Big Sky Conference

North Dakota looks to stay hot at Montana State

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North Dakota had the formula to fluster Tyler Hall during the elite scoring guard’s freshman season. On Thursday, UND will look to replicate the recipe in Bozeman against one of the hottest scorers in the country.

Hall, the Big Sky Conference Freshman of the Year after averaging more than 20 points per game in league play last season, scored a team-high 15 points at UND but it came in an 85-68 loss. In Montana State’s 89-82 win in its home finale, Marcus Colbert scored 29, Zach Green scored 23 but hit just 3-of-9 shots and scored just eight points, one of his lowest outputs in league play last season.

This season, Hall has been a revelation. He scored 33 points in an 82-64 loss at Eastern Washington and he scored 32 in an 83-81 overtime loss at Idaho last weekend. He has five 30-point games this season — MSU is 0-5 in those outings — and he’s averaging 24.1 points per game, the second-best mark in the country.

North Dakota head coach Brian Jones attended the same high school in Rock Island, Illinois. Jones’ roster features Hall’s former prep teammate Cortez Seales.

UND head coach Brian Jones is in his 10th year at North Dakota/by Brooks Nuanez

UND head coach Brian Jones is in his 10th year at North Dakota/by Brooks Nuanez

UND sophomore Geno Crandall will likely start with the assignment guarding Hall. But he’ll get plenty of help as the Fighting Hawks try to slow down a player who already has 100 points in conference play this season. With 11 more points, Hall will become the 38th player in school history to score 1,000 and the fastest to reach four digits.

“It’s going to be multiple guys,” Jones said. “It’s going to be three or four guys on him because we don’t want to wear Geno out. Our hope is by committee we can slow him up. Talk about a guy who is on fire.”

Hall’s production has not equaled success for MSU. The Bobcats enter Thursday’s game against the 8-6 Fighting Hawks at 6-11. Montana State has lost nine of its last 10 games. UND, like Montana State, started 5-2. The Hawks lost four straight in December, including non-conference games at Northern Iowa and Iowa. UND dropped its conference opener at Portland State 99-62 after a hectic travel schedule to the City of Roses. Since rebounding for a 90-82 overtime win at Sac State, the Fighting Hawks haven’t lost.

“It’s a confidence thing and one thing we talked about all off-season: finishing,” Jones said. “We lost seven games last year by a total of 19 points.”

On Tuesday, Skyline Sports and other media from around the Treasure State spent 10 minutes with Montana State head coach Brian Fish as his Bobcats prepare to face North Dakota at 7 p.m. on Thursday night.

How close are you to putting it together?

MSU head coach Brian Fish

MSU head coach Brian Fish

Fish: “I’m very happy with the strides we are making. The guys are starting to fall into their roles and understand it. Getting Joe back is obviously a shot in the arm as far as another 6-5, long-armed, rangy athlete who can shoot the basketball. Things are coming together. We get another opportunity Thursday and Saturday this weekend at home.”

Where is the optimism level with what’s happened so far?

 “It’s as high as it’s ever been because I like what we are doing. Harald (Frey) has come in and grown. Devonte (Klines) is growing. Q (Quinton Everett) is getting out there and being productive. Benson (Osayande) has really gotten a lot better. DK (Devin Kirby) is coming along. The growth is great. Tyler is playing at a level that is not seen a lot. I couldn’t be more excited with where we are going. When you have the two guys sitting out (Keljin Blevins, Konner Frey) who are practicing with us and you see what we have coming, you get really excited.”

What sort of boost does it give you to have  back?

Mvuezolo missed six games after being misdiagnosed with a potentially life-threatening heart ailment. He was medically cleared on Monday.

 “First and foremost, it was just great to see that he’s going to be ok. Speaking for myself, I had doubts he would ever be back on the floor again. To get checked out by the top people in the world and the training room, the job they did and to see him not only be able to be healthy and to be back on the floor is an added plus.”

