Thursday, March 13, 2014

Bracket Buster: North Dakota State

From the Summit, the same league that gave us Naters Gonna Nate, come the Bison of North Dakota State. The Bison finished the season 25-6 and are 56th overall in KenPom.

The Bison don't have a great win out of conference. They beat Notre Dame but everyone beats Notre Dame. They did beat Viterbo and no one likes Viterbo so that's pretty cool.

They are an offensive minded team. They are 21st overall in AdjustedO. They have an effective fg% of 55%, 11th best. They shoot 56% from two, which is 3rd best in the nation. They get the bulk of their points that way. They protect the ball, too. Their TO% is 15.5%, 25th best. They are an average rebounding team offensively. They also make free throws, shooting 75% from the line.

They're not as good defensively. Teams have an effective fg% of 50% against them. That's below the national average. They also don't force turnovers. They're 236th in the nation in forcing turnovers. They do protect the glass on defense. Teams only get 27.4% of their misses. That's 16th best.

Two players to know are seniors Tyler Braun and Marshall Bjorklund. Braun is a 6'7" guard that does it all. He scored 18.2ppg this year to go with 4 assists per game. He shoots 42% from deep but doesn't take many. Bjorklund is a 6'8" forward who scores 13ppg and grabs 4 boards per game. He shoots 63% from the field. 

The Bison head coach is Saul Phillips, a Bo Ryan disciple so some of the numbers might surprise you. Watching them the other night and you saw some defensive lapses but they looked good on offense, missing some good looks: if they get a team that is soft in the interior, they have a chance to win a game.

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