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Toke69
439The Bison come to Davis following a surprisingly close 65-67 loss at Corvalis on Monday. Last season, they finished with a respectable 21-11 record, going 10-6 in the Summit Conference. This season, their only returning starter was last year’s leading rebounder, 6’ 10” Noah Feddersen, Another player to watch is Markhi Strickland, a transfer from Western Michigan, who lead all scorers with 17 points against the Beavers.
It isn’t clear from the box score how the Bison were able to stay so close to Oregon State as they only shot 39% from the field, 19% from beyond the arc and 63.6% from the free throw line. They did have 66 field goal attempts to Oregon State’s 45, hitting on 6 more than the Beavers. What is interesting is that North Dakota State did better on rebounds, assists and turnovers than OSU. The main reason the Beavers won was that they scored 12 more points from the charity stripe than NDSU did. It’s hard to say how good either team is based on one game, especially when both teams had a lot of new players.
The game will be broadcast on ESPN+
Note of interest: While the Aggies have Nils Cooper, son of former NBA star Michael Cooper, North Dakota State has Max Majerle, son of former NBA star Dan Majerle. -
BlueGoldAg
1.5kI think this will be a very tough game for the Aggies. The Aggies have a lot of potential but, from what we saw against Menlo, we're definitely a work in progress. -
BlueGoldAg
1.5kThe men may get a few minutes to put their feet up and bask in the glow of victory, but they’ll be back at it Wednesday evening on their home floor against Summit League power North Dakota State. The Bison opened their season Monday night with a 67-65 loss at Oregon State after missing a shot in the final seconds that would have sent the game into overtime.
As for Wednesday night’s anticipated battle with North Dakota State, Les noted the Bison typically present a lot of problems with the quality of their offensive attack.
“Our defense is going to be tested,” Les added.
https://www.thewaryone.com/p/aggie-men-and-women-coast-to-easy?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F83d68e33-c655-4b82-8c92-ff38c3dd15e2_2068x1348.png&open=false -
Oldbanduhalum
647Cooper looks like a different player this season. Physically I swear he grew an inch. But the biggest change is his outside shot. Last season his mechanics looked all out of sorts. Last night his form was better, ball rotation was good. He clearly put in time in the off season. Combine better shooting with his elite athleticism and aggressiveness and he’ll be one of our statistical leaders -
poisedinpastels
4Definitely agree about Cooper. He looks much more in control now. I’m excited to see more of Suljanovic too! -
DrMike
978it looked like things slowed down for him (small sample size of course). Sevilla is still a smart player who can get hot. Niko is a force inside on defense. Adding a mature Cooper really stabilizes the starting group. -
Toke69
439It's clear that Nils is being more aggressive on offense. He looks for his shot a lot more than he did last year, but he's also playing smart, not forcing his shot. I wasn't able to keep track of who missed all those putbacks and layups against Menlo, but I don't think he had many of those.
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BlueGoldAg
1.5kThe Ags are 2.5 point favorites tonight but this scribe disagrees with the oddsmakers.
North Dakota vs. UC Davis pick, best bet
It is tough to fully evaluate what to make of UC Davis in the opening game given the DII opponent, but it was concerning to me the Aggies did not fully bury Menlo. The undermanned opponents trailed by just eight at halftime and cut the lead to the same margin with just over 13 minutes left to play. UC Davis was able to pull away late in the game, but Menlo still shot 40.0% from beyond the three-point line and if they did not have 28 turnovers would have had a chance to be in it at the end.
I think oddsmakers got this one wrong and am backing North Dakota State to win outright on the moneyline. They are 3-1 in their last four meetings against UC Davis. The Bison also have won 16 of their last 17 Wednesday games played at UC Davis stadium, University Credit Union Center.
There has been more turnover on the North Dakota State roster, but there is a clear concept for who they want to be as a team. UC Davis greatly struggled to score last year and lost their lone reliable source of offense. Being held to 42 points at halftime against a DII opponent is not convincing enough for me to put these concerns to the side.
