Sophomore guard Kendall Blue and a cast of Tommies outshot North Dakota State and nabbed a 68-58 win in the Summit League quarterfinals Sunday night in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, moving St. Thomas to the semifinals.
The No. 4 Tommies continued their trademark three-point shooting and elite defense against the No. 5 Bison. St. Thomas connected on half of their 22 three-point attempts and held senior guard Boden Skunberg and junior forward Andrew Morgan, NDSU’s leading scorers, to just seven and four points, respectively.
“(I’m) thrilled to get a win tonight. So proud of our players, the way they competed against a perennial power in the Summit League,” coach Johnny Tauer said.
St. Thomas was in a very similar boat as the Bison, their two leading scorers graduates forward Parker Bjorklund and guard Raheem Anthony also only scored a combined 11 points.
A squad of Tommies stood up in their place, led by Blue’s 15 points on 6-7 from the field, including a perfect 3-3 from beyond the arc. St. Thomas entered the game averaging just over 9 three-pointers a game; they had reached that mark by halftime Sunday night.
“I think our team was really unselfish and it can be anybody’s night and tonight it just happened to be (junior guard Ryan Dufault) and I,” Blue said.
Dufault came off the bench to relieve senior guard Drake Dobbs and give the Bison fits on defense.
“Drake Dobbs is a crazy defender. I mean, it’s fun to come off the bench after people have been struggling usually against his on-ball defense. I mean, he’s crazy,” Dufault said. “And then, I mean, coming off the bench, I always know I just got to give us energy every game.”
Dufault’s presence was felt, even with his limited time on the court. He scored 14 points in just 16 minutes of play.
Joining Dufault off the bench was redshirt first-year center Carter Bjerke who finished with 12 points on four straight three-pointers, all in the first half.
“I mean, (junior guard Ben Nau), Ryan, and Carter know they’re probably not going to play 25 minutes, and so they go in there and they do their job to the best of their ability,” Tauer said.
Bjorklund only played 19 minutes after picking up his third foul early in the second half, and his fourth with almost eleven minutes left to play. Tauer says that just because he wasn’t on the court, doesn’t mean his presence wasn’t felt.
“I would be remiss if I don’t talk about our leadership. In halftime, I came in … there were six bullet points on the whiteboard already, and that was our captains who had written down, these are the six keys in the second half,” Tauer said.
Defense turned into offense for St. Thomas, who capitalized on defensive rebounds and turnovers to kickstart their offense. The Tommies scored 26 points off of 13 NDSU turnovers.
“Our main focus was to come out with a spark on offense, and our defense just getting in the gaps and stuff like that led to our offense and we got our crowd into it,” Blue said.
Tauer knew that NDSU’s physical frontcourt would make it harder to play a set five-on-five.
“We forced eleven turnovers the first half and so I thought that was huge; that got us out in transition. If you’re just playing a halfcourt game with them, they are going to grind you down,” Tauer said.
After a back-and-forth start, the Tommies jumped out to a 42-22 lead by halftime. The Bison had a hot start and finish to the second half, but St. Thomas’ defense down the stretch kept them at bay.
“They just kept doing the same thing and trusted it. Do this for 40 minutes and trust the outcome,” Tauer said.
The Tommies prepared for All-Summit League second team honoree Morgan, and their game plan worked as they designed.
“That was one of our big preparations in practice this week. Whenever he gets in the post … helps and double teams and just make somebody else beat us,” Blue said.
St. Thomas spent 33 minutes with the lead and gave NDSU no chance.
“Tremendous amount of credit to (Tauer) and his squad. They came out of the gates and they were locked in and really dictated pretty much everything,” NDSU coach David Richman said.
St. Thomas advances to the semifinals against South Dakota State on Monday, March 11 at 6 p.m. at the Denny Sanford Premier Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
“We’re going to have to go home, and ice and get rested and we’re really excited to just get the chance to be a part of that game tomorrow,” Tauer said.
Adam Mueller can be reached at muel7541@stthomas.edu.