North Dakota State Basketball

Ninety-four points is a pretty strong offensive showing in college basketball. In the case of North Dakota State's game Sunday against Oak Hills Christian, that was the margin of victory.

The Bison won 108-14, a contest that saw them lead 60-5 at halftime.

pic.twitter.com/YL1GFKyOrI

— NDSU Men's Basketball (@NDSUmbb) December 10, 2023

NDSU Men's Basketball beat Oak Hills by 94 today 😳😅 pic.twitter.com/h4HT8WIfUq

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) December 11, 2023

Lance Waddles scored a team-high 19 points, while Jeremiah Burke and Damari Wheeler-Thomas had 15 apiece.

NDSU shot 59.7 percent from the field and went 15-of-34 from beyond the arc. In contrast, Oak Hills Christian made just six of its 49 shots, including a 1-of-20 clip from deep. Emmanuel Coffy accounted for half of his squad's offensive output, scoring seven points in his 30 minutes on the floor.

The margin of victory matches that of a 2019 game between Utah and Mississippi Valley State. The Utes prevailed 143-49, which at the time set a new record in a game featuring two Division I teams.

In the case of Sunday, North Dakota State overwhelmed a school that isn't even affiliated with the NCAA. The Minnesota-based university competes in the Association of Christian College Athletics.

With the win, the Bison improved to 7-4 on the season. They'll be back in action this coming Sunday on the road at Illinois State.

Chances are, David Richman's squad will face slightly stiffer resistance on the court.

Why do underdogs always have the best dances?

North Dakota State University fought Thursday night, and it fought hard.

After 45 long minutes of play, the 12th-seeded Bison managed to chop down fifth-seeded Oklahoma in a game that, at times, defied logic and belief.

What’s a team of young men to do after winning its first NCAA tournament game in school history? If you answered “Wild karate dancing,” you would be correct.

The Bison hit the locker room and began breaking it down in front of cameras. It was a little bit frightening, but they got down with expert timing. 

Thus continued the tradition of tournament underdogs showing off in postgame celebration dances—a trend Florida Gulf Coast started during last year’s tournament.

After upsetting Georgetown in the second round, the 15th-seeded FGCU Eagles went certifiably insane.

Cinderella dance parties are a tradition unlike any other. We can only hope NDSU keeps the trend alive and serves up some “Crane Style” against San Diego State in the round of 32. 

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The brackets are out. The bitching has started. Dicky V is ready to spoon the Dukies. It is Selection Sunday, and I have 10 guarantees for this years tournament.

Guarantee No. 1

A No. 12 seed will definitely beat a No. 5 seed. It happens every year. This year the most popular 12 seeds to win will be Western Kentucky over Illinois and/or Arizona to beat Utah. However, Purdue losing to Northern Iowa, and Florida St. losing to Wisconsin are a bit more of a reach.

Guarantee No. 2

Home teams will advance. When you look at the bracket, don't just look at games, teams, and seeds. The most important thing these days is where the game is at. Villanova gets their first two games on their home court in Motown Philly. North Carolina is in Greensboro, along with Duke, and both Gonzaga and Washington are nearby in Portland. Look for all five teams to make the Sweet 16.

Guarantee No. 3

None of the No. 16 seeds will beat the No. 1 seeds. That should be common sense by now. In fact, none of them will be within 30 points.

Guarantee No. 4

All four top seed will NOT make it to the Final Four. Last year was the first time ever that all four top seeds advanced. This year, there is too much parity in college basketball.

Pitt appears to be in the best shape, as they would appear to be a more physical team than Duke. Out in the West, I like Memphis over UConn, and say the Midwest will have the Cinderella team, with North Carolina being the other top seed to advance.

Guarantee No. 5

The Kansas-North Dakota St. game will be a buzzer beater. I know there are a lot of Jayhawk fans out there, but listen, the Jayhawks are not that good.

The Bison head coach, Saul Phillips, is a graduate of the Bo Ryan school of patience, and boring basketball. They actually beat Wisconsin at the Kohl Center a few years back. Watch out for this one to be a major bracket buster.

Guarantee No. 6

UCLA will not make the Final Four again. In fact, I predict VCU to beat them in the first round. It will be an East Coast game for a West Coast team, plus VCU is dangerous. Even if they find a way to beat VCU, Villanova looms in the second round.

Guarantee No. 7

A No. 13 seed will beat a No. 4 seed. This one may be a bit of a stretch. However, I think the Cleveland St-Wake Forest game is interesting, as well as the Xavier-Portland State game. Do not be surprised if one of these teams advance to the second round.

Guarantee No. 8

ESPN will overkill the entire bracket, and people all over the world will care less about the tournament by the time it tips off.

