North Dakota will take on Denver in the first round of the Summit League Tournament Friday at Denny Sanford Arena in Sioux Falls, S.D. Fans can follow all the action on Midco Sports, as well as by tuning into Paul Ralston’s call on the Home of Economy Radio Network.
Series History vs. the Pioneers
Saturday will be the 13th meeting between the Hawks and the Pioneers—the series is tied at six, but UND owns a 6-4 edge in games played as Summit League opponents. The first ever meeting between the two was an NCAA tournament game in 1992, won by Denver. This season the two teams split their two meetings—each home team winning. Denver won the first game 78-71 on their floor while UND had on of their best games of the season in an 86-63 win at the Betty.
Last Time Out
North Dakota defeated St. Thomas in the final game of the regular season 82-74 to finish the regular season with 12 wins, six in Summit League play. Tsotne Tsartsidze had a career high with 20 points, running his streak of games in double figures to 12, and made three three-pointers in the game. B.J. Omot scored 17 points and added a highlight reel block while hitting eight free throws. Treysen Eaglestaff continued his streak of four straight games in double figures and made three shots from downtown.
Bench Boost
North Dakota enters the matchup with the most bench scoring in the Summit League and is No. 44 team nationally in that category. The Fighting Hawks are averaging 24.71 points per game from the reserves this season. The next closest bench in the league is Omaha with 23.73.
Shaking it up
North Dakota used their ninth different starting lineup combination of the season the last seven games (Jalun Trent, Matt Norman, Brady Danielson, B.J. Omot and Tsotne Tsartsidze), which equaled the number of different combinations used last season. On the team, Tsartsidze has the most active consecutive starts currently with 51, followed by Omot with 31. Danielson and has started the last 18 games and Trent the last 16.