MSU head coach Brian Fish coaches up forward Zach Green

MSU head coach Brian Fish coaches up forward Zach Green

What is it going to take to get Zach Green back on track? This may be the longest funk he’s been in here.

 “It’s frustrating for Zach. He wants to be good. But I think right now he’s trying to put a round peg in a square hole. He’s trying to survive out there in an area where if you shoot it well, you shoot it 33 percent from and he needs to see the ball go through the basket a few times. He was a little better defensively the other night. He can’t foul out. Right now, it’s in a grind. When you are a guy who we need a consistent level of performance from, there is a little more pressure on you. He’ll find his way through. He’ll fight it. It’s just a matter of him sticking with it and keep fighting.”

What do you expect from North Dakota?

 “They are a very good team. Their two senior guards (Quinton Hooker and Corey Baldwin) are very, very good. They are a team that I had picked way up above as a team to threaten to win the title. They are playing at that level. We will give the best shot. I think when you look back at some of the North Dakota-Montana State games since I’ve been here, they’ve been some really good, knockdown, drag out games. I expect the same from them.”

Quinton Hooker, with the percentages he shoots and the way he lets the game come to him, how do you go about slowing a guy like him down?

UND guard Quinton Hooker (21)

UND guard Quinton Hooker (21)

 I was guilty of saying this this summer: there are some guards coming back in this league that are just fantastic. It seems like every night, each team has one and he’s the next one we play. He’s playing at a very high level. They have moved the ball into his hands a little more. He’s shooting very good percentages and he takes the big shot when they need it. He’s been really, really good but I expected him to be good. Then the next night (against Northern Colorado), you load up Saturday and play (Jordan) Davis, another great point guard. It fits in the long line of guards in this league that can really, really play.”

Tyler Hall made a ton of good shots in the game at Idaho but he admitted at the end that he got beat on that tip-in by BJ Blake…

 “We are all older people. It’s hard for young people to admit mistakes. To come to grips with making a mistake and say I made a mistake that could cost the team a game, that’s such huge growth for a guy who could be sitting there looking and saying, ‘I put 32 points on the board, why didn’t you other guys come?’ To come in and say that in front of the team that, ‘Hey, I didn’t get it done’, that’s tremendous growth. That’s part of the process of becoming a good player. Marcus Colbert always took blame way more than he took credit and it helped us grow. Now we are starting to get that from our players. To say that in front of your peer group at 19 years old is not easy. Tyler has made great strides from it.”

He’s just shy of 1,000 points. Can you comment on that?

 “I think he’s going to get there as fast as any guy in the history of the Big Sky. That says a lot of things about his teammates and a lot about him. His role he came into was to get points as a freshman. The role he’s developed into as a sophomore, his growth has been fantastic. Sometimes, I think we take for granted some of the shots he makes and how difficult they are. He’ll have one, two, three people on him and he makes them and continues to score at a very high pace when they know he’s shooting and we know he’s shooting. He still continues to make them. He’s a fantastic player.”

Do you see signs with North Dakota that they have all five starters back, that they return a lot of fire power?

 “You notice it. I think (Drick) Bernstine is out with an injury. I think that will disrupt things a little bit all the time. Watching tape on them and seeing how they fight through some of the teams they’ve beaten, they have kept that pressure on for 40 minutes and shown that they are a veteran team. Instead of the volatility of up and down, they’ve played much more consistent for longer periods of time, which veteran teams do.”

Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved. 

About Colter Nuanez

Colter Nuanez is the co-founder and senior writer for Skyline Sports. After spending six years in the newspaper industry with stops at the Missoulian, the Ellensburg Daily Record and the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, the former Washington Newspaper Association Sportswriter of the Year and University of Montana Journalism School graduate ('09) has cultivated a deep passion for sports journalism during his 13-year career covering the Big Sky Conference. In August of 2014, Colter and brother Brooks merged their passions of writing and art to found Skyline Sports.

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