2014 NCAA Tournament Profile: Summit League Champion North Dakota State Bison

By Trevor Lowry
North Dakota State basketball
Greg Bartram-USA TODAY Sports

Record: 25-6

RPI: 36

BPI: 63

Conference: Summit League

How They Qualified: Summit League Tournament Champions

Region/Seed: West, No. 12

 

North Dakota State had a very successful season and won the Summit League regular season title and conference tournament. They needed the automatic bid to get into the 2014 NCAA tournament because Summit Leaguers don’t exactly get the most at-large bids in college hoops.

The Bison played at Ohio State and at Notre Dame this season. They beat the Fighting Irish and they lost to the Buckeyes. Other than those two games, the rest of their schedule was mid-major city.

 

What You Need to Know:

Leading Scorer: Taylor Braun (18.2 ppg)

Leading Rebounder: Taylor Braun (5.5 rpg)

Leading Passer: Taylor Braun (3.9 apg)

Bad Losses: North Dakota

Good Wins: Notre Dame, IPFW (twice), Delaware, South Dakota State (twice)

 

Taylor Braun is clearly an important piece to this basketball team. He also leads the team in steals with 1.6 per game. Braun has only made 41 three-pointers this year, but he has shot 44.1 percent from behind the arc in the process.

North Dakota State has three other players averaging 10 or more points per game. TrayVonn Wright is one of them and he actually led the team in scoring (19 points) against IPFW in the Summit League championship. Big performances from players not named Taylor Braun will be a must for the Bison.

Braun will have to show up as well, though, as he leads the team in basically everything.

North Dakota State enters the tournament on a nine-game win streak. Hopefully they can keep that streak going.

The North Dakota State Bison are dancing!

 

Trevor Lowry is a Senior Writer and Copy Editor at www.RantSports.com. If you’re a tweeter feel free to follow him @TheTrevorLowry or add him to your network on Google.

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