WMU men’s basketball team loses to North Dakota

Bryan Paas
Staff Reporter

A six-point halftime deficit did not affect the North Dakota State Bison, who would drop 58 points on the Broncos in the second half of Saturday’s men’s basketball game in Fargo, North Dakota.

With Western leading 17-15 with 12:05 remaining in the first half, the Broncos (11-16, 5-7 MAC) forced Jordan Aaberg to turn the ball over, resulting in a Brandon Pokley 3-pointer that would spark the Broncos to a 13-4 run. This put the score at 30-19 before the Bison were able to call a timeout and regroup with 7:53 remaining in the half.

The Bison (17-10) were able to slow down the Broncos’ run and pull within six points when Mike Felt knocked down a 3-pointer for the Bison to make the score 30-24 with 4:25 remaining in the half.

Going into the second half, the Broncos would lead by six with the score 34-28.  Mike Douglas led the way for the Broncos with 11 points and three 3-point baskets.  The Broncos looked to have the game under control and hadn’t trailed the game since the 16:45 mark in the first half.

The second half was a completely different half for the Broncos.  The Bison scored on four of their first seven possessions and took a 35-34 lead with 18:14 left in the game.  Western quickly tied the game at 35-35 when Flenard Whitfield split a pair of free throws with 18:02 left.
That lead would be the last for Western, as the Bison exploded for 58 points in the second half while the Broncos only could manage 39.

With 5:50 left in the game, Marshall Bjorklund fouled on the Broncos’ Matt Stainbrook, allowing him to complete a 3-point play and pull the Broncos within four with the score being 57-61.

Following the late run by the Broncos, the Bison quickly scored in three of their next four possessions to go up by the score of 65-57.  The Bison would get up by as many as 14 until Mike Douglas was able to stop the Bronco scoring drought with a layup at the 4:05 mark in the second half.

The Broncos fell to the Bison 86-73.

The month of February has not been good to the Broncos, who have dropped five of their last six games, including back to back losses in overtime.  Despite their late season skid, the Broncos are only a game back of Eastern Michigan in the MAC West standings and have four conference games remaining, including a home game against the Eagles on Feb. 29.

The Broncos next game will be at home this Wednesday against Ball State at 7:00 p.m.

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Posted by njstrehl on Feb 19 2012. Filed under Breaking, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Nora Strehl