North Dakota State’s upset pursuit had the support of the crowd, but Aldrich was too hard to guard in his return home.
Sherron Collins scored a season-high 32 points and went basket-for-basket with NDSU star Ben Woodside, and Aldrich finished with 23 points and 13 rebounds to help the defending national champion Jayhawks hold off the 14th-seeded Bison 84-74 in the NCAA Tournament’s first round Friday.
Kansas (26-7) was ahead the entire second half, but the No. 3 seed in the Midwest Region rarely led by double digits.
“We had to get tougher today to win, and that’s a good thing,” Kansas coach Bill Self said.
Woodside’s 37 points led Self to declare him the best guard his team faced this season, and his third 3-pointer pulled North Dakota State (26-7) to 73-67 with 2:25 left. But Aldrich’s one-motion putback, his eighth dunk of the game, on the next possession essentially ended the Bison’s hope and sent KU to a duel against No. 11 seed Dayton on Sunday.
“It’s tough,” Woodside said, “because you’re worried about him inside but also you’re worried about their shooters in the corner.”
Aldrich, a 6-11 sophomore who starred at Bloomington Jefferson High School not far from the Metrodome, had 15 points in the second half.
“We tried to front him, and they quite got a few lobs over us,” said NDSU’s Brett Winkelman, who had 15 points and 12 rebounds while playing all 40 minutes. “Then we tried to play behind him. He’s a great player, and obviously he’s going to have a great future. It was frustrating not being able to do a little more.”
Self warned Collins about Woodside, who also played all 40 minutes.
“I didn’t know he was THAT good,” said Collins, who had eight assists and was so steady that KU had only five turnovers.
In their first season of eligibility for the tournament after a four-year waiting period following their move up from Division II, the Bison proved they indeed play pretty good basketball up on the prairie.
They were within three points several times down the stretch, but the unheralded Summit League champions couldn’t clear that last hurdle and clearly wore down.
Center Lucas Moormann, one of the five seniors who redshirted as freshmen for this chance to play in the NCAAs, fouled out with 5:47 left. NDSU went 3-for-11 from 3-point range after halftime after sinking seven of 13 before.
Kansas had all the power, depth and historical prominence, but the Bison had a built-in advantage. The crowd was roughly three-quarters in favor of NDSU, the sea of yellow shirts and green hats rising and roaring with nearly each Bison basket.
Woodside was every bit as fast and impossible to stop as Collins. He blew by Collins from 25 feet out near the 8-minute mark of the second half for a layup that cut the Kansas lead to 58-55.
But within seconds, Collins pulled up in the lane and hit a jumper to bump the advantage back to five points.
“Make no mistake about it, we’ve gotten used to not losing, and this really hurts right now,” NDSU coach Saul Phillips said. “It hurts because we just want to keep playing together as a group."
