Todd Golden: DOWN IN THE VALLEY: Five takeaways from ISU's loss at North Dakota State
Dec. 14—We knew there would be days like this. Days where the defense wasn't going to be there. Days where the offense would come and go. Days where the maturity of the team wasn't necessarily where anyone wants it to be.
North Dakota State was beatable. Indiana State was doing a very good job of controlling them for 35 minutes inside the Scheels Center.
However, ISU opened the window for the Bison just enough and they stormed in. The Bison deserve credit for being given an inch and taking a mile, but ISU did plenty to contribute to their own demise too in the 77-70 loss at Scheels Center in Fargo.
Learning on the job is tough. With the emotion of the season, it's hard to detach and say these kind of games were expected, but they were. It's frustrating, but so long as the Sycamores learn the right lessons from it? This is just part of the uber-frustrating process of straightening out the learning curve.
1. ISU's offense got away from what got it a double-digit lead — It was so strange. The Sycamores were absolutely de-pantsing the Bison with their cutting action. One bucket after another was scored by ISU at the rim, either off of a direct drive or a backdoor cut. It was really impressive to watch.
Then, suddenly? The Sycamores just ... stopped. NDSU hadn't changed its defense. ISU began settling for jumpers and for long-possession, low-movement trips down the floor.
Why did this happen? I don't know and neither did Schertz. He said that ISU's pace changed for the worse and that the ball began moving laterally instead of to the basket.
All true, but why? Watching live, my impression was that the Sycamores diversified their offense by choice without having any reason to do so.
Schertz had his own reasons.
"We had way less cutting. They were switching all five screens and that flattened us out. We were playing east-west instead of north-south vertically. The switching flattened us out, but they were doing that in the first half. We did a poorer job of being determined on that end," Schertz said.
He went on.
"The ball stuck more. Guys were more isolation-driven and because we weren't getting stops, we weren't getting transition baskets. We didn't do a good job of moving them around. You have to get them moving and then drive them," Schertz said.
It was weird. Players need to understand what's working and stick with it. Threes are nice, but they weren't necessary when ISU was in front.
2. ISU also pressed — Making matters worse? Some of the Sycamores were over-doing it at the rim. It was reminiscent of the Ball State game where the team finished very poorly.
Several shots had too much english put on them or just simply had too much mustard on them. It's almost as if the shots were being taken anticipating contact that never came.
It was a game in which a lot was let go contact-wise. Still, when the crowd got into it and ISU needed a bucket, you could see that the way the game was going was getting to the Sycamores.
3. The right kind of threes were needed — Schertz likes 3-point shots, but he wants the right kind of 3-point shots. He said after the game, and has said before, that he wants inside-out paint-touch three-pointers.
What he doesn't want is what Schertz called stationary three-pointers, in other words, guys spotting up on the perimeter expecting to shoot without ball movement.
ISU was definitely guilty of the latter in the second half, including Cooper Neese, who was dazzling at times with 30 points, but who also was guilty at times, like his teammates were, of letting the ball stick too much.
4. Crawford continues to impress — Injuries, illness and other absences have allowed Cam Crawford to get more minutes than would have been anticipated at the start of the season. He continues to demonstrate he deserves it.
Crawford started Monday as Schertz elected not to start Cam Henry and Micah Thomas as he was not pleased with their preparation during the previous week. Crawford responded with 9 points, 3 rebounds and an assist.
He needs to work on his defense, but then, so does the rest of the team, and his defense as a freshman is pretty typical. I like his energy and his confidence.
5. No one is safe in the rotation — As mentioned, Henry and Thomas didn't start, though they did play. Henry logged 25 minutes. Thomas dropped down to a mere eight.
I like that Schertz doesn't mess around when players don't practice or carry themselves to a certain standard.
I've long thought that the only way for a coach to create accountability is to hit a player where it hurts — with his minutes. That's the way to send a message.
One weakness I thought Greg Lansing had was that player minutes were rarely impacted when a player didn't practice or compete or produce to expectation.
I like that Schertz has sent a message, even to players he's familiar with, like Henry, that he has a standard and if you don't meet it? You pay a price in game-time.
Also, on a rotation note? Kailex Stephens, who didn't play at against Miami of Ohio, was back for 18 minutes against the Bison. Matchups will dictate minutes too.
—ISU Player of the Game — Neese gets the honors for the second game in a row with his career-high 30. He wasn't perfect, but he did more than anyone in blue to keep it a game into the final minute.
—Opposing Player of the Game — Sam Griesel's influence in the second half was significant. He scored 17 of his 25 points after halftime, but he was the one who set the tone for his Bison teammates. Before ISU's offense lost its way, Griesel was already getting NDSU's offense on-track.
—Random — North Dakota was the 27th different state I've covered an ISU basketball game in, taking both genders into account. You can add one U.S. territory too. If you count all ISU programs, the state count rises to 31.
This was the first time I'd made a basketball trip to one of the Missouri Valley Football Conference's non-MVC campuses. North Dakota State has always fascinated me the most among the non-MVC, MVFC-playing schools, and among that group? I think NDSU has the best potential as a MVC member and have long thought so.
Still, I hadn't seen Scheels Center, re-built in 2016 out of the guts of NDSU's 1970-vintage facility, until Monday. Is it MVC-worthy? Without a doubt it is. It's a better facility than Loyola, Drake, Valparaiso, Bradley and Belmont. It's not as big as Ford Center, Hulman Center, Redbird Arena, SIU Arena or JQH Arena, but it's right-sized at about 5,500.
It's similar, though not quite the same design, as UNI's McLeod Center. A relatively sparse crowd (NDSU is still playing in the FCS playoffs, so basketball is still on the back burner in Fargo) generated decent noise.
The NDSU basketball program has been good, sometimes great, since the Bison went Division I in the mid-2000s, with four NCAA Tournament appearances. The Bison have more of a basketball history already than Texas-Arlington or Kansas City do and with far fewer years to build their success upon.
NDSU's MVC case isn't solely basketball-related. It has a lot of things going for it.
The city of Fargo, which I hadn't been on a trip to since 2014, is very much behind its Bison, as you could see at the Scheels mega-store. There was a huge display devoted to Bison merchandise. (Just as there is for South Dakota State at the Sioux Falls Scheels store.)
Though Fargo is isolated and a long ways away from most of the rest of the U.S., it's a lively place. Downtown Fargo continues to grow and seemed to have quite a few more places to eat than I recall on my last visit.
NDSU seems to be healthy as an institution. Enrollment is in the mid-10,000s in a state with another big public university (the University of North Dakota is in Grand Forks) with a population of 762,000 and change. NDSU's enrollment is nearly 1.8% of the entire state population.
Extrapolate that percentage to Indiana, and an institution would have an enrollment of 120,000! (Of course, Indiana has several more public universities dividing the pie.)
All of the above would seem to check quite a few boxes for MVC membership, but it's very unlikely to happen for the Bison. Geography is the great enemy of NDSU, both in terms of its football fortunes and it's permanent conference home.
It shouldn't be that way. If the MVC is willing to take flight trips*, albeit easier flights, to Dallas to serve a specific market need to serve a non-athletic motivation to increase enrollment, than it ought to consider a school just outside its current footprint that brings quite a bit to the table in terms of institutional fit, commitment to athletics, and a loyal fanbase. NDSU (and likely SDSU too) would be quality additions.
* You'll note in the MVC expansion I column I wrote last week that there's no mention or objection to travel costs. Why? I think it's overrated. My objection to Arlington has very little to do with travel costs.
I think the MVC schools that complain about travel costs come off cheap to me. Many have been living fat and happy with bus trips for many years, but you can't expand a conference and make it better if travel costs become a paramount concern.
There are quite a few conferences in the nation with lesser resources than MVC schools have, including all of the mid-major leagues west of the Rocky Mountains, who travel and fly quite a bit more than MVC schools will ever have to.
Unfortunately, conference decisions aren't made primarily on athletic merit anymore. It's about big markets, for media rights purposes and attractiveness to an enrollment pool, etc.
Not being in a big market, and on the edge of the U.S. map, is a disadvantage NDSU is going to have trouble overcoming.
It's a likely unjustified killer for MVC membership, and worse for NDSU fans? Geography and the lack of a decent market will hold back a football program that is absolutely worthy of moving up to FBS based on several national championships worth of merit.
So they're left in geographic hell while lesser lights with luckier geography make a play for greener pastures.
It's such a stupid system.