I mean, how many times can you analyze the bracket? If our government spent as much time as ESPN does looking at a bracket trying to fix our economy, we would be out of a recession.

Guarantee No. 9

By the end of the early game Thursday, your bracket will be busted. It happens every year. You fill it out, think it is it, then it is dead by 5 PM on Day One.

This has been the case for me most years, except for 2004 when I finished with a bracket that was in the top 10,000 on ESPN, mainly out of luck. But bracketeers beware, there will be a Bryce Drew, a Harold Arceneaux, and an Adam Morrison somewhere is small school land.

Guarantee No. 10

Thousands of people will come down with the flu on Thursday and Friday. That is, unless you work somewhere where they allow you to watch at work. But seriously, wouldn't you rather be at a bar, beer in hand, wings in front of you, yelling with a group of pissed of fans?

These are just some guarantees that I hope will remain as we push towards the showdown in Motown, AKA the Final Four.

When the NCAA basketball tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, there were far fewer Division 1 teams and far less parity of talent. There are now 341 Division I teams, and 41 have joined in the last 15 years.

With the immediate success of some of these programs, like North Dakota State displayed this week, you can bet that more institutions will be looking to make the leap.

As long as less than a third of eligible teams make the tournament, it isn’t truly watered down. This is significantly fewer than the NFL, NBA, or NHL postseasons reward.

A better system would be a 96-team field, where the top 32 are given a first round bye.  While this obviously rewards an additional 32 teams who would currently see the NIT or a long break, it also makes a harder road for the middle 32 who now have to win an extra game to achieve a Sweet 16, Elite Eight, or Final Four.

This would not cheapen the conference tournaments (which probably are given too much weight by committee anyway), because teams are still playing for seeding. In fact, the difference between an eight seed and a nine seed would mean an extra round.

Currently, the teams that are awarded these seeds are usually comfortably in before the conference tournaments ever tip off.

Logistically, it would add 32 games to eight venues. Assuming a day off is still needed between games, the first weekend could start on Wednesday instead of Thursday, and end on Monday instead of Sunday.

Half the opening sites would host Wednesday/Friday/Sunday games, and the other half would host Thursday/Saturday/Monday games.

There would be eight Monday games, which could make television coverage a bit tricky, but I’m sure CBS/ESPN would take that issue in trade for two extra days and 32 extra games.

Another option for this expansion would include an automatic bid for each regular season conference champion as well as the tournament champion.

This probably means that 7-10 of the 32 extra bids go to teams that deserve it more than the current automatic bid, and a couple dozen go to teams who are missing at-large bids now.  

The George Mason example is often used to show that quality teams come from low seeds. That season, Hofstra beat the Patriots twice and finished just one game back in the Colonial Athletic Association in the conference.  Many thought that Hofstra deserved the at-large bid that went to George Mason.

In this setup, both would have made the tournament, but either would have had to win five games instead of four to reach the Final Four.

This is unlikely to happen anytime soon, even as more and more coaches seem to get on the bandwagon. However, if the conferences, networks, and host cities can find that there is more money to be made, the tournament will expand faster than a well executed two-on-one fast break.  

Until then, we will have to be content watching only 65 deserving teams in the best three weeks on the calendar.

For those of you who don't know who NDSU is, It stands for North Dakota State University. Yes that's right, NORTH DAKOTA. In what could very well be the first time ever, a basketball team from North Dakota will be dancing somewhere in this month's Madness, starting on the 19th.

The No. 1 seed and the champions of the Summit League, NDSU won a hard-fought comeback victory against Oakland University two nights ago.

After being down by as many as 14, NDSU put together a late rally to knock off the third-seeded Golden Grizzlies with a leaning jumper by Ben Woodside.

NDSU clinched an NCAA Tourney Birth when Woodside received the in-bounds pass with eleven seconds left, dribbled down the court, went left off of a Lucas Moorman screen, and drilled a leaning jumper from the left side of the free-throw line.

Oakland's Johnathon Jones took the ball downcourt with three seconds left and lofted a desperation three point shot that went hard off the back of the rim as time expired. Jones could've gotten a better shot, but was anxious to get the ball away before time expired.

When time did expire, crazed fans wearing green and gold, stormed the court and Woodside to celebrate and congratulate the victory and their superstar, respectively.

Ben Woodside is a five year veteran and this years Summit League Player of the Year. He averaged 23 points a game and was the leader of a veteran Bison team ranked 1st in the Summit League with a 26-6 overall record and a 14-2 conference record. 

Woodside is an explosive offensive playmaker and is capable of going off for huge chunks of points in any game. Earlier in the year, Woodside exploded for SIXTY points against Stephen F. Austin in a thrilling triple-overtime battle in which NDSU lost by one point.

