Eaglestaff shines as UND tops Dickinson State in Bismarck
Back in the Bismarck Event Center, University of North Dakota guard Treysen Eaglestaff felt right at home.
Hearing his name announced in the starting lineup for the Capital City Classic on Tuesday night, Eaglestaff soaked in the surroundings.
"Hearing my name, hearing my mom yelling, you look up at the board and see kids with signs with the number 52 – I'm a family guy, I'm all about love," Eaglestaff said. "I felt a bunch of love tonight."
North Dakota posted an 85-54 non-conference victory over Dickinson State in a game that had Eaglestaff's fingerprints all over it.
The junior Bismarck High grad hit UND's opening basket of both halves – a smooth three-pointer from the wing to start the game and a baseline drive right out of intermission. He finished with a game-high 17 points and made his presence felt all night.
"Like I always tell him – you're a lot more than just a good scorer," UND coach Paul Sather said. "He can really create for others. He can make a lot of right plays. He can get people in positions to score. And he can score at different levels.
"He didn't make most of his threes tonight, he missed some shots but he made some plays around the rim, got others great looks and defensively he's getting better."
The Capital City Classic brought back a trio of former Bismarck standouts to a facility where they had played so many times. Eaglestaff and Century alums Ryan Erikson and Anthony Doppler got big ovations all night.
"That was kind of special," Sather said. "You see two guys in Ryan and Dop that are freshmen that redshirted last year and have done some awesome things for us. They just keep working. This Division I college basketball stuff is hard. Those are guys are really working their butts off and they just keep working but they're doing lots of good things."
In addition to his 17 points, Eaglestaff filled the stat sheet with four rebounds, four assists and a steal and he was a game-high plus-27 in 22 minutes.
"The thing about Trey is his heart's as big as this gym, he cares deeply about people. He cares deeply about this program and the University of North Dakota and being a part of this," Sather said. "He just wears that, he really does. It's an important thing for him. So it was a pretty cool thing to bring him back."
Eaglestaff had 12 points in the opening 10 minutes, helping North Dakota open a 24-12 lead. A 12-2 UND run late in the first half pushed the lead to 19 points (42-23) and North Dakota led 44-25 at the intermission.
An 11-2 run out of the break made it 55-27 and North Dakota began to pull away.
Dariyus Woodson added 11 points and Amar Kuljuhovic and Mier Panoam each had 10 for UND (1-1).
For part of the night, all three Capital City players were on the floor at the same time.
Erikson finished with eight points, four rebounds, one assist and one steal in 12 minutes. Doppler had a pair of rebounds and a steal in 12 minutes.
When he first realized his former cross-town rivals had entered the game along with him, Eaglestaff was thrilled. And his first reaction was to pass the ball.
"I was like geeking out there for a second. Not even just the two Bismarck guys, Zach Kraft from Grand Forks was out there – four North Dakota guys playing Division I, that was insane. That was really cool," Eaglestaff said.
Eaglestaff has played a lot of games in the Event Center. This was one of his favorites.
"It's up there for sure," Eaglestaff said. "Obviously I'm blessed to play basketball at this level and getting UND and our coaching staff to come back to town and Ryan and Dop's hometown was special. I love the Civic, I love the city of Bismarck, it was cool. I was kind of speechless about it."
Cordell Stinson, a transfer from Dawson, led the Blue Hawks (1-4) with 12 points.
Elgin's Weston Zacher finished with two points, four rebounds and a blocked shot. Former Dickinson Trinity Titan Jake Daniel had two points and former Dickinson Midgets Jaiden Wright and Britton Cranston each had two points.
Following the game, Eaglestaff was presented with a star quilt on behalf of the family of former UND coach Dave Gunther, who coached Bob Eaglestaff in college.
"It was awesome to be a part of it," Sather said. "I've known Coach Gunther for a long time. He was a special man and ... to gift that quilt back and be a part of that ceremony, it's kind of a full-circle, special deal. There were so many great people involved in that."
Getting started
Travel issues postponed a road game at Texas-San Antonio last weekend, forcing a unique upcoming home-and-home in mid-December. Due to a Thursday non-conference game in Grand Forks, the men's team played the early game on Tuesday to help the team get some rest.
It's early in the season, but Sather saw a lot of positives.
"The whole thing is just as a team getting better. We've got new guys that are coming in and putting their fingerprints on stuff. It's figuring our rotations. We've got really good depth, we've got a lot of guys that can play and help us right now and we've got guys who will be helping us more as the year goes on," Sather said.
"We've got a tough schedule. Utah Valley coming up Thursday at noon is awfully good. There's going to be big challenges and getting through that and improving, win or lose. We saw some really good things out here tonight. We've seen some really good things at practice. There's so much to be excited about. Our ceiling is high. We just have to allow ourselves to get there."
Another return?
Sather was pleased with the Capital City Classic, which is something that UND is working on doing more often.
"There's a lot of things you wanted to do with this night and I appreciate Dickinson State for taking the time. I know they came off a long road trip this weekend," Sather said. "I appreciate them coming and playing this game. I think we're trying to see what it looks like to have a neutral-court game out here and I thought it went well. The facility was great, the people did an awesome job. With the Bismarck kids we have, it just makes sense. But we're also the University of North Dakota, the flagship school. We should be coming out here and playing some games. It's something we want to do and we've been talking about it so we finally needed to do it."
The school has been working on possibly playing a Big Sky opponent in Bismarck as part of a Division I home-and-home neutral court deal.
"We've been in talks with other teams, whether it's a Big Sky opponent, a Division I game here on a neutral court and returning it somewhere on a neutral court west of here. We've got things rolling."
Up next
Dickinson State: The Blue Hawks visit Montana State-Northern on Monday, Nov. 18 in Havre.
North Dakota: UND's home opener is Thursday at the Betty Engelstad Sioux Center against Utah Valley. On Tuesday, Nov. 19 is a road trip to Notre Dame.
