Roos Fall by 37 To NDSU, Hit Rock Bottom

This is a challenging recap to start off as what played out between North Dakota State and the Roos tonight is something incomprehensible. It should be something of legend and myth and not reality. Yet it happened. The Bison beat UMKC by a  score of 71-34.

Make no mistake, NDSU is a talented team and they’re tied atop the Summit League standings for a reason – not to mention knocking on the door of their third 20 win season since joining Division I back in 2004. However there is no justification or excuse for any team to ever lose a conference game by more points than they manage to score.

Thursday night the Roos scored 34 points, just 12 in the first half, and lost by 37. Gerald, our lovable site mascot, flew off somewhere and is weeping uncontrollably after this one.

They played forty minutes and UMKC made just 11 shots. Collectively they were 11-42 which works out to a woeful 26.2%, but they were at least consistently bad hitting 5-21 in the first half and 6-21 in the second. Nearly half of their made shots were three pointers and they were a respectable 5-13, which is about the brightest silver lining to be mined from this game. At the free throw line the Roos also struggled (7-13) which is par for the course given the way the rest of the game went. To complete the thoroughness of tonight’s blowout loss, they committed 18 turnovers and were out rebounded by a margin of 43-24.

When a team scores just 34, chances are no one player scored more than ten points and that held true tonight. Trinity Hall came close scoring nine on 3-5 shooting and added four rebounds. While Hall “led” the team offensively, it was Brad Reid that had the best performance of any Roo. He too was 3-5 from the floor, but unlike his teammate who was 2-2 from three, Reid finished with seven points. What set his game apart from the rest were his six rebounds, four blocks and two steals in 26 minutes of play. In other news, Estan Tyler‘s recent struggles continued. 31 minutes of course time resulted in eight points, one rebound, five turnovers and no assists.

North Dakota State’s Mike Felt came off the bench to lead the team with 14 points on 4-11 shooting. All but one of his shot attempts were of the three point variety. Marshall Bjorklund and Kory Brown each added a dozen points to the ledger. Brown also finished with five rebounds, two assists and three steals to claim the award for the “most complete” stat line for the Bison.

What’s Next:

NDSU (17-5, 8-2) will next host the South Dakota Coyotes (8-14, 4-6) on Saturday night.

For the Roos (6-17, 3-7) it’s hard to believe they will play another game as poorly as they did tonight the rest of the season, but they have a stiff test ahead of them on Saturday. They will be the guests of South Dakota State (17-6, 8-2) in a late afternoon game with a 4:05 CT tip-off. The Jackrabbits, unlike the Roos, score points in bunches and are a quality shooting team. They also just happen to be led by the conferences best player, senior guard Nate Wolters. The St. Cloud, MN native is averaging a robust 21.0 ppg, 5.9 RPG and 5.7 apg.