North Dakota-Idaho State postgame

North Dakota 80, Idaho State 75

Check out the Journal's game recap here.


Star for the game: Jeffrey Solarin. In a losing effort, Solarin was great. He overpowered, outworked and muscled his way into the paint to collect 12 offensive rebounds.

North Dakota — not the biggest or most physical of squads — was obliterated by Solarin and his energy (the key ingredient to a great rebounder). What was most startling was the difference between the brawn of a team like Northern Colorado and swiftness of North Dakota. UNC (and Weber, too) has a rotation stuffed with guys who are big and muscled and the Bears do everything they can to attack inside. By comparison, North Dakota counts on its speed and quickness. See them back to back and the differnce really stood out.

Ultimately, Solarin's career night wasn't enough in the loss but with the way North Dakota shot the ball (27-45), ISU would have lost by 20 without his effort on the glass.

Star of the game No. 2: Northern Colorado's Cole Stefan. Stefan isn't North Dakota's best player but I thought the 6-foot-3 junior was huge for UND down the stretch when the mascot-less closed out the game.

Stefan finished with 11 points and four assists. He was a calming influence who seemed to always make the right decision for how to attack the Bengal zone. Against ISU it's not the first pass, but the second that opens up a shooter or creates a driving lane. North Dakota's ball movement — and Stefan, to my eye, was a big part of that — was the key to the mascot-less winning a game on the road where they were outrebounded 47-19.

Reason for concern: Like Solarin, this is pretty obvious. The reason for concern is that Idaho State is now 5-7 in the Big Sky Conference, a mark tied with Eastern Washington for ninth place.

The Bengals trail four squads by two games for second place, and then there's three more teams between second and ninth. You know what, rather than explaining, check it out for yourself here.

The takeaway from the standings: With a road game at Southern Utah, followed by a home date with Weber State and then a road trip to Montana and Montana State after that, the Bengals are looking at a possible 6-10 league record by the time Feb. 27 and March 1 roll around (that's when ISU hosts Northern Arizona and Sac State).

Even if the Bengals win those two games, they're looking at an 8-10 record with two road games (at PSU and EWU) to finish the conference season. I'm getting at the fact that Idaho State needs to beat Southern Utah (yeah, duh) Saturday, Weber State Feb. 17 and then find a way to steal a game on the road in Montana.

That puts Idaho State at 8-8 before Sac and NAU arrive in Pocatello. Win those two and 10 games might be enough to make the postseason tournament. With eight games left, who knows at this point, but last season eight wins was enough for the seven seed. It feels like more is going to be needed in 2014.