GRAND FORKS, N.D. – North Dakota had a great all-around performance against Oral Roberts Saturday afternoon, leading for over a third of the game in a back-and-forth affair but could not overcome ORU as the Golden Eagles got the win 84-72 at the Betty.
B.J. Omot set a new season high with 20 points, crossing the 20 point mark for the first time as a Hawk (7-14, 1-7 SL); which led the team in scoring. He scored the first 11 points of the game for the Hawks and 16 of his points in the first half. He made a team high four three pointers, all in the first half. He also led the team with three assists.
Omot was joined in double figures by Tstone Tsartsidze, who scored 15 points and grabbed a team high eight rebounds. Brady Danielson and Matt Norman both scored 12 points. Tsartsidze scored nine points in the second half, including a highlight reel dunk and great putback off a missed shot.
As a team, UND made nine treys in the first half and finished with 11. Norman, Danielson and Tsartsidze each had two triples while Treysen Eaglestaff also had one from downtown.
In the game, North Dakota shot 26-67 from the floor (38.8%) and 11-38 from three-point range (28.9%). The team crashed the offensive glass with 13 offensive boards, which led to 14 second chance points.
UND jumped out to a 6-2 lead with two Omot threes in the early going, but ORU pushed back with a 7-0 spurt to take a 9-6 lead. Tsartsidze got on the board with a three pointer that put UND back on top 14-12 and the seesawing went back and forth most of the first half. With the game tied at 35, four straight points from the Hawks gave them a four-point lead at 39-35; which was their largest lead of the game.
The second half looked much like the first, with the teams staying almost neck and neck. At 15:42, Tsartsidze took the pass from Norman at the three-point line and drove into the lane for a highlight reel jam that put UND up 45-42. Later on, he had his second highlight reel play as he grabbed the offensive board off a miss and put it back in with the and-one to tie the game at 50. But with UND up 52-50, ORU went on a 6-0 run to take back the lead and they did not relinquish it for the rest of the game. UND hung tough as Eaglestaff made it a two-point game with just over six minutes to go knocking down two from the foul line but the Hawks couldn’t make that final push to get the lead back.
North Dakota will visit Western Illinois on Monday at 6 p.m. (CT).
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