The Bison men's Basketball team will not play in Fargo again until late in 2019. They have a pair of away games to end the regular season but I'm not sure how much more can be learned about them from those games, even if Midco broadcasts the contests. There are strengths on this team that I didn't give enough attention to in the post from the middle of the conference season. There is also a noticeable & concerning issue that has ultimately motivated me to take to my keyboard tonight.
But first here's the good. It starts with the coach. I made no mystery of my disdain for the simplicity of the base offense for the Bison over previous seasons. With the mass infusion of new players, the offensive system has become much less robotic. The dribble, handoff is a fine element of the bigger offense but having it be the cornerstone of the way they tried to score did not work, so I'm very glad that coach Rich ditched that approach.
Also with the fresh faces is an intangible but undeniable uptick in the team's swagger. Confidence bordering on arrogance isn't always a successful attribute but in a team sport where ego can play a large role, having players who bring that into the locker room in a way that's infectious can help in crunch time. Of the guys who are playing for the first time and the one's who are in their first year in Fargo, I give a lot of the credit to Vinnie Shahid. He's got the right mentality to succeed and as a team captain is clearly well liked by his teammates. I'm sure Tyson Ward has added some flavor to it as well as he has taken the mantle from Paul Miller & AJ Jacobson. From everything I've seen though, I give more of the credit to the Pit Bull of a point guard.
Confidence can only do so much if there isn't actually skill to back it up. On several occasions I have seen the skill on display. It's taken time for the players to learn each other and to learn what is expected of them but down the stretch of the season they have shown great flashes in two key areas. Maybe the two most important parts of the modern game in fact - three point shooting & defense.
To wit, of the nine players that saw the court against South Dakota State, Chris Quayle is the only one that I would prefer not to have to depend on for offense. All eight others can knock down shots from the outside. Better still, all nine can mad dog the opponent on defense. In today's game, freshman Sam Griesel was especially dynamic hounding the ball at times and he was far from the only one, his defensive plays just happened to be more splashy. They all defend and scoring is not a problem for this team.
So you might think that I'm ready to make a big swing about their chances in Sioux Falls, it wouldn't be the first big take I've made - but if it comes to that, it'll happen on a Tuesday. You also could be wondering about the title that I chose for this particular entry.
For all the good that this team has going for it, there is a problem that has reared it's head these past two games that could sink their chances of playing the role of upstart & spoiler. As they hosted the two teams with the best records today and a week ago, they played with them each, leading in both games for much of the time. As the second halves played out, as the pressure of those situations mounted, no one stepped up to secure victory. Not Shahid, not Ward, not Kreuser or Samuelson, no one took the role of being the big shot maker. This team's still fairly young together so maybe that will be the next piece of the puzzle to fall into place. Or maybe it isn't quite in the DNA of those team leaders. We won't have to wait long to find out, two weeks to be exact.
Both games were the sort that they will be involved in once the Summit Tournament is underway, which is why it's a real problem that they couldn't lean on one guy to come up clutch. I know that they're a year ahead of schedule in some ways, but I don't want to lean on that excuse. Not with the talent that this team has managed to assemble. Not with the skills that they have. No one should be able to put more pressure on them then they put on themselves, save maybe the coaches but the trouble they had closing out the Jacks & the Mavs should not be ignored either.
With two games to go before they likely will face-off against the five seed at the Falls, it could get ironed out. Until they are up against one of the best teams again though, there is no way to really know if they've solved the problem. It was disappointing that they couldn't pull out at least one of the wins at home over the last week but with everything coming down to the four days in South Dakota, it could become a blessing in disguise. We don't know that right now though, all I know is that it's a problem and is the biggest take away from the home ending stretch of their schedule.