Men’s hoops stumble, find footing in slippery NCC

Forrest Witt

During the Minnesota Timberwolves recent nine-game winning streak, the Wolves dominated the defending champion L.A. Lakers and brought Michael Jordan and the Washington Wizards back down to earth.

This is the level the SCSU men’s basketball team wants to get back to after suffering one of their worst losses in school history, a 102-63 mauling at the hands of the University of Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks last Saturday night. The Huskies shot a horrid 24.2 percent from the field in the first half, and never recovered from that slow start, as they finished at 34.8 percent for the game.

Nebraska-Omaha was hotter than a Lean Pocket first coming out of the microwave. They shot 66.7 percent for the game, and dominated the Huskies in the paint, outscoring them 44-30. Junior guard Seth Nelson was clearly the spark for the Mustangs. He netted a career high 28 points, and went six for six from beyond the arc. All this from a guy who came off the bench.

The 102 points the Huskies allowed were the most since the 1994-95 season, when that SCSU squad gave up 107 in a loss to Morningside. Junior guard Forrest Witt indicated that the defensive effort wasn’t there last Saturday.

“We didn’t come out with the effort we had to, and we’ve gone back to work on some things defensively this week,” Witt said. “Hopefully we can get our defenders out on the perimeter and defend better. Defensively we didn’t get to the shooters, and they penetrated on us. Offensively, we didn’t hit our shots either. It was just a bunch of things going wrong at the same time.”

Head coach Kevin Schlagel agreed with Witt’s assessment of the game.

“They brought a guy (Nelson) off the bench and he was having one of those nights where he was going to hit everything in sight, and it just steamrolled from there,” Schlagel said. “I was disappointed with the lack of intensity we showed as the game went on. We didn’t compete like we normally compete, and that was really disappointing.”

The game on Saturday was so surprising because of the fact the way the Huskies had played 24 hours earlier in a 85-60 drubbing of Northern Colorado. SCSU led 40-22 at the half, and never looked back as they shot 48 percent for the game. New starting point guard Nate Miller led the Huskies with 18 points and seven assists. He also went a perfect 7-7 from the charity stripe. Johnny Reese pulled in another solid effort with 18 points of his own, to go along with five assists.

Miller, a freshman, was starting in place of the injured Alex Carlson, who broke an index finger in the Dec. 28 game against UW-LaCrosse. He’s expected to be out another 3-4 weeks. Miller has done an admirable job in Carlson’s place, but his loss has still been felt.

“He’s our floor leader, and he understands where the basketball has to go,” Schlagel said. “Nate’s played very well, but what we need is for some of our veterans to step up in Alex’s place.”

SCSU (13-2, 5-2 NCC) has so far had a home-friendly schedule. All of that will change in the second half of the season, as they play seven of their last 11 games on the road. Over the holiday break, the Huskies handled the likes of Minnesota State, UW-LaCrosse, Southwest State, and Northern Colorado at home with ease.

But they also suffered their first loss of the season on the road against South Dakota State on Jan. 4, 79-56. The away games are next on the schedule, but that doesn’t faze this group of veterans who have been through this before.

The 14th ranked Huskies salvaged a split in their weekend twin-bill against both North Dakota and North Dakota State. On Friday against UND, SCSU lost a heartbreaker in overtime, 91-88. But Witt’s hot shooting ended the team’s two-game losing skid against NDSU on Saturday, in a 93-79 victory.

The win against NDSU on Saturday didn’t come easily. The Huskies came out with high intensity in the second half to open up a 66-44 lead midway through. But, the Bison went on a 17-2 run to cut the lead to 68-61 with 8:40 remaining. NDSU would get as close as 84-79 with 1:41 left, on a Ben Nemmers jumper.

The Huskies iced the game with their free throw shooting down the stretch. Going into the weekend the Huskies led Division II in free throw shooting percentage (79.8 percent), so the Bison were at a great disadvantage if they were hoping St. Cloud would be pulling a Shaq at the line. The Huskies would finish 28 of 32 for the night at the stripe.

Witt’s career high 35 points were easily the game high. He nailed five of six from downtown, finished a perfect 10 of 10 from the line, and had five assists.

Josh Richardson led the Bison with 17 points. Denver TenBroek, the NCC’s returning leading scorer, had an off-night with 15 points on 4 for 14 shooting. He also had five costly turnovers.

The Huskies shot 60.4 percent for the game, and it was evident they had everything working early. They jumped out on a 16-2 run early in the first half, and took that momentum into halftime with a 46-34 lead.

The Huskies’ first game wasn’t as pleasant as their second one in North Dakota. They ran into a stat-filler named Jerome Beasley on Friday night in Grand Forks. Beasley, a junior college transfer from Midland J.C., dunked home the winning basket with 13 seconds remaining in overtime to give UND a precarious 89-88 lead. The Sioux would hit two free throws to ice the game.

Beasley also hit the basket that sent the game into overtime. He made an 18-footer with 4.2 seconds remaining to tie the game at 78, and gave the Sioux another shot, that they took full advantage of in O.T. Beasley finished with 36 points on a Kobe Bryant-like shooting performance of 14 of 31. He also grabbed a team-high nine rebounds.

“Beasley is the best offensive player I’ve seen in my time in the league,” head coach Kevin Schlagel said. “He can shoot it from anywhere. He will always pose a big threat.”

Unfortunately for the Huskies, the threat of Beasley was too much in the end. In spite of him, though, SCSU did have a nice cushion to begin the second half. The Huskies went on a 8-0 run to open the second, and had a 15 point lead with 17:13 remaining.

But UND countered with a 19-7 run that eventually pulled them to a tie with SCSU at 59, with 9:10 left. The Sioux had a 67-61 advantage after Jeff Brandt and Beasley treys, but the Huskies would tie the game four different times, as the game went into the extra session.

Rado Rancik led SCSU with 24 points. Jason Kron had 17 points, and B.J. Brant added 16 points and a game-high 11 rebounds.

SCSU rebounded after enduring their first two-game losing streak since the 99-00 season. Next week the Huskies face another tough task on the road, when they travel to Mankato to take on Minnesota State on Saturday.

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Andy Rennecke can be reached at: [email protected]

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