The NEW Official Thread of the Augustana Vikings

[Augieholic]

Brady Helgren had his best game of the season last night. He was active on the offensive glass and looking to finish when he got the ball in the paint.

That's 4 wins in 5 games for Augie and they could be the South 4 seed after tonight with a win plus a UIU loss. Never doubt Texas Tom.

[Moorhead123]

Augie definitely playing better later on, which was expected with a bunch of freshman coming into the season. I could probably get used to Augie fans getting excited about 4th place finishes in the south ;)

[vikingfaithful]

There was a stretch of time in the 2nd half where Vikings had 3 true freshmen on the court. I believe it was Helgren, Hinker and Rensch, they were dominate over CSP. Would have liked them to stay out longer and had Loge join in. Was good to see Brady Helgren so strong around the glass, he going to be an exciting guy to watch.

[Augieholic]

Friday and Saturday were Bennett Otto's best games of the season. It hasn't been a great season for him but he has always been a guy that plays better when the team is doing well.

This will go down as one of Tom's best coaching jobs. It is a talented group but they were in rough shape as of mid-January and he's pulled the right levers over the last three weekends. He got a young and new team to play defense at a high level for most of the season, that is probably the most impressive trait of this team.

[vikingfaithful]

Billeter has been upbeat all season saying this will be a really good group, it appears he is correct. Yesterday he stated that this team has the ability to beat any team in the league. Two games left, if Vikings win out there are many scenarios that favor Augie. The freshmen are getting more minutes and producing. Helgren's growth is self-evident. Once again Billeter praised the smallest guy on the team. Let's go Viks, win out and make some noise in the tournament.

[vikingfaithful]

Correct me if I'm wrong, the top eight teams earn the right to play in the NSIC tournament? If that is true Augustana has to win last two contests and UIU has to lose one of two. Augie owns the head to head over MSU, UIU and with a victory over SMSU Thursday. Am I missing something?

[Augieholic]

Correct me if I'm wrong, the top eight teams earn the right to play in the NSIC tournament? If that is true Augustana has to win last two contests and UIU has to lose one of two. Augie owns the head to head over MSU, UIU and with a victory over SMSU Thursday. Am I missing something?

Top 6 teams from each division make the conference tournament, top two in each division get first round byes.

[Augieholic]

Another fantastic night at the Pentagon. Women got payback for an early season debacle in Marshall while moving on from a bad loss to Kato.

The men continue to roll. Fink and Miller were incredible tonight and while the offense got stagnant in the 2nd half they finished the job. Now they control their own destiny to host a 1st round game AND with some help could still get a bye. Saturday afternoon will be a frolicking affair.

[vikingfaithful]

I'ts clear that Billeter is not going to put much trust in young teammates as frosh played 30 minutes total in SMSU game. Upper classmen scored 65 of 69 points. When Tom pulled Hinker from action he had sharp words for Caden after a fast break and failed dunk attempt in the 1st half. Helgren logged the most minutes for freshmen at 15 doing yeoman's work defensively.

Despite having lost 4/5 previous games USF in regional rankings. This will be an intense game between rivals in last regular season matchup, both teams have a vested interest in victory. Could be a physical affair with many foul calls.

[vikingfaithful]

Today was a bad day at the office. Vikings streak of hot shooting came to a screeching halt at 31.4%...The missed layups were maddening at least 10 of them. There were a number horrendous calls, which had Fylling openly complaining on the radio. The worst call was an Isaac Fink 3pt shot, which he drained then the whistle blew it looked like a FT coming, no a curiously bad offensive call on Isaac. Hopefully Vikings got a bad game out of themselves. Despite all of that Augie almost won. Wouldn't mind meeting USF again.

[vikingfaithful]

Good newspaper story on incoming big Caden Kirkman

Wilton's Kirkman finds fit, commits to D-II Augustana (qctimes.com)

[Blue Ridge Viking]

Today was a bad day at the office. Vikings streak of hot shooting came to a screeching halt at 31.4%...The missed layups were maddening at least 10 of them. There were a number horrendous calls, which had Fylling openly complaining on the radio. The worst call was an Isaac Fink 3pt shot, which he drained then the whistle blew it looked like a FT coming, no a curiously bad offensive call on Isaac. Hopefully Vikings got a bad game out of themselves. Despite all of that Augie almost won. Wouldn't mind meeting USF again.

He was called for kicking his leg out, ala James Harden. Not saying it was warranted, but that was the call.

[MrAugustana]

Obviously last night was disappointing. Based on how poorly we played them the first time around, this was a marked improvement, but it felt like we should've been up 10-12 that entire game, not exchanging leads every other possession. The end was sickening as an Augie fan, but it is what it is. Thompson is a 26% 3-point shooter on the year and banked in a three to take the lead. Sometimes there's just nothing you can do about it (other than score more points and win by way more).

Based on some of our Friday/Saturday struggles, I would say the odds of winning the entire NSIC Tourney are not in this squad's favor. Having to go to Bemidji on a Wednesday night and then play Saturday, Monday, Tuesday is going to be rough.

That being said, having Northern on the other side of the bracket is one upside. I'll be hoping they get picked off by someone before the championship game. Would love to see us put four good games together and sneak our way into the Regional, but at this point I think I'd be happy with 1-2 wins to end the season. Worst case scenario, we still had a winning season even with a first-round loss (wasn't looking that way 4-5 weeks ago), but 3-4 wins would definitely be better, obviously.

[Augieholic]

He was called for kicking his leg out, ala James Harden. Not saying it was warranted, but that was the call.

I went back and rewatched that play multiple times last night because in real time it appeared to be Ike's normal shooting motion. Upon entirely too many replays I believe it was his normal shooting motion considering he was running towards the baseline from the FT line on a curl BUT his leg was extended so I understand why the ref blew his whistle. It was more than likely a result of his momentum going one way before rising to shoot so I still believe it shouldn't have been an offensive foul.

[MrAugustana]

I suppose I'll post some closing thoughts on this season before taking an at least mild hiatus from the boards. It's good for me to not check this multiple times a day, as much as I like most of you guys.

Obviously, despite it being Augie's 17th winning season in a row, it didn't exactly go the way most Viking fans would've preferred. I'm assuming the players and coaches feel the same way. After winning a conference championship and feeling like any game is winnable, having a season of "who the heck knows how this game will go?" was an abrupt change, at least for me. But that can sometimes be the challenge that follows losing four senior starters, one of whom was overall Player of the Year in the conference and the other of whom was Defensive Player of the Year.

Negatives/opportunities for improvement first:

-There was inconsistency, especially in the first half of the year when Fink was in and out with his knee injury and newer guys hadn't quite figured out the rhythm yet. Around January we started to look like the team I think Augie fans were hoping to see from day 1.

-We lose Miller, who was a great one-year addition. He was undersized which led to him struggling a little in some games to finish around the rim, especially against teams with a solid defensive presence inside. But overall, he was our best and most tenacious on-ball defender and played his guts out when he was on the court. That kind of presence will certainly be missed. We also lose Tiedman. While he put in great effort over the years and I commend him for staying and working all the way through his time at Augie despite playing the majority of his career behind bigs like Riemersma and Dykman, my hope is that an offseason of improvement will help Hinker, Helgren, and Loge prepare to produce at an even higher level next season.

-Also, it feels like this team still doesn't quite have a true "alpha male" leader a lá Cody Schilling, Cameron McCaffrey, Dan Jansen, etc. We had guys step up at various times (Jadan Graves lighting up Mankato at Mankato, Fink having a handