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2008-2009 Season Review
BEAVERS WIN 20 - PLAY FOR CONFERENCE TITLE
The Minot State University men’s basketball
team continued its winning ways during the 2008-09 season. The Beavers
finished the year at 20-11 and played for the Dakota Athletic Conference
championship for the second consecutive year.
Tough Schedule: The Beavers played the 10th
toughest schedule in the nation according to MasseyRatings.com.
The best win of the season came in mid-December when the Beavers
avenged an earlier loss to Rocky Mountain College who went on to
win the NAIA-I National Championship. The Beavers also split with
MSU-Northern who also qualified for the NAIA I National Tournament.
Minot State had a great battle with the University of Calgary before
giving way in the final two minutes. Calgary went on the final four
in the Canadian National Tournament. After beating MSU for the DAC
title Black Hills State went on to the NAIA-II final four. During
the regular season BHSU banked in a buzzer-beating three to win
by two in Minot and MSU missed a three at the buzzer at that would
have given them the win in the Black Hills. In all Minot State played
15 games against teams that won at least 17 games during the season.
Home-court Disadvantage?: Minot State struggled
at home. MSU went 3-4 on their home-court during the conference
season while going 5-2 on the road. Including a thrilling overtime
win at Dickinson State in the semifinals of the DAC tournament all
six of Minot’s road wins versus conference opponents were
by double digits.
Statistical Rankings: MSU led the nation in
turnover margin at +5.77 per game. Unfortunately the Beavers also
led the country in fouls per game. With their pressing style of
defense Minot was 2nd in the nation in steals per game. Offensively
the Beavers only shot 42.6 percent from the field including an eleven
year low of 33.5 percent from the three-point arc. All those missed
shots helped MSU rank 12th nationally in offensive rebounding.
National Ratings: Minot State ranked in the
Top 20 by four different computer ratings including 14th by the
Massey MOV system. Unfortunately the NAIA raters did not agree as
the Beavers ranked 29th in the final NAIA National Poll. MSU just
missed gaining an at-large berth to the national tournament as they
were the second highest rated team to not qualify for the national
tournament.
Key Players: Graduating are two-time all-conference
standouts Aaron Patterson and C.J. DeWitty. Patterson led the DAC
in scoring at 18.9 points per game earning him first-team all-conference
honors. DeWitty gained second-team honors for ranking 3rd in scoring,
3rd in steals and 4th in assists. Junior, Mister Carney was a third-team
all-conference selection and was selected as the conference Defensive
Player of the Year for leading the DAC (6th nationally) in steals.
Kenneth McCoy, a junior, was 2nd in the DAC and 15th nationally
in offensive rebounding.
Coach Hultz’s Comments: “I believe
this was only the third time the school has won 20 games (1972,
2005) and yet we feel we came up short. Our schedule was filled
with some really good basketball teams this year so that made it
tough. None-the-less we played poorly at home and that cost us.
We did some very good things defensively and had some guys that
could get something done on the offensive end of the floor. However,
we lacked an inside scoring threat, were inconsistent from the three-point
arc and as a group our shot selection was poor at times. We feel
we should have gotten more respect from the national raters and
been invited to the national tournament but in the same breath know
we didn’t take care of business as we should have. We feel
good about the future as we have several good players returning
and we hope they will be a hungry to get our program back to Branson.”
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