On Thursday, January 11th, the UND men’s basketball team took a trip to Omaha, Nebraska to play the Omaha Mavericks in a Summit League game. They arrived without having won a game in nearly a month. That would not change on Thursday.
The Hawks and the Mavericks traded buckets for the first five minutes of the game, each team with multiple trips to the free throw line early.
Omaha held a 10-8 lead when they went on a 10-point run to make it 20-8. Four different Mavericks scored on that run.
The Hawks responded with a 12-point run of their own, featuring a three-pointer from Treysen Eaglestaff (So.), who is shooting 37% on the season from beyond the arc. Eaglestaff buried three triples in the first half.
The score was 33-33 with under three minutes to play in the first half, and Omaha began separate. The Mavericks closed the half on an 8-1 run and earned a 41-34 lead going into the break.
The closest that the Hawks would come to tying the game would be a six-point deficit. The Mavericks controlled the second half, getting several looks at the rim. Omaha outscored UND in the paint 32-22 on Thursday night.
After UND showed signs of life with yet another Eaglestaff three-pointer, Omaha would use its balanced scoring attack to slowly build its lead to 19 with under two minutes left in the contest.
The Omaha Mavericks defeated the UND Fighting Hawks 79-61. Thursday was UND’s sixth consecutive loss.
Eaglestaff led the Hawks in scoring with 15 points, 12 of which came from three.
BJ Omot (So.) and Amar Kuljuhovic (Jr.) were the only other Hawks who scored in double figures, Omot adding 12 and Kuljuhovic with 10. Kuljuhovic led UND on the glass, grabbing 11 rebounds on the night, five of them being on the offensive end.
UND’s bench continued to struggle, scratching out a mere 8 points as a unit on Thursday.
The Hawks made 15-23 free throws (65%), compared to the 86% that the Mavericks shot from the stripe. Omaha shot 14% better than UND did overall.
UND lost the turnover battle, giving the ball up 13 times to Omaha’s 9. UND did not register a block against Omaha, either.
With the loss, the Fighting Hawks fell to 8-10 on the season, gaining firm control of last place in the Summit League. After Thursday, UND is the only team in the conference without a Summit League win.
UND’s next home game will be against Oral Roberts (8-8), the defending Summit League champion on Thursday, January 18th at 7 pm in the Betty Engelstad Sioux Center. Tickets are free to UND students via their Green and White accounts.
Garrett Webber is a Dakota Student Section Editor. He can be reached at [email protected].
