UMC Men’s Basketball Cruises To Win Over Valley City State

The University of Minnesota Crookston Golden Eagle Men’s basketball won their opening game of the Golden Eagle Basketball Classic over Valley City State (NAIA) 84-54 in a non-conference game played at Lysaker Gymnasium in Crookston.
Minnesota Crookston suffered a slow offensive start to the game shooting just 1-11 from the field early in the half with a Gable Smith jump shot and a pair of Brian Sitzmann (R-Fr., Savage) free-throws providing UMC’s only points through the first seven minutes of the game allowing VCSU to jump out to a 10-4 lead. “The thing that’s nice to see and gets me excited about our team,” said UMC head coach Dan Weisse, “is that when we do start 1-11 shooting from the field we were still in the ball game because our defense was playing and rebounding and we were talking. Valley City, the shots they did make were pretty tough, so give the credit for that.” Malcolm Cohen (R-Jr., Detroit, MI) stopped the Golden Eagles scoring drought with a three-pointer cutting the deficit to 10-7. Chris Morgan scored five-straight points for Valley City State giving the visitors a 17-9 lead with 10:50 to play in the half before the Golden Eagles went on a 16-0 run holding the Vikings without a point for 5:40 allowing UMC to take a 25-17 lead. Ben Juhl (Soph., Clive, IA), Chase Knickerbocker (Sr., Annandale), and Harrison Cleary (Jr., Oak Creek, WI) made three-straight three-pointers for the Golden Eagles allowing the hosts to grow their lead to 34-19 with 4:02 left in the first half. However, Valley City state scored 10-straight points late in the half before a Harrison Cleary baseline jump shot just beat the buzzer giving Minnesota Crookston a 36-29 halftime lead. “When the ball is falling in, you feel a little bit better about yourself and when it’s not falling you’ve got to be able to man up and play defense,” said Weisse.
The Golden Eagles opened the second half by scoring 13-straight point including a pair of finishes through fouls by Josh Collins (Sr., Minneapolis) to give Minnesota Crookston a 49-29 lead while keeping the Vikings scoreless over the first 3:54 of the second half. UMC continued to pull away throughout the rest of the half with another 7-point run pushing the UMC lead to 27 halfway through the second half. The Golden Eagles were able to clear their bench with several minutes left in the game and the sizable lead remained unchallenged as Minnesota Crookston closed out the 84-54 win. “We had six stops in a row to start the second half,” noted Weisse. “We think we can be pretty efficient on offense, but you can only get separation by getting stops. It’s good to weather a storm. It’s hard to coach when you’re not making shots, but you feel better about when you’re getting stops on the defensive end of the floor. When you’re doing both things then you can become a pretty decent team.”
UMC improves to 3-1 and wraps up the Golden Eagle Basketball Classic on Sunday against Concordia-Moorhead at 4 p.m. with the Riverview Health Pregame show starting at 3:30 p.m. Valley City State played the game as an exhibition so their record remains 1-5.

Gable Smtih goes up for a slam dunk   Chase Knickerbocker muscles up a shot

Harrison Cleary drives by a Viking defender