Friday Night is Hoops Night: week 1
Tonight is the first winter night for basketball in North Dakota so we bring you “Friday Night is Hoops Night” because there is no better place to be on a Friday night than watching high school basketball.
Devils Lake vs West Fargo. The original schedule had give games on it for the evening but now there are only two. Fair enough. But on opening night of the high school season two games is better than one especially when one of those games is Devils Lake at West Fargo, #5 vs #7.
Projected Line-Ups
G1. Nik Desai vs Simon Habonimana
G2/W1. Jacob Mertens vs. Joe Pistorious
W2. Zach Dahlen vs. Abdi Sufi
F. Hunter Fee vs. Matt Thompson
C. Jagger Miller vs. Luke Lennon
6th Man. Preston Reierson Vs. Michael Yeanay
Devils Lake returns four of their top six guys including two of the top guys from last season plus Jagger Miller should step in and play a strong role. The Thunderbirds have an experienced and talented starting five but the question is what will last year’s JV provide? All teams have to bring talent up and the Thunderbirds have a dozen seniors so you can expect that some of them are ready for their varsity year.
We feel stronger about what Devils Lake has back but West Fargo is also quite talented. Joe Pistorious is one of the state’s best juniors and Simon Habonimana played a load of minutes for the Packers plus Luke Lennon and Abdi Sufi played reserve roles a year ago.
Turtle Mountain vs Williston. Williston won only six games a year ago and they lost DeSean Eikens to a move to Utah. They do return four experienced guys including Baily Bethke and William Brown. A year ago Eikens took an insane amount of shots compared to his teammates and only made 24 percent of his threes and less than half of his foul shots so while his talent is gone there will be room for others to step up and there will be more ball movement.
The Braves bring back everyone but their third leading scorer so they will improve on last year’s four wins, they just need to defend somebody. Some of the point totals they allowed were wild. That said Taven Azure and Nate LaFountain return after scoring in double figures a year ago plus Seth Gillis and Colten Birkland are also back.