, it's taken a village. Members of all different levels of experience have chipped in in big ways.
Take Kam Warrens, for example. The senior guard is a JUCO product himself, having come to Mary ahead of the 2020-21 season after a stint with Yuba Community College. Warrens' game has only grown and grown since then, and that work is culminating in a breakout 2022-23 campaign. The guard is currently second on the team in scoring with 10.6 points a game. He's also averaging both 2.3 assists and 5.3 boards a night, too.
Then there's a player like Jeremiah Jones, a true freshman fresh on the scene. In his inaugural collegiate season, Jones has already found more ways than one to make an impact. On top of his eight points a night, the guard is grabbing six boards a contest and edging close to the team lead in assists per game with 4.2.
The mantra moving forward for this Mary squad will be "progression, progression, progression." If Smith can continue to adapt his game to heightened competition, Warrens can build upon a career season in his collegiate swansong, Jones can become even more of a freshman sensation… Nelson may not have to wait too long to start winning as a Marauder.
THE BROADCASTS
Catch the weekend's action live through the NSIC Network by clicking the links below:
vs Minot State (Friday, Dec. 9 @ 7:30 p.m.): bit.ly/3Y5qcM5
vs Mary (Saturday, Dec. 10 @ 5:30 p.m.): bit.ly/3Hq6Jj8
UP NEXT
The Bulldogs will be able to head into the Christmas break with some home-cooking in the form of a two-game stint in Romano next weekend. UMD first welcomes Northern State on Friday, Dec. 16 (7:30 p.m.) before MSU Moorhead comes to town on Saturday, Dec. 17 (5:30 p.m.)
