Cade Tyson scored 28 points and went on a huge second-half run as Minnesota blew away North Dakota State 80-54 Thursday night in NCAA Division I men’s exhibition basketball at Williams Arena.
The Bison suffered through a tale of two droughts. First, offensively when they went more than 12 minutes without a field goal. The second simply at the hands of Tyson, who scored 11 straight for the Gophers midway through the second half to give Minnesota a 20-point lead.
“They made shots,” Bison head coach Dave Richman said. “Maybe in a regular-season game, I call time out, but it’s an early learning opportunity. I want some guys to plow through it.”
Tyson, a 6-foot-7 senior transfer from North Carolina, can’t remember the last time he ran off 11 in a row. But it was definitely welcomed by the Gophers, who until then, let a cold-shooting Bison team stick around after Damari Wheeler-Thomas scored the second of his two consecutive buckets off a fading drive off the glass to pull NDSU within 49-40 with 12:30 remaining.
Then the show began.
Tyson knocked down back-to-back 3-pointers to bring the Williams Arena crowd to life, then he somewhat snaked in to tip-in a Gopher miss to make it 57-40.
“I felt good,” Tyson said. “I felt like I had it going and felt like my teammates put me in the right spots and gave me the ball where I succeed the best.”
When Minnesota’s Langston Reynolds stripped NDSU’s Trevian Carson, it set up another quick transition and a Tyson deep ball to extend the lead to 20.
“Every time we put up a 3-ball, I’m like ‘Man, that’s money,’” said Gopher sophomore Isaac Asuma, who is one of two returning players. “I’ve seen him rep it in practice, but I’m just proud of how we competed as a team.”
Niko Medved coached his first game — albeit this being an exhibition — for the maroon and gold after coaching seven seasons at Colorado State.
“I felt good to be back out there,” said Medved, whose team took advantage of the NCAA’s new policy to play two exhibition games. The Gophers host North Dakota in another such contest on Saturday, Oct. 25.
“You could tell there were some nerves early, I thought our guys handled it really, really well and finally started getting some stops and getting out in transition a little bit,” Medved added.
The Bison got off to a solid start, something Richman said the team can bank away. But NDSU made just 8 of 25 field goals in the first half and were 2 of 12 beyond the arc, finishing 5 of 24 for the game from 3-point territory.
Junior guard Emil Skytta’s bucket with 12:12 remaining was the last Bison field goal of the half. They wouldn’t see another field goal until Carson’s jumper 29 seconds into the second half.
“I think it was just us,” said Carson, who had a team-high 14 points for NDSU. “We kind of fell apart. I mean, we are young, but that’s really no excuse. We just got to polish some things up but we’re going to be back for sure.”
Markhi Strickland added nine points and tied for the NDSU team lead with five rebounds with Treyson Anderson.
Minnesota’s Jaylen Crocker-Johnson had 11 points and Robert Vaihola had 14 rebounds, including 10 on the offensive glass. The Gophers outrebounded the Bison 46-31.
Richman said they weren’t defending well enough — the Bison were called for nine of the game’s 20 first-half fouls — and that took the team out of rhythm as he also tried to find various personnel combinations on the floor.
“We played with our hands too much and we talk about playing defense with our chin and our chest,” said Richman, who begins his 13th year with NDSU. “We didn’t do a good job with that and we got some key players in foul trouble in the first half and that can’t happen.”
Related Articles
Gophers men basketball welcomes North Dakota schools for exhibitions
Five takeaways from Gophers men’s basketball scrimmage
A few things to expect from Gophers men’s basketball under Niko Medved
Gophers men’s basketball picked to finish 16th in Big Ten
Gophers men’s basketball looks to add to strong recruiting class
Leave a Reply