As many as you know we played UM-Crookston on Thursday night at Hutton Arena. It's normally unusual for a Division Two team travels to a Division Three for an exhibition game but Crookston wanted to come to the Twin Cities. We obliged.
The game got off to a rough start as we couldn't get things going early on. Our offense was stagnant and we were taking quick shots. Never a good way to start especially against a scholarship level school. We decided to sub in our "second unit," and they gave us a huge spark. That group on Thursday was Brandon Rieg, Victor Easter, Christian "Danny Ainge" Taber, Dior Ford, and Charlie Choiniere.
We went on a couple of nice runs during the first half and ending up leading by 12. I believe we shot right around 50% from 3 during the first half. A major difference since our Lakehead exhibition.
As the second half begun we tried to get the offense moving a little better and we got a couple of quick 3's from Tyler Pannell. Crookston looked shell shocked.
After getting the lead close to 20 Crookston changed things up and went to a 1-3-1 zone with a 6'10" guy at the top. Their length definitely gave us some issues. The zone also made us stand around. We didn't get any reversals and took some bad shots. Crookston got within two with about 8:40 left and that's when everything changed.
We could tell they were getting tired and we started attacking a little more. We got into the paint and ramped up our defensive pressure and intensity. I believe we went on a 17-1 run near the end if the game. They were tired and that is proven by their 1-9 free throw shooting and six turnovers in the last 8:40. It was a nice win for us. Any time you can beat a D2 school it's exciting for your program.
We were led by three double figure scorers including Tyler Pannell, Brandon Rieg, and Christian Taber. We ended up shooting 16-33 from 3. I'll take that any day of the week. It's a high number of 3's and probably more than we would like but when you shoot that high of a percentage, you have to take it.
We officially open up on Tuesday against Northwestern College at 7:30pm following the women's game. We will also be honoring Row of Honor inductee Don Meyer before our game. He wasn't able to make the original date. I am really looking forward to meeting him. I hope our team is as well.
This is my first venture on writing this on my phone so please excuse my many errors in their entry
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