Pat Forde picks the Summit League & others

[Leonardite]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=3948048&sportCat=ncb

[Greenie]

Summit (23), March 7-10, Sioux Falls, S.D. Madness finally comes to the Dakotas, which until recently had been bereft of tourney-eligible Division I teams. Go crazy, folks.

The favorite: North Dakota State. The Bison won the league and have the best RPI rank by 32 slots.

The spoiler: Oakland rolls into Sioux Falls on a seven-game winning streak.

Minutes pick: Look for the Bison to lock up their first NCAA tournament berth by winning the most geographically nonsensical league of them all. States represented by the eight teams in the tourney: North Dakota, South Dakota, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Indiana, Utah and Michigan.

[IndyBison]

I listened to the Ron Hunter Show (IUPUI coach) last night on a local radio station. He voted for "that guy from North Dakota State" as the coach of the year. Even though they built their team for this one year (hinted they will only be good this year), losing only 2 conference games is an amazing accomplishment. He also said the Bison didn't have the greatest defense so he thought they are definitely beatable in the tournament.

Coach Hunter also said he thought it would be an upset if ORU beats SDSU and thought it was sweet justice for ORU to have to travel to SD to play a "home" team after hosting the tournament the past 4 years. He also thought IPFW could upset Oakland which would make NDSU's run that much more interesting. I'm curious to hear how much the lack of post-season experience has on the Bison. This will be a very difficult run but I hope they do it!!

[Jdubs21]

Go Bison!!!!

[ndsubison1]

very interesting, and I can really see where Mr. Hunter is coming from... I have two concerns going into this tournament:

1. First conference tournament ever
2. How will we react to playing 3 games in four days (that's if we play in all 3). Our starters have logged A LOT of minutes this season, I am a little worried about it coming back to haunt us.

[Bison bison]

I think the only 'easy' pick is NDSU over Centenary and that of course is no guarantee.

SUU/IUPUI relatively well matched (IUPUI).

ORU/SDSU i think SDSU folds early, but they are 'home' and maybe once they can live up to the delusion.

OU/IPFW. IPFW is a confusing team. one week they are atrocious, the next the can't look much better.

I want to NDSU v SUU for revenge and then NDSU v. IPFW because I hate mastodons.

[ndsubison1]

I would rather play SUU 2nd round.. I am scared of our match-up with IUPUI. IMO they have the best defense in the conferece...

[NDSUstudent]

Ming I think Saul has done a pretty good job in keeping the minutes low for our starters...

MINUTES PLAYED Cl G No. Avg/G
1. JONES, Johnathon-OU Jr 31 1177 38.0
2. STALLINGS, Nick-CC Sr 30 1093 36.4
3. DuBOIS, David-WIU Sr 27 976 36.1
4. KANGAS, Erik-OU Sr 30 1083 36.1
5. PATTERSON, Gary-Iupui Sr 24 848 35.3
6. JARVIS, Robert-ORU Sr 30 1043 34.8
7. BAKER, Davis-SUU Jr 29 1008 34.8
8. QUINNEY, Tyler-SUU Sr 28 967 34.5
9. ADAMS, Chase-CC Jr 30 1035 34.5
10. WOODSIDE, Ben-NDSU Sr 29 981 33.8

I don't really know what Hunter is talking about regarding our defense, we can be abit lax at times but for the most part we are solid when we need to be(@SDSU, @UMKC, IUPUI, @ORU, Oakland).

[IndyBison]

I would prefer to play IUPUI in the second round mostly because it would be easier to listen to a local radio station. Watching or listening online is too inconvenient for me...call me old-fashioned. The DVR is set for Tuesday night already though!

[ndsubison1]

Ming I think Saul has done a pretty good job in keeping the minutes low for our starters....

MINUTES PLAYED Cl G No. Avg/G
1. JONES, Johnathon-OU Jr 31 1177 38.0
2. STALLINGS, Nick-CC Sr 30 1093 36.4
3. DuBOIS, David-WIU Sr 27 976 36.1
4. KANGAS, Erik-OU Sr 30 1083 36.1
5. PATTERSON, Gary-Iupui Sr 24 848 35.3
6. JARVIS, Robert-ORU Sr 30 1043 34.8
7. BAKER, Davis-SUU Jr 29 1008 34.8
8. QUINNEY, Tyler-SUU Sr 28 967 34.5
9. ADAMS, Chase-CC Jr 30 1035 34.5
10. WOODSIDE, Ben-NDSU Sr 29 981 33.8

I would like to see the minutes for all our starters vs. all other teams

[ndsubison1]

I would prefer to play IUPUI in the second round mostly because it would be easier to listen to a local radio station. Watching or listening online is too inconvenient for me...call me old-fashioned. The DVR is set for Tuesday night already though!

I got the VCR :hide: set for Tuesday even though I will be there...

[BisonBlogger]

Don't really see where Coach Hunter is coming from with his comments about NDSU's defense. In conference play NDSU ranks 2nd in points against which is the key number when it comes to defense.

As far as IUPUI's defense being that great, we lit them up for 91 points in Indy.

Sometimes a good offense is a good defense when you are as efficient as the Bison are most of the time.

[NDSUstudent]

Here are the minutes of starters for all tournament teams.

SUU-151.4
Oakland-144.8
NDSU-144.3
SDSU-142.5
IPFW-141.4
ORU-140.5
IUPUI-138.2
Centenary-131.8

It should be noted that the minutes for NDSU's big three are below their career averages(especially woodside).

[ndsubison1]

Don't really see where Coach Hunter is coming from with his comments about NDSU's defense. In conference play NDSU ranks 2nd in points against which is the key number when it comes to defense.

As far as IUPUI's defense being that great, we lit them up for 91 points in Indy.

Sometimes a good offense is a good defense when you are as efficient as the Bison are most of the time.

If Im reading the right thing here, IUPUI is first in scoring defense. 2nd Oral Roberts and 3rd NDSU... but IUPUI's FG % def. and perimeter defense % is pretty low. It's arguable who's the best. But those three team probably have the 3 best defenses in the conference.

http://web1.ncaa.org/stats/StatsSrv/ranksummary

[Hammersmith]

I don't know what any of these mean, but here are some pretty numbers to look at:

NDSU (http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=North%20Dakota%20St.)(116)
ORU (http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=Oral%20Roberts)(39)
Oakland (http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=Oakland)(282)
IUPUI (http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=IUPUI)(225)
IPFW (http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=IUPU%20Fort%20Wayne)(244)
SUU (http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=Southern%20Utah)(272)
SDSU (http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=South%20Dakota%20St.)(291)
Centenary (http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=Centenary)(176)
WIU (http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=Western%20Illinois)(306)
UMKC (http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=Missouri%20Kansas%20City)(305)

*numbers are defense rankings out of 344

[heckler]

I don't know what any of these mean, but here are some pretty numbers to look at:

NDSU (http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=North%20Dakota%20St.)(116)
ORU (http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=Oral%20Roberts)(39)
Oakland (http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=Oakland)(282)
IUPUI (http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=IUPUI)(225)
IPFW (http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=IUPU%20Fort%20Wayne)(244)
SUU (http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=Southern%20Utah)(272)
SDSU (http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=South%20Dakota%20St.)(291)
Centenary (http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=Centenary)(176)
WIU (http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=Western%20Illinois)(306)
UMKC (http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=Missouri%20Kansas%20City)(305)

*numbers are defense rankings out of 344

Wow someone has put in a lot of time... a lot of numbers.

[NDSUFan_Sav]

Wow someone has put in a lot of time.

time worth spent....thanks hammersmith!!!

[KC Bison]

As far as endurance goes, NDSU and ORU (if they keep winning) will get an extra day of rest while the rest of the teams will have to play 3 games in 3 days. This is the advantage of finishing in the top two spots. I got to watch NDSU's subing patterns when they played in a tight game with ORU. It appeared to me that all the starters got good pine time in a game that we were behind for the most part. It also appeared that our starters still had plenty of energy at the end of the game and looked like they could have handled an OT better than ORU.

[roadwarrior]

Saul has been very consistent in his subbing of players all season. At least until crunch time. He knows how burnt out the starting five were at the end of the season last year.

[bisonmike2]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/bill_trocchi/03/03/conference.tourneys/index.html

Nice snippet at the end of the mid-major report.

[IndyBison]

Don't really see where Coach Hunter is coming from with his comments about NDSU's defense. In conference play NDSU ranks 2nd in points against which is the key number when it comes to defense.

As far as IUPUI's defense being that great, we lit them up for 91 points in Indy.

Sometimes a good offense is a good defense when you are as efficient as the Bison are most of the time.

He didn't say IUPUI's defense was that great. He just said NDSU didn't play a style of defense that would shut you down offensively. Your ability to score is based more on your ability to execute your offense, not necessarily the shut-down defense of the other team. Your defense is always going to better when you can score a lot of points quickly and get a lead. The other team then has to play catch-up. It's the same formula the Vikings used in their 15-1 season. They didn't have a great defense but they didn't need one because they scored a lot of points.

I didn't realize NDSU had the 2nd lowest points defense. Maybe perception and reality weren't in sync on this one.