Expect this matchup to serve as a bit of a wake-up call to the Aggies as they prepare to face true high level competition. If they open the game with the same lack of purpose, North Dakota State is capable of burying them. Count on them pushing the scoring level to a point that UC Davis cannot match and for this to be the story of this matchup. Capitalize on the +114 odds on the moneyline and look for the Bison to pick up their first win of the season.
Whole article here: https://dknetwork.draftkings.com/2025/11/05/college-basketball-prediction-pick-for-north-dakota-state-bison-vs-uc-davis-aggies-on-wednesday-11-5-25/ -
DrMike
978hard to argue with the analysis although I think our inability to pull away in the first half had alot to do with mass substitutions and different combinations.
Easier for Bison to get up for a game in front of several thousand vs a WCC tesm, then a couple hundred vs a DII. Hope we come out strong -
Toke69
439It always puzzled me how people can rely on past contests between teams (i.e NDSU is 3-1 vs, UC Davis) to predict a current matchup unless the previous game(s) were very recent. As it is, teams now change more than ever and even a previous season's results in no way suggest who will win today. This is not to say that I think the Aggies will win, but it is very hard to judge how good they are based on that first game.
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Toke69
439The Aggies did a nice job of adjusting their play after a ragged start, especially on the defensive boards. I hope they can keep it up in the second half. This game is totally winnable. Coach Abatemarco is doing a better job this game. I like the way he speaks fro his coaching experience, but he uses too much jargon sometimes.
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Toke69
439I guess we lost some folks when ESPN screwed up the broadcast, but the Ags had an impressive second half, I think they have a solid starting five and some good depth as well. Tonight gave ma a better sense of how the team is shaping up. Marcus Wilson wasn't flashy but he shows signs of being a solid point guard and Sevilla is shooting from distance in a way that reminds me of Eli Pepper. Rocak and Cooper form as solid a pair of forwards as I've seen recently and Omer Suljanovic showed that he can be a force as well. I think Bob Williams will be doing the color for future home games and that's good too.
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Davisbear
30I was at the game…one of the few there. Marcus Wilson is really impressive for a redshirt freshman, very explosive. Sevilla has added the ability to penetrate to his outside shooting game. Overall a good win. Attendance was abysmal. Whatever they are doing in terms of advertising to the public or marketing to the students isn’t working. Just a total embarrassment. -
BlueGoldAg
1.5kJust got home from the game. Very nice win for this very young Aggie team. There is a whole lot of potential on this team and it's going to be fun to watch them grow and get better.
In the post-game, radio interview, Les said he did not like the lack of energy in the first half and they "discussed" that at halftime. He also said that he really liked the way the team responded and came out in the second half with good intensity which was led by the team leaders.
We were getting killed on the offensive boards in the first half but we did a much better job of getting better spacing and blocking out in the second half. I thought our defense really turned up the heat in the second half also and that energized the offense and the 3's started dropping.
Niko had 6 blocks and I thought the foul on his 7th was not a good call. He looked straight up and down to me. Suljanovic, Stokes and Rawlins are impressive for true freshmen. Daugherty, Fagbemi and Esso-Essis were all in street clothes. Hope to see them back soon. -
Jdur
188Yeah the marketing was lacking in my opinion…. Didn’t see any buildup/hype around campus for the opening game or this first d1 matchup really. Maybe a few posts on social media? The rain also may have kept some folks at home (considering like 900 tickets were sold). Granted, I think most students still don’t know who NDSU is…especially basketball fans. -
Jdur
188Going to have to/hoping that the mountain west next year brings some energy with new members that are more name recognizable/better competition next year, but I think once big west play starts attendance should boost.
Slightly unrelated to basketball but the PR confusion of our basketball team and every other sport being in the mountain west and not playing a single mountain west team playing our football team and explaining that we are still in the big sky will be interesting to manage. I feel like it’s so hard to explain the big west/big sky situation we are in already and people understand the big west doesn’t have football….
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