USD’s women’s basketball team was close to taking the lead over the University of North Dakota Saturday at the DakotaDome, but being close doesn’t win the game.
North Dakota held off the Coyote’s comeback attempt in the waning seconds of the contest to claim a 54-51 Great West Conference win in the DakotaDome.
USD head coach Ryun Williams said the game came down to execution in the end.
‘(UND) made timely baskets and we didn’t,’ Williams said. ‘We had our chances, and (UND) converted and we didn’t.’
USD (6-7, 0-1 GWC) had problems shooting the ball all game and finished the night hitting 33 percent (17-51) of their shots, which were mostly from the perimeter.
More than half of USD’s shots were from the three-point range (32), but the Coyotes only made 11 of them.
Williams said North Dakota’s (6-12, 2-0 GWC) defensive set got to the Coyotes, even though that same defense benefitted the Coyotes only a week earlier.
‘North Dakota zoned us, and the zone seems to get us on our heels; we saw the same zone against Seattle and we had fun with it then,’ Williams said.
USD senior forward Kara Iverson said the team just wasn’t making their shots.
‘We had good looks, we just didn’t shoot as well as we could have,’ Iverson said.
Williams said besides Roche, who went 5-9 from three-point range, the rest of the shooters didn’t get going.
‘There was a fine line between catch-and-ready and being not ready,’ Williams said. ‘I saw our kids pull back a little on their shots.’
South Dakota wasn’t able to attack the basket often, which especially hurt the Coyotes midway through the second half.
With about 9 minutes and 30 seconds left to go, USD sophomore guard Annie Roche, who led the Coyotes with 19 points, drew a foul from UND, which put USD in the bonus for the rest of the game.
Roche made both free throws, but the Coyotes only drew one more trip to the line in the second half and USD made just eight trips to the line in the whole game.
‘We need to have a better attack mentality,’ Williams said. ‘We could’ve done a better job attacking the holes, but the zone isn’t foul conducive. I wish we could score better inside.’
Iverson said she thought the team had good looks inside, but North Dakota was able to get a hand or two in to cover the shot well.
UND was picked number one in the preseason polls, and despite being down 11 points at the beginning of the second half, the Coyotes closed the gap to three points at multiple times late in the game, and were down 52-49 with 20 seconds left when UND’s Jossy Bergan missed the front end of a one-and-one and USD junior Abby Kinder grabbed the rebound and called a timeout.
Williams was able to set up the play for the team, but the play didn’t go as planned as sophomore Amber Hegge had to settle with a lay-up off an offensive rebound from her own shot to put USD down 52-51 with three seconds left.
Williams said the team was looking for a three pointer to tie the game, but UND defended the play perfectly.
‘We were trying to cheat in the corner and (UND’s Whitney) Ledger cut it off,’ Williams said. ‘I thought maybe we would have a better chance if we hit the two with five seconds left.’
For North Dakota, it was a third straight win in a rivalry which dates to the now ‘old’ North Central Conference days.
UND coach Gene Roebuck said he enjoyed the trip back to the DakotaDome, mainly because of the win.
‘It’s kind of like ‘Cheers.’ Everybody knows your name,’ Roebuck said. ‘It goes with the territory. It felt like a conference game, which feels good.’
Roebuck also said he enjoyed seeing the large crowd at USD’s game, which ended up numbering 2,100 fans.
‘There were 35 people at Utah Valley,’ said Roebuck, who referenced UND’s recent GWC win over the Wolverines earlier in the week. ‘Having more people makes for an exciting game.’
Roebuck told his team not to do two things during USD’s offensive set.
‘I didn’t want to give USD the three,’ the long-time UND coach said. ‘And don’t foul, even when we were three points up.’
Hegge fouled on the inbounds and sent Kayla Bagaason to the line with and she made both free throws for UND’s 54-51 lead.
USD called its last timeout to set up another play, but senior Jasmine Mosley’s pass sailed over Hegge’s head at midcourt and was handled by Bagaason, who immediately started to walk to the bench, without dribbling the ball and was called for traveling with one second left.
But without any timeouts, USD had to come up with a quick play, and once again USD threw the inbounds pass away to seal UND’s win.
‘We didn’t have time, so we did a scramble play, but we didn’t get what we wanted,’ Iverson said.
The Coyotes did not have time to deal with the loss, but instead rebounded with a quick road trip. The team lost Monday to Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, but has more games coming up against Utah Valley on Thursday and North Dakota on Saturday.
‘We need to take this loss and learn from it and improve,’ Iverson said. ‘Not just against UND, but in our other two games as well.’
Reach reporter Justin Rust at Justin.Rust@usd.edu.
