UND pulled a houdini act at home against Omaha, stealing a 3 point overtime win against the Mavs to get a critical home sweep. This allowed them to get out of the cellar and move into 8th place in the conference. Now they hit the road for the final time this year. First stop: Tulsa.
Oral Roberts is having a dream season and are destroying every team in their path. They are 4 games away from perfection but have some of their toughest tests yet. The hype is starting to build with this squad, maybe they can make another dream run in March?
Of course, they have to get there and once at Sioux Falls, the margin of error gets smaller and smaller. They are a machine... but they can be had in the right environment.
Milestone watch:
Norman has 69 made 3s this year. UND D1 record is 84 set by Q. With 5 games left to go (at minimum), baring a slump or injury. Norman should be able to hit that mark sometime during the homestand.
Teams to cheer for: Denver, Omaha, NDSU*
*I feel dirty in saying that
If UND wants an outside chance of a 7 seed and not be on the side of ORU, then they need to steal 1 road game this weekend and either have KC or USD get swept. If UND beats KC, that would allow them to have the all important head to head tiebreaker if the two teams end up tied. Lets hope for some chaos this weekend.
The Call:
So how in the hell is UND going to pull this off. Well first, they need to shoot the ball very well from 3. Anything outside of that makes this exercise futile. Now, if they get the shooting they need, then it comes down to taking care of McBride (who was an issue in the first match) and figuring out how to deal with Vanover. Getting their big in foul trouble would be critical. Abmas will get what he wants and UND did a decent job on him in the first matchup, but he looks ready to ball out in his last 2 homes games. ORU is getting -18.5 points, I say that it is closer than the experts think... but ORU will be too much
ORU 90-82
Game is here
https://oruathletics.com/watch/?Live=412