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On the road again

Both MSU basketball teams preparing for challenging weekend

Sean Arbaut/Minot State athletics MSU's Diondra Denton (44) puts up a shot during a women's college basketball game earlier this season in the MSU Dome.

A six-game winning streak will be put to the test for the Minot State men’s basketball team this weekend.

MSU (13-1, 7-1 NSIC) has road contests with MSU Moorhead (4-10, 2-6) tonight and Northern State (14-1, 8-0) on Saturday.

Both venues have been a house of horrors for the Beavers, as they haven’t won in Moorhead since the 1988-1989 season and haven’t beaten Northern in Aberdeen since the 1987-1988 campaign.

NSU handed the Beavers their lone loss, 86-60, on Dec. 1 at the MSU Dome, while MSU beat Moorhead for the first time in the Division II era 78-65 on Dec. 2.

“It will be interesting to play both of those teams for the second time already,” MSU coach Matt Murken said. “It’s really our first repeat week. It’s a nice weekend to have it because of the way the calendar falls. We should be familiar with them, because we played both not too long ago. We have to find a way to get a couple wins in places where road wins are fairly hard to come by.”

The Northern State game in particular is fresh in the minds of MSU players, their lone blemish on an otherwise perfect season. After entering halftime only trailing by two points, the Beavers were outscored 53-29 in the second half by the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference preseason favorite. In the latest Division II men’s coaches poll, the Wolves were ranked No. 13 in the nation.

“We need to execute a lot better offensively against them, because we didn’t really play too well last time,” Murken said. “They held us to 60 points and we’ve scored a lot better than that the rest of the year. I don’t think we spaced the floor very well and we didn’t have a great pace to the game. Us and them are near the top of the league in a lot of defensive categories, so if you’re not moving the ball well, it’s going to be a long night.”

MSU women

bracing for another

tough slate

Minot State’s confidence never wavered after a five-game losing streak that included facing the top four teams in the NSIC, mostly because it had its eyes on its end season goal: hosting a first round playoff game.

The Beavers put themselves in a position to keep that dream alive with a home weekend sweep of St. Cloud State and Minnesota Duluth. It was the first NSIC weekend sweep for the Beavers since February, 2015 when they defeated Minnesota Crookston and Bemidji State.

“I knew if we dropped those two, there was a possibility we might lose nine in a row with this upcoming weekend,” MSU coach Mark Graupe said. “You had to wonder, ‘Well, are they going to lose faith in me as a coach and lose confidence in themselves?’ But we just have our eyes on a top four seed and we knew if we dropped these, that probably wasn’t going to happen.”

The bad news for MSU is it has a road trip against two teams that started the losing streak in MSU Moorhead and No. 19 Northern State. MSU lost to NSU 77-58 on Dec. 1 and allowed 16 3-pointers in Moorhead’s 85-64 victory on Dec. 2.

“The night we caught Moorhead, they were on fire,” Graupe said. “But, we’ll go in there and give it our all. I think that’s what I love about these group of girls is they don’t quit and they scrap till the final buzzer. With that kind of a group, you never know.”

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

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