In a new twist on the wildly successful "Pinto's Preview" videos, I am going to give my three points to look for in the North Dakota State University's men's basketball team upcoming game. Reason to do this instead of a video is that the basketball team plays more often.
Time wise, this is just quicker for me to type out three things to look for two or three times a week instead of putting up a video that often. Don't worry, the videos will be back next season. For now, we all just have to make due.
Moving past the explanation and on to the "Three Things" blog post.
Preview: Fort Wayne, originally Indiana Purdue Fort Wayne (IPFW), comes into this game with a record of 8-9 overall, 1-2 in Summit League play. North Dakota State University (NDSU) is 13-3 overall and 4-0 in league play. NDSU is in second place in the league while Fort Wayne is in sixth place.
1. How will Fort Wayne play on the road?
The Mastodons come in with a record of 8-9 overall, but 1-8 on the road so far this year. They already have an 0-2 record on the road in league play with losses to Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) and Western Illinois.
A couple key stats is the Mastodons propensity to turn the ball over, they average about 15 a game on the road, and their strong rebounding, they lead the league in rebounding at 37.6 per game.
If they can continue their domination on the boards and cut down the turnovers to 11 in this game, than you might see Fort Wayne pull out the victory.
2. Can NDSU's continue to play strong?
Last week I said that a road weekend in league play for the Bison was important to see how they reacted after getting a big victory over South Dakota State University at home. Well, after crushing the University of South Dakota 92-66 on Thursday and beating up Kansas City 63-44 on Saturday, I would have to say they reacted well.
Now, can they keep this consistency up? Last year, the Bison started the season 13-4 overall and 6-2 in league play. They ended the season on a 4-10 streak, losing 7 of their last 10 conferences games.
If NDSU wants to avoid the kind of decline that they had last season, they need to keep feeding the post and working the offense from the inside out and playing strong defense.
3. How do you stop Frank Gaines?
I love watching how NDSU schemes to stop a team's best offensive threat. With Nate Wolters of SDSU, it was freshman Kory Brown on him most of the night. When he got in foul trouble, they switched to junior Taylor Braun. It helped a little but Wolters was still able to score 26 points in the 65-62 loss.
This game, it is the Mastodons' senior guard Frank Gaines who will be the key focus for the Bison defense. Brown has become the designated stopper for this team and it is obvious he has bought into that role.
He is an aggressive player which can hurt him at times as he leads the team with 42 fouls so far this year but he rarely shoots the ball, averaging just under three shot attempts per game. It will be his duty to stop the league's third best scorer in Gaines, who averages 19.2 points per game.
His two worst games this year came on the road. He had seven points against Notre Dame on 2-14 shooting and only eight against Western Illinois on 2-13 shooting. He does lead the league in getting to the free throw line, averaging nearly nine attempts per game, so he will get his points there.
However, I think the team defense of NDSU will be too much for him to handle. I look for him to get only 13 points tonight.
Prediction: NDSU 76 Fort Wayne 64
I don't see anybody on the Fort Wayne roster that would be able to stop Marshall Bjorklund. He has been amazing down in the post, averaging 13 points a game along with shooting a nations best 70 percent from the floor.
Forward Mario Hines for Fort Wayne has not been consistent enough to offer any hopes in the way of stopping Bjorklund. Couple that with how it seems every player on the Bison becoming comfortable with their role, it is tough to see the Mastodons walking away with a victory.
No comments:
Post a Comment