Faber: 5 takeaways from UND's 83-66 loss to North Dakota State
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Feb. 15—GRAND FORKS — UND suffered an 83-66 loss to North Dakota State Saturday afternoon at the Betty Engelstad Sioux Center.
The Fighting Hawks were outscored by 18 points in the second half and struggled to contend with the Bison's plethora of offensive weapons.
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Here are five takeaways from the game.
Before Saturday, the last time the Hawks had a lead at halftime was Jan. 22 against Oral Roberts.
From Jan. 24 to Feb. 11, UND went into the locker room with a deficit in five straight conference games.
The Hawks were 4-1 in that stretch.
UND's consistent second-half efforts have become part of the team's identity at this point.
Head coach Paul Sather said as much after the loss to the Bison: "that's kind of who we've been."
It came as a bit of a shock when that fight was nowhere to be found against North Dakota State.
The Bison outscored the Hawks by 18 points in the second half. After North Dakota State's 16-5 run in the first 5 minutes, 22 seconds of the second, UND trailed by at least seven points for the remainder of the game.
"It's frustrating, because that just hasn't been us," Sather said. "We haven't been that way. It's been that even when we've been down, and we've done it against pretty good teams too. North Dakota State's a very good team, it's their 21st win of the year. It says a lot about what kind of team they are, they're experienced guys. There's a lot of things, but it's just really hard to gauge just how well they played in that second half based on our effort."
Senior guard Garrett Anderson returned to the starting lineup for the first time since suffering a leg injury against St. Thomas on Jan. 29.
Anderson returned to practice late this week. He said that he wanted to play against South Dakota but was not given the greenlight.
Anderson played against the Bison with a brace on his right knee. He had this to say about his injured leg after the game: "It doesn't really feel like anything, just kind of normal."
He established that sentiment from the jump. On UND's first possession of the game, Anderson drove through traffic and right to the cup for a layup.
He hit a triple less than two minutes later.
Anderson shot 4-for-9 and finished with 11 points.
"It's been feeling good," Anderson said.
Junior center Josh Jones did not play against North Dakota State. He did not warm up and his right hand was still heavily wrapped.
Jones suffered an arm injury against Omaha on Feb. 5. He did not play against Denver on Feb. 7.
Jones came off the bench for six minutes against South Dakota on Feb. 11. His hand was heavily wrapped and limited his versatility. Jones fouled out in the second half and scored two points.
Junior forward George Natsvlishvili has stepped up into the starting lineup in Jones' absence. He collected three points, three assists, two steals and a rebound in 19 minutes against North Dakota State.
The Hawks have turned to freshman forward Marley Curtis and redshirt sophomore forward Matthew Bothun to fill the frontcourt when Jones is out of the lineup.
Bothun logged 11 minutes against the Bison. He nailed a 3-pointer and scored six points while shooting 2-for-4 from the field.
Curtis played nine minutes on Saturday. He did not score a point or collect a rebound.
A win against North Dakota State on Saturday would've kept UND at least tied for second place in the Summit League standings. It also would've brought the Hawks one step closer to their league-leading rivals.
Instead, UND dropped down to third place with a 9-4 conference record.
St. Thomas is in second place with a 9-3 record in league play. The Tommies will play Kansas City (4-21 overall and 1-10 in conference) on Saturday night.
The Bison solidified their position atop the standings by improving to 11-1 in Summit League play.
"There's still games left, and there's still opportunities," Sather said. "I've always taken the approach that we've got to have a really good day off tomorrow and come back on Monday and really get locked in.
"The thing with our league is we've got to really have a good Monday to get ready for a Kansas City team that's going to come in with a level of nothing-to-lose type mentality. So let's just get locked in and get ready for them. Can't worry about what other teams are going to do on Thursday or Wednesday, or whenever it is they play."
UND's poor second-half performance against North Dakota State was not a recurring issue.
They trailed by 11 points at halftime against South Dakota only to come back and win. They were behind by eight points against St. Thomas and 13 points against Omaha and came back to win both.
In a way, Saturday's performance flipped the script.
UND put together a solid opening half only for the inconsistency to appear in the second.
"Forty-minute games have been difficult," Sather said. "We haven't been awesome with them at times. ... You can't get down eight, 10, 12 points and just think it's always going to be a comeback with eight minutes left. We've done it a few times, but it's fool's gold. You've got to get better and get to more of a 40-minute game than what we have."