ESPN and CBS Sports.com are projecting NDSU as a thirteen seed in the tournament. Which will likely have them slated against either Missouri or Wake Forest.

In their first year of eligibility, the North Dakota State University Bison Men's Basketball team clinched an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament.

This is quite an achievement considering it hasn't happened since 1970, when Long Beach State achieved the same feat under head coach, Jerry Tarkanian.

It is a fitting end to this article to quote Ben Woodside himself in saying, "We're goin' dancin' baby, we're goin' dancin', that's all that matters!"

Good Luck green and gold, make some noise for North Dakota in the NCAA Tourney.

GO BISON!!!

This is the first article of a new series, "Mid-Major Radar."

In this series, I will discuss mid-major teams that deserve more attention than they are getting. In other words, you won't find anything about Davidson, Gonzaga, or Saint Mary's in this series.

Without further ado, meet North Dakota State of the Summit League.

This is the Bison's first year of postseason eligibility. If the wins keep coming like they have been, North Dakota State will find themselves in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history.

They are the epitome of a run-and-gun team. As a squad, the Bison shoot 48.6 percent from the floor and a stunning 40.3 percent from deep. Their 81.2 points per game is good enough to land them in the top 10 scoring offenses.

If you're thinking that this team, which has not been eligible for postseason play, is inexperienced, you're wrong.

Ben Woodside, Brett Winkelman, and Mike Nelson are leaders on and off the floor. These three Bison have been playing together in Fargo, North Dakota for four consecutive seasons, and have matured through the system.

You might remember Woodside for scoring 60 points in a triple overtime loss to Stephen F. Austin in December. The senior point guard is the country's sixth best scorer at 24.2 points per game.

Get this: Stephen Curry is the only other player in the nation who scores over 24 points per game and dishes out at least six assists. Both guards dish out 6.4 dimes per game.

Woodside has been an excellent leader of the herd.

The only downside for Woodside is his size. He stands 5'11" and weighs 185 pounds. He's quick, but his size has made it tough for him to pour in his average against bigger teams.

In an early season matchup against Minnesota, Woodside scored 16 points, but still managed to shoot 7-of-15 from the floor. The 14 points that he scored in a four-point loss against USC is his second lowest total of the season.

Other than those games, though, Woodside has been a talent worth noting. He has scored 20+ points in 12 of North Dakota State's 19 games.

Winkelman, Woodside's fellow statesman from Minnesota, has had his fair share of big performances. Unlike Woodside, Winkelman is yet to score under 10 points in a game. The 6'6" senior averages 19.1 points and 7.3 rebounds per game.

Despite starting at small forward, Winkelman leads the Bison in rebounding.

It might be hard to believe, but the senior's stats have actually declined since last year. Nonetheless, he is shooting 52.7 percent from the floor, a team-high 81 percent from the stripe, and 37.5 percent from long range.

These two seniors help each other out on the court. Woodside creates and dishes, and Winkelman puts the ball in the basket.

Nelson is the third leading senior on the team. He is less prominent than the previous two, but his three-point shooting has won some games for the Bison. Nelson, who hails from Madison, Wisconsin, hits two treys per game on 40.2 percent shooting from the distance.

This senior's long range shooting kept the Bison within striking range of Minnesota. He knocked down five threes on 10 attempts and scored 22 points.

These three seniors, along with senior Lance Moorman and sophomore Michael Tveidt, have led North Dakota State to a 14-5 record.

The Bison lack an impressive win that would merit an at-large bid, but they appear to be the team to beat in the Summit midway through conference play. Oral Roberts was the preseason favorite, and their one loss is to none other than North Dakota State.

A one-point loss at Oakland is the only obstacle between the Bison and a perfect conference record. On Thursday, Oakland will head to Fargo, where the Bison are 8-0.

After the game against Oakland, North Dakota State's only game against a team with a winning record is at Oral Roberts. The Feb. 28 matchup will be the final game before the conference tournament.

If Coach Saul Phillips' phone rings on March 15, the team on the other end must be prepared to cool off the Bison. If they don't, North Dakota State has the ability to shoot their opponent out of the gym.

Not much excitement comes out of North Dakota—the state has a population of 635,867.

No disrespect towards North Dakota or its inhabitants, but its pretty surprising that Friday's Stephen F. Austin vs. North Dakota State match-up turned into a thriller.

The Lumberjacks of Stephen F. Austin started the game up 20-2 and were up by 13 with five minutes left, but Ben Woodside put his Bison on his back and brought them back into the game, eventually sinking two foul shots to send the game to overtime. 

The second foul shot recorded Woodside's 33rd point of the contest.

The Lumberjacks and Bison stayed hand in hand for the entire first overtime, Woodside scored seven more points, and the score remained tied as the buzzer sounded.

Much of the same happened in the second overtime, which ended in a 100-100 tie—Woodside's nine points were not enough to secure the victory.

In another back and forth five minute session, Woodside scored 11 points, but his potential game-winning three-pointer could not fall with two seconds left and the Bison fell as losers, 112-111, in three overtimes. 

If you spent time adding up his point totals at the end of each section of the game, you would notice that Ben Woodside set this season's high with 60 points. 

He had an extra fifteen minutes to beat Stephen Curry's 44, but any time that a college player scores in the 60's, it is meritorious of praise. 

The senior guard, originally from Minnesota, only hit 14 field goals—two of which were from beyond the arc—but he shot an excellent 30-35 from the charity stripe. 

He went to the line 35 times!

Woodside was redshirted as a freshman, but has played in every game since becoming eligible. He's always been a scorer—he averaged 17.5, 16.4, and 20.7 points per game in his first three years and is posting 20.7 per game this season. This performance will certainly boost his average.

The Summit League is weak this season with Oral Roberts not being the same force in the conference, so Woodside has one last solid chance of making the NCAA Tournament. 

The Bison are already 2-0 in the Summit and are 4-3 overall—one of their wins came against Oral Roberts. 

If Woodside keeps up his consistent scoring, the Bison could end up in the Tournament.

Congratulations to Ben Woodside and the North Dakota State Bison (even though they lost tonight).

After having watched the first three weeks of the basketball season, there have been some pleasant surprises in the NCAA. Here are my ten teams to watch out for come March that people may not be talking about.

1. Dayton Flyers

Granted they did the same thing last year, this year could be different. Out to a hot start people are starting to wonder if the Dayton Flyers are for real. A 6-0 start and a quality stomping of Marquette has me thinking the Flyers could make the tournament this year. Hopefully they don't fold in the A-10 like last year.

2. Butler

One argument may be that plenty of people know about Butler. However after AJ Graves left, Butler fell off the map—a little bit. After another hot start though the 5-0 Bulldogs are proving that its becoming about reloading not rebuilding. The Bulldogs have a ways to go if they want to be a tournament threat, but are looking to achieve that goal.

3. Minnesota

After having been off the college basketball scene for the last few years the Golden Gophers seem to be back. The hiring of Tubby Smith has brought in quality recruits and the passion of basketball back to the barn. A fast 6-0 start has landed the Gophers at the number three spot on my poll.

4. Illinois

The Illini are back to 6-0 after a down year last year. Although they have struggled with some lower tier teams this year Weber has the boys winning again. Some confidence and experience could push these guys back into the tournament with the conference buddies, Minnesota.

5. Liberty

The Flames are off and rolling in 2008. After suffering a tough loss to UNC Asheville, Liberty came back with a big win over ACC opponent Virginia. The arrival of Seth Curry has lit a spark in this 4-1 team. While a majority of them are young the Flames will probably need an automatic bid by winning their conference.

6. Western Kentucky

A big win over No. 3 Louisville makes me a momentary believer. However as impressive as that win was, a 28 point loss to Murray State makes me wonder if they'll reach the .500 mark. Currently 3-2 I'll give the Hilltoppers a chance for two reasons. One, they have a sweet name and two, they were a very solid team last year!

7. Niagara

One of my favorite teams in the NCAA this year comes from the lovely state of New York. Niagara has had two key transfers who are going to show up big time for the Purple Eagles. Niagara is off to a 5-1 start, and has been blowing teams out. A tough loss to Villanova shows they have the confidence to hang with quality teams. If they can get past Siena in the conference tournament I wouldn't put it past this small school to pull of a Miracle in March.

8. Siena

Even though Siena is off to a 2-3 start we all know they have a host of potential. Three consecutive losses may mean the Saints need an automatic bid. However their tough schedule and experience could mean for a very tough team later this season. Look for the Saints in field of 65.

9. North Dakota State

The Bison are off to a mediocre 2-2 start but they return tons of talent. A team that has beat Wisconsin and Marquette in the last two years returns most of their players from that roster. If the Bison can learn how to play on the road they may make their first NCAA tournament in school history.

10. NJIT

The New Jersey Institute of Technology comes at number the number ten spot. Notice the headline says nothing about how good these teams are, instead it states people know nothing about them. What people may not know is that NJIT has a 38 game losing streak. However the Highlanders look better this year than last. Last year they lost by less than ten points just once. This year they have already played a game within ten points and have lost by 13 twice. I see the Highlanders winning two games this year but playing NO significant basketball in March.