[BasketballAlum] newsletter 2/15

[James Kuronen]

3 IN A ROW
We defeated the Univ of North Dakota last Saturday to extend our 
winning streak to 3. UND came into Romano Gym tied with us at 3-5 in 
the NCC. They jumped out to a pretty sizable lead in the first half 
after playing the best basketball I've seen them play this year. They 
were ahead 16 points with 4:09 to play and we managed to cut the lead 
at half to a more manageable 7. UND shot 54% the first half and we 
managed only 36%. We felt good at half-time though, we didn't believe 
UND could sustain and we had missed some very easy shots we felt would 
fall in the second half. We kept chipping away in a very hard fought 
intense game until we took the lead 53-52 at the 9:17 mark. The game 
stayed back and forth with neither team being able to open anything up 
until with 1:34 remaining John Vaudreuil (So.-Bloomington Jefferson) 
made 2 free throws to put us up 5. UND came down and scored an inside 
bucket by a perimeter player, but John Emerson (Sr.-New Richmond, WI) 
hit a big 3 late in the shot clock to put us up 6 with :49 seconds to 
go. John took only 6 shots for the game and scored 7 points. Two 
factors were at play #1) UND leads the NCC in perimeter defense, they 
really hound you on the outside and switch screens which opens things 
up somewhat on the inside but open 3's are a commodity and #2) John 
handled the ball at the lead guard spot for many minutes with Sean 
Seaman (Sr.-Duluth Denfeld) out. About 15 minutes of the game John had 
to handle it which, as you know changes a lot of dynamics for getting 
shots off.
Jordan Nuness came off the bench to start the game and started the 2nd 
half and caught fire, 13 second half points for a high game total of 
19. When Jordan gets that look in his eyes everything seems to go in. 
He was 4-4 the second half which included 3-3 from the 3 point line. 
Matt Hockett (Jr.-McFarland, WI) came off the bench to really give us a 
spark with some hustle plays. We've taken to showing hustle plays in 
practice the week following each game and more and more they are 
turning into Matt Hockett highlight films. Hockett made a play that 
Coach Holquist says he'll take with him the rest of his life. UND had 
made a steal and had a guard going in for an uncontested lay-up. Matt, 
hustler that he is, sprinted from behind, dove, and tipped the ball out 
of bounds from behind just as the UND player took his last dribble 
before the anticipated lay-up. We are drawing a lot of confidence and 
energy from Matt's plays.
Sean Seaman should be back on Saturday for our last home regular season 
game vs. Nebraska-Omaha. He practiced today and looked to be fully 
recovered.
In our statistics we have a unique thing. We have 5 players averaging 
double figures. I can never remember a time when UMD has had that. John 
Emerson leads us with 13.6, Seaman is 12.3, Bryan Foss (Jr.-Osseo, MN) 
is 11.1, and Jordan Nuness and John Vaudreuil are both at 10.6.
After Saturday's game with UN-O we take to the road to finish the NCC 
schedule at Omaha on Thursday 2/23 and at UND Saturday 2/25. The first 
round of the NCC Tournament begins Wednesday, March 1. We are fighting 
for a home game on that Wednesday. We believe 2 out of the final 3 will 
get it for us.

Butch Kuronen
Assistant Basketball Coach
University of Minnesota Duluth
218-726-6199 (office)
218-591-7618 (cell)
jkuronen at d.umn.edu