Game Day Essentials: Game #12 vs North Dakota

[hhcmatt]

Nebraska Cornhuskers (9-2) vs North Dakota Fighting Hawks (8-4)

 

Date: Wednesday Dec 20th,  2023
Time: 6:30 pm
Arena: PBA

Broadcast:  BTN+

North Dakota

Head Coach: Paul Sather (5th year)
Location: Grand Forks, ND
Conference: Big Sky 
Nickname: Fighting Hawks

Line: Nebraska by 18.5
Typical Rotation Depth: 9+

KenPom rank: 262

Nota bene:  

• The Fighting Hawks have a lot of length on the roster to the point they are KenPom's 18th ranked team in Average Height
• Nebraska last played hosted North Dakota back in 2019 during Fred Hoiberg's first season with North Dakota pulling off the 75-74 upset
• York, Nebraska native Brady Danielson is the only remaining player from the last meeting between the Hawks and Huskers

 

KenPom most used lineups

PG SG SF PF C Pct 1 2 Eli King 6-4  190  So 52 Treysen Eaglestaff 6-6  190  So 20 BJ Omot 6-8  185  So 10 Tsotne Tsartsidze 6-9  235  Sr 3 Amar Kuljuhovic 6-8  225  Jr 22.4   2 1 Elijah Brooks 6-4  195  So 52 Treysen Eaglestaff 6-6  190  So 20 BJ Omot 6-8  185  So 5 Deng Mayar 6-8  180  Jr 10 Tsotne Tsartsidze 6-9  235  Sr 6.5

 

 

Player to watch: BJ Omot

ND's leading scorer Omot is a budding star in the Summit and currently leads the Hawks at over 16 points per game. He's much better taking to the rim as he's a fairly poor 3pt shooter. Offers some rim protection.

 

Player to watch: Trevsen Eaglestaff

Another sophomore, Eaglestaff is easily the best 3pt shooter on the team, currently shooting 38.7% on the year. Tends to set up on the left side of the court and has a quick release.

 

Player to watch: Tyree Ihenacho 

6'4 PG Tyree Ihenacho has an interesting backstory as he started his college career earning Freshman of the year honors at North Dakota. He ended up transferring to James Madison where he had a couple of decent seasons. He decided to transfer back to North Dakota and was in the middle of sitting out for the season before the NCAA lost a court case about multiple transfers and decided to play. This will be his 2nd game back and it wouldn't be surprising to see him get the starting nod at PG. Ihenacho is probably the flashiest passer on the team but tends to be turnover prone. His shooting is spotty.

 

Others to watch

Juco transfer Amar Kuljuhovic is the team's leading rebounder and is shooting 67.3% on the season from the floor. Tsotne Tsartsidze is a 4/5 who will shoot at a decent clip from the outside. Deng Mayar is a skinny JUCO post who rebounds well but hasn't been scoring much. Iowa St transfer Eli King is starting at PG but he's been just plain bad shooting the ball this season. Elijah Brooks at SG brings dribble drive ability. Brady Danielson is a glue guy for the Fighting Hawks.

 

UNL Game Notes

 

Roster/infirmary report

 

Out indefinitely 

5   Ahron Ulis     6-3    190 lbs    Junior - Likely out for the season
15  Blaise Keita     6-11    257 lbs    Junior - Ongoing ankle injury recovery

 

Out not indefinitely

51    Rienk Mast                 6-10    248 lbs    Junior - Knee

 

Out, Unknown

2    Ramel Lloyd Jr.             6-6    210 lbs    RS Freshman

35    Henry Burt                  6-7    216 lbs    RS Freshman

 

Possible starters for Nebraska

10    Jamarques Lawrence  6-3    183 lbs    Sophomore

30   Keisei Tominaga           6-2    179 lbs    Senior
3     Brice Williams               6-7    213 lbs    Junior

4   Juwan Gary                   6-6    221 lbs    Junior
53   Josiah Allick                 6-8    231 lbs    Senior

 

Bench

0    C.J. Wilcher                  6-5    214 lbs    Junior

9    Jarron Coleman            6-5    213 lbs    Senior
1    Sam Hoiberg                 6-0    183 lbs    Sophomore
11    Eli Rice                         6-8    213 lbs    Freshman
21    Matar Diop                 6-10    213 lbs    Freshman
31    Cale Jacobsen            6-4    200 lbs    RS Freshman

24    Jeffrey Grace III         6-3    197 lbs    Sophomore 

 

Hoiberg w/Greg Sharpe

Danny Nee called in to the show and he and the 1993-94 team will be honored in January for the Northwestern game.

 

 

The Skinny: 

 

Nebraska looks to head into Christmas break on a 3 game winning streak in a potential trap game against North Dakota. The Fighting Hawks' style of taking away the 3 is similar to both the Creighton and Minnesota squads responsible for Nebraska's only two loses.  I'm interested to see how many 3pt attempts Keisei has in this game given this type of defense tends to limit him but it doesn't have B1G level defenders. Feels like Nebraska should be able to get the FT line in this one.

 

The Hawks will probably take a bunch of 3s and probably won't make a ton of them but some times the shots fall. As long as Nebraska can control the paint, they'll likely be ok.

 

I think Nebraska will try and work in Boogie, Rice, and Diop in the first half if possible in this one.

 

Prediction: Nebraska 77 - North Dakota 64 

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[basketballjones]

I don’t know if anyone ever says anything but I really appreciate the work you put into these. 

[huskerbaseball13]

Rumor going around Mast me be out a few weeks…I was unable to watch the KSU game. Did he get injured?

[basketballjones]

26 minutes ago, huskerbaseball13 said:

Rumor going around Mast me be out a few weeks…I was unable to watch the KSU game. Did he get injured?

I just heard that also. No other details.

[hhcmatt]

33 minutes ago, huskerbaseball13 said:

Rumor going around Mast me be out a few weeks…I was unable to watch the KSU game. Did he get injured?

 

He played 36 minutes and didn't come out until 40 seconds were left when he certainly could have come out sooner since the game was well in hand.  However he did wear a knee brace that he wasn't wearing vs Michigan St so there certainly is something going on.

 

With that information I suspect we're going to put him on ice until after Christmas and re-evaluate. We'll have 9 days until a very winnable game against SC State and 14 days until the start of conference play vs Indiana at home.

[hskr4life]

Wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if he was a DNP coaches decision.  We SHOULD be able to handle these next two without him.

[AuroranHusker]

I really hope this ballgame is being played at PBA, that'd be a heckuva neutral site matchup tonight to try and get to. . .  

 

[emwilliams]

2 hours ago, huskerbaseball13 said:

Rumor going around Mast me be out a few weeks…I was unable to watch the KSU game. Did he get injured?

I just heard this as well from a friend. They heard he had having surgery on his knee Monday. I am hoping this is just a rumor. 

[basketballjones]

29 minutes ago, emwilliams said:

I just heard this as well from a friend. They heard he had having surgery on his knee Monday. I am hoping this is just a rumor. 

My guess is he had it scoped. Should be fine by conference stretch. 

[hskr4life]

There’s a whole lot that “surgery” could mean as hinted at by jones above.

 

However, there’s a whole lot between resting a knee and getting it scoped/surgery too.  Will be interesting what Fred has to say.

[HuskerBB]

What I saw was surgery - but likely just a scope as projection was just out 2-3 weeks.   So should be back by mid-January.

 

[hhcmatt]

Very hard to sneak a 6'10" Dutch man into an OR these days

[AuroranHusker]

11 minutes ago, hhcmatt said:

Very hard to sneak a 6'10" Dutch man into an OR these days

 

National Football Signing Day might be the perfect time to do said 'sneaking' of a rather large Mast into an O.R. Fred's playing chess, not checkers. 

 

[Crush78]

BREAKING: Fred Hoiberg confirmed to @HuskerOnline that #Nebrasketball forward Rienk Mast underwent minor knee surgery and will be out until likely early January.

 

Full story with more details: on3.com/teams/nebraska…

[hhcmatt]

[Vinny]

Just because I think the ceiling is pretty high for him, I hope Rice sees the biggest boost in minutes in Mast’s absence. 

[Navin R. Johnson]

1 hour ago, Crush78 said:

BREAKING: Fred Hoiberg confirmed to @HuskerOnline that #Nebrasketball forward Rienk Mast underwent minor knee surgery and will be out until likely early January.

 

Full story with more details: on3.com/teams/nebraska…

 

Well, January 3rd is a home game with Indiana and January 6th we go to Wisconsin.

[hskr4life]

Big difference in Mast being back for Indiana and Mast being back mid-January.

[AuroranHusker]

14 minutes ago, hskr4life said:

Big difference in Mast being back for Indiana and Mast being back mid-January.

 

Early Jan. 2024. I hope he's ready in exactly 2 weeks, tbh. 

 

 

[LNKtrnsplnt]

Next two games got that much harder without our most important player (not  saying best, that’d be gary). 

[Brick]

FYI - The game is on B1G+. 

[hhcmatt]

1 minute ago, Brick said:

FYI - The game is on B1G+. 

 

Thanks, I know I had at least one draft where I'd changed that last night