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MSU men to host first playoff game

Before every season, the Minot State men’s basketball team sets a preseason goal to accomplish something that has never been done before in school history.

Last year, the Beavers wanted to finish a season above .500 for the first time since moving to Division II. Mission accomplished, as Minot State finished 15-14 in the 2015-2016 campaign.

Entering the 2016-2017 season, senior guard Nathan Mertens and company wanted to host a Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference first round playoff game at the MSU Dome for the first time ever.

MSU crossed another item off its to do list, as it will host Sioux Falls at 7 p.m. this evening at the MSU Dome in the opening round of the NSIC Tournament. The winner advances to Sioux Falls Sunday to face the winner of No. 1 Southwest Minnesota State and No. 8 Minnesota Duluth, while the loser’s season will end.

“I mean, it’s big to get that home game,” Mertens said. “It felt really good after winning at Bemidji last week and learning we were going to accomplish our goal. But now we have to take care of business. It’s going to be a good game because Sioux Falls is a tough team.”

But hosting a game won’t matter if Minot State can’t reach another milestone that has escaped the team four separate times. The Beavers are 0-4 in their brief NSIC Tournament history, but fifth-year coach Matt Murken thinks this year’s team is best equipped to break through for the school’s first Division II playoff win.

“Once you get to the playoffs, you want to be playing your best basketball and I think we are,” Murken said. “We have to compete with a sense of urgency, because whoever does that can make a run in this tournament. I certainly think that could be us, but we have to make it happen today first.”

MSU (14-14), the No. 4 seed in the NSIC North, defeated Sioux Falls (14-16), the No. 5 seed in the NSIC South, 77-66 on Feb. 4 at the MSU Dome.

The Beavers ran plenty of sets that gave junior Tyler Rudolph a plethora of open looks in the second half en route to the forward scoring a career-high 34 points, 24 of those coming after halftime.

“I’m sure they’ll do a few different things this time around that they didn’t do last time,” Murken said. “They’ll mix it up a little bit and it was a really competitive game in the first half. When we played up here we took control in the second half a little bit and executed very well. I’m sure they’ll mix up a little bit too so they make it harder for us.”

Sophomore forward Drew Guebert leads USF averaging 15.2 points and 5.2 rebounds per game, while senior guard Mack Johnson averages 14.7 points and 4.2 rebounds a contest.

“I give Minot State credit for the way they executed last time,” USF coach Chris Johnson said. “We did not execute well defensively and Rudolph made us pay for it. Minot is a good basketball so we’ll have to be locked in for a chance to win.”

MSU women enter playoffs with nothing to lose

Despite her team’s regular season record, Minot State women’s basketball coach Sheila Green Gerding doesn’t expect her team to hold anything back tonight.

The Beavers, the No. 8 team in the NSIC North, face the No. 1 team in the NSIC South in Augustana at 6 p.m. today in Sioux Falls, S.D.

“Nothing expects anything from us or expecting us to win other than us,” Green Gerding said. “We’re going to go in and give it everything we’ve got.”

MSU (4-24) hopes Augie (22-7) will come out of the game tense as the higher seed, which Green Gerding said can be common.

“You’re supposed to win, bottom line,” Green Gerding said. “If you’re the home team, you’ve earned that spot. Sometimes in that situation you could do one of two things, you could be overconfident and overlook that other team or you could just be feeling the pressure of that game you’re supposed to win.”

The winner of the contest gets to stay in Sioux Falls to face the winner of Winona State and the University of Mary Saturday, while the loser will have its season end.

Some controversy has surrounded this game in various NSIC circles. Augustana will host the game at the Sanford Pentagon – the site for the remainder of the NSIC Tournament once the first round is concluded – as opposed to its normal home venues of Sioux Falls Arena or the Elmen Center.

Yet, Green Gerding doesn’t have an issue with the game being played at the Pentagon.

“As much as everyone on the outs of the conference probably doesn’t like the fact that Augustana is hosting this game at the Pentagon, we’re pretty excited about it,” she said. “It’s not their home court, so we see that as an advantage to go play there and hopefully continue to play there. If we lose, I hope our kids see that environment and see how cool it is and strive to get back there.”

Garrick Hodge covers Minot State athletics, the Minot Minotauros and high school sports. Follow him on Twitter @Garrick_Hodge.

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