st. Paul, minn. - an 11-2 second half spurt over a two minute period of play propelled #4 minnesota state (22-1, 15-1 nsic) to a 93-79 win over concordia university (12-11, 9-7 nsic) breaking the golden bears' winning streak at four while extending msu's to five games on friday night at gangelhoff center. In front of a season-high crowd of 1,119 fans on "white out" night, the golden bears rallied for a second half lead but the home court advantage was not enough as the mavericks outlasted them down the stretch. box score
two factors led to concordia's down fall, turnovers and free throws. The golden bears committed six more turnovers than did the mavericks (17-11) but msu capitalized on their opportunities to the tune of a 27-7 scoring margin. They also got to the line often and converted at an 82.4% rate on their 34 free throw attempts. Concordia's 19 free throw attempts is usually a solid figure, and their 84.2% percentage was nearly 16% higher than their season average. But they were outscored by 12 points at the stripe and with the 20 point deficit in points off turnovers, that left little room for error against one of the best teams in the nation.
the large volume of free throws also put concordia in foul trouble often, with three players finishing with four fouls and all three losing significant minutes as a result.
on the other end, concordia's aggressive first half play put both maverick posts, nsic preseason player of the year travis nelson, and his reserve, curt greeley, on the bench with two fouls. Nelson played only five scoreless minutes in the first half while greeley only played seven scoreless minutes. The two combined for just two rebounds in that time.
nelson was held scoreless for 30 minutes of basketball before scoring nine points in a five-plus minute stretch during minnesota state's run.
concordia got off to a sluggish start as well, allowing msu wing jefferson mason to score the first seven points of the contest in just over two and a half minutes of action. Mason finished with 20 points and 12 rebounds on just 5-13 shooting.
it was over five minutes into play and an 11-2 deficit before concordia converted their first bucket, a layup by junior post dan vandervieren (eden prairie, minn.) on a high-low feed from senior post thomas bassett (denison, iowa).
the golden bears missed their first 10 shots of the game before making 14 of their 21 shots in the next 15 minutes of play.
the mavericks extended their lead to double-digits for the first time on a fastbreak dunk by jermain davis who converted the free throw for the three-point play and a 16-6 lead at the 13:04 mark. Davis led all scorers with 22 points, hitting eight of his 14 shots.
concordia's answer was senior forward craig heiman (marshall, wis.), who buried the first of six three-pointers on the night to follow a pair of vandervieren layups. Heiman finished with 20 points, hitting 6-10 from three and 7-15 from the floor. Vandervieren, meanwhile, was productive in the first half with eight points and six rebounds in 11 key minutes of play off the bench including a thundering dunk later in the period. He only played two minutes in the second half, however, going 0-1 from the floor with a turnover during msu's run.
after a davis three-pointer, the golden bears trailed 19-11 before senior guard sammy ricks (st. Paul, minn.) literally turned on his jets. He scored six straight points for concordia to keep them close and cut the margin back to four, 19-15 near the midway point of the half.
heiman's second three-pointer brought the deficit back to three for the first time since msu's early run at under nine minutes, cutting the score to 23-20.
the mavericks continued to fend off concordia, pushing the lead back to eight, but in an intense first half concordia continued to chip away.
heiman's third three-pointer dropped just under the seven minute mark to bring the score back to three, 28-25 and a minute later a vandervieren muscled down his dunk to keep the margin at five.
minnesota state pushed the lead back to double-figures in repsonse to the dunk, extending the lead to the largest margin of the half, 39-27 with just under four minutes to play in the period during a two minute scoring drought for cu.
trailing by 12 with just under two and a half to play, junior andrew kuderer (eden prairie, minn.) buried a three and after a stop by the cu defense, heiman popped his fourth three of the half, cutting the margin to six. With the last possession of the half, cu went back to heiman, who buried a turnaround jumper in the lane at the buzzer to keep the deficit at six, 48-42.
heiman scored 14 of his points in the first half to lead a golden bear offense that knocked down five of their nine three-pointers to start the game.
minnesota state used a 13-0 margin off turnovers in the first half to maintain their lead despite cu's effective long range shooting.
in the second half, concordia was led by junior guard courtney tyler (eagan, minn.) with 11 points in 14 turnover-free minutes off the bench. He finished with a career-high 18 points on the night.
also providing a productive second half off the bench for cu was bassett with 3-3 shooting for six points.
concordia came out hot to start the second half, hitting three three-pointers out of the gates, one by kuderer followed by back-to-back three's by heiman to tie the score at 51.
msu's curt greeley also hit a three during that stretch before heiman's pair of long range triples and then answered concordia's tie score with a dunk off an offensive rebound.
after over a minute of scoreless basketball, sophomore post brent barz (johnston, iowa) tipped-in a rebound off his own missed and was fouled, converting the three-point lead to give concordia their first lead of the night, 54-53 with under 16 minutes to play in the game.
on defense, ricks picked off an errant pass by mitch grundman and dashed to the basket for an uncontested layup to extend their lead to three points in front of a roaring student section on the south end of the arena. Ricks was one of three golden bears in double-figures with 10 points on the evening.
msu responded with a three-pointer from marcus hill and a grundman jumper in the paint to reclaim the lead, 58-56 with 14:31 to play. Hill scored 19 off the bench for msu while grundman added six, hitting his only field goal attempt and knocking down all four free throws.
and although tyler converted a pair of free throws to tie the score at 58, concordia would never lead or tie the score again in the final 14 minutes of competition.
the mavericks scored seven straight to break the 58-all tie before extending the margin to 14, 80-66 with 7:39 remaining.
that is roughly the same point when minnesota state sprinted away from concordia at taylor center back on january 15 in the 84-63 decision.
this time, concordia would not struggle for as long of a drought and would narrow the deficit back to single digits, 81-73 with plenty of time to play (4:41) but concordia never had an offensive possession with the eight point margin as the mavericks were able to "plow" concordia's "white out" night.
the golden bears finished the night knocking down half of their 18 three-point attempts while msu hit only 35.7% of their 14 triples. Both teams attempted the same number of shots (62) with msu hitting 30 to cu's 27 and both teams shooting in the 40%-range. Rebounding was nearly a stalemate as well, with msu holding a 37-36 final margin with both teams collecting 14 offensive boards.
again, nearly everything about this basketball game was a stalemate, but msu forced six more turnovers and turned them into points while getting to the free throw line almost twice as much as concordia, proving to be the difference.
concordia falls a half game behind u-mary, who was idle tonight and is at northern state tomorrow. Concordia hosts seventh place southwest minnesota state tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m. The mustangs, a game behind concordia, also lost tonight at st. Cloud state. Concordia looks for the season series sweep of smsu while minnesota state travels to st. Cloud state looking to clinch at least a share of the nsic regular season championship and the number one seed in the nsic tournament.
action photography provided by justin oakman photography
