Drake pulled out a barnburner in a heck of a good game. Although I have to say its partly due to some poor coaching from the NDSU side. Drake's coach isn't exactly a wizard out there though. He eerily reminds me of Pat Kennedy.
UM should beat Drake tomorrow. They are very 1-on-1 oriented and I'm not even sure they have an offense. They have two pretty good players in Ajay Calvin and Al Stewart. NDSU didn't have anybody who could hold Stewart's jock, and he sliced up their defense to overcome a 5 point deficit with 4 minutes left all by himself.
Drake pressures the ball on made baskets and NDSU didn't handle it very well at times. They had some big problems inbounding the ball at times. In the end, missed FTs from the Bison probably cost them the ball game. Basically NDSU worked their tales off to stay in the game, but they just don't have the talent to keep up with decent competition yet. They shoot well and work hard, but they started missing shots and they couldn't stop Drake.
Drake starts a pretty big, intimidating looking guy in Aliou Keita, but he's not very good. Pretty slow and doesn't really score that well. Any of our big guys should beat this guy everytime they get the ball. They sub in and out constantly and it looks like its hard for the players to get into the flow of a ball game. Besides Calvin and Stewart, they're pretty average.
A little different style of calling the games out here. Only 1 charge call between both games, and it was a pretty bad call. They missed probably 6 or 7 charges between the two games that would have been called in the Big Sky. They love to call travelling. Probably 15-20 travel calls between both games. Krysko got a little worked up a couple of times tonight and it wouldn't be too much of a suprise to see him garner a technical tomorrow night. The Drake coach earned himself one tonight.
Basically, the Griz should win because they are more disciplined and they execute much better than Drake does. If they handle the pressure well and minimize the turnovers, it should be a fairly easy win.
Oh yeah, MSVU was not a very good team at all. We played like crap in front of maybe 100 people. There was no energy at all. Pretty hard to play in an environment like that though. Be thankful that Drake won tonight, otherwise tomorrow's game would have been pretty dull and ugly. Nothing to really report about the game. The Griz had much more talent and could have walked through that game and won.
UM should beat Drake tomorrow. They are very 1-on-1 oriented and I'm not even sure they have an offense. They have two pretty good players in Ajay Calvin and Al Stewart. NDSU didn't have anybody who could hold Stewart's jock, and he sliced up their defense to overcome a 5 point deficit with 4 minutes left all by himself.
Drake pressures the ball on made baskets and NDSU didn't handle it very well at times. They had some big problems inbounding the ball at times. In the end, missed FTs from the Bison probably cost them the ball game. Basically NDSU worked their tales off to stay in the game, but they just don't have the talent to keep up with decent competition yet. They shoot well and work hard, but they started missing shots and they couldn't stop Drake.
Drake starts a pretty big, intimidating looking guy in Aliou Keita, but he's not very good. Pretty slow and doesn't really score that well. Any of our big guys should beat this guy everytime they get the ball. They sub in and out constantly and it looks like its hard for the players to get into the flow of a ball game. Besides Calvin and Stewart, they're pretty average.
A little different style of calling the games out here. Only 1 charge call between both games, and it was a pretty bad call. They missed probably 6 or 7 charges between the two games that would have been called in the Big Sky. They love to call travelling. Probably 15-20 travel calls between both games. Krysko got a little worked up a couple of times tonight and it wouldn't be too much of a suprise to see him garner a technical tomorrow night. The Drake coach earned himself one tonight.
Basically, the Griz should win because they are more disciplined and they execute much better than Drake does. If they handle the pressure well and minimize the turnovers, it should be a fairly easy win.
Oh yeah, MSVU was not a very good team at all. We played like crap in front of maybe 100 people. There was no energy at all. Pretty hard to play in an environment like that though. Be thankful that Drake won tonight, otherwise tomorrow's game would have been pretty dull and ugly. Nothing to really report about the game. The Griz had much more talent and could have walked through that game and won.
