Fargo
That was a bad loss last Friday for the North Dakota State women’s basketball team. They didn’t play well and lost 62-60 to a team, Denver, they had no business losing to.
When was the last time we said that?
That’s the state of the Bison these days. They came back Saturday and rebounded with a that’s-more-like-it 74-56 victory over the Pioneers. Afterward, head coach Jory Collins was asked if he feared playing down to a level of an opponent.
“Absolutely not,” he said.
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He questioned his team’s level. In Collins’ mind, the Bison aren’t where he wants them to be and that would assume to be a team capable of beating South Dakota and South Dakota State on a consistent basis.
“I don’t even know what level we are,” Collins said. “We’re still getting this thing started. I don’t know that we have a level. I know we’ve been in a lot of real close basketball games, we’re not blowing anybody out so, no.”
The Bison are 11-3, 6-2 in the Summit League. No, they haven’t been blowing many people out beating a winless UND team by three one night and in overtime the next. The Bison were OK against a 1-8 Omaha team. They lost to 3-13 Western Illinois.
They’ll find out their true level in the next month.
Behind them are the bottom four teams in the standings: North Dakota, Western Illinois, Omaha and Denver. A good team that would be considered a favorite to reach the NCAA tournament would have gone 8-0 in that stretch.
The real work lies ahead. They play at Kansas City in a two-game series this weekend followed by a home series against Oral Roberts, two teams that are a combined 7-6 in the league. Then it gets serious with a home series against SDSU and two games at USD.
