University of Manitoba falls to North Dakota State
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Top Performers:
Manitoba:
Jonar Huertas – 11 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists
Xavier Smith – 9 points, 3 rebounds
North Dakota State:
TrayVonn Wright – 19 points, 7 rebounds
Eric Carlson – 14 points, 8 rebounds
Taylor Braun – 12 points, 6 rebounds
WINNIPEG, MB—The Investors Group Athletic Center was the site for an all-Bison matchup on Thursday night as the North Dakota State Bison faced off against the Manitoba Bison’s.
The warm up drills was where many of the fans realized how much more athletic the boys from North Dakota State really were. NDSU powered their way to a 97-56 win led by TratVonn Wright how registered a game-high 19 points, accompanied by seven rebuonds.
For Manitoba, Jonar Huertas led the way with 11 points, seven rebounds and three assists.
In the opening quarter, the NDSU Bison took control from the get go jumping out to an early 18-9 lead. This large lead quieted the home crowd as they were given little to cheer for. Manitoba would find some offense to bring the NDSU lead to only seven going into the second quarter.
NDSU treated every possession like it was the last few seconds of the game and gave nothing easy to the Bison’s from the north. At halftime, TrayVonn Wright led the way leading all scorers with 16 points and one massive Alley-Oop which brought the crowd to its feet. The momentum had all shifted to NDSU.
Although the final quarter didn’t bring much scoring for Manitoba, there were some highlight reel plays. Manitoba’s Keith Omoerah chased down a breakaway layup and timed the block perfectly and the crowd erupted giving them something to cheer about.
However, each time Manitoba attempted to build consistency on their posessions , NDSU dug deeper defensively and shut them down.
UofM Head Coach, Kirby Schepp, who helped coach the Canadian Junior Cadet team and team Canada at the Nike Global Challenge thought that there is still good things to come regardless of the outcome in the game.
“It’s all about evaluating your guys and seeing what kind of pieces we have and putting our guys together, I thought our starters competed hard. I think the guys who had a little more experience were fine and the score was actually pretty even but with our young guys it sort of went away from us,” explained Schepp.
“That’s okay, we were here to play everybody and see what they could do. We haven’t started practicing yet so it was a good way to sort of test things out. We still have a few guys coming in from out of town which will add to our roster and then it’s time to get started.”
On the other hand, Coach Phillips from NDSU felt that their team still has a long way to go despite the victory.
“We looked rusty, we looked like it’s the summer and we’re playing. I thought they did a very good job of pushing the ball in transition against us early and keeping us off balance there. They are well coached and had less practices than us so I think that there is rust both ways.”
North Dakota State will finish its Winnipeg stop against the University of Winnipeg on Saturday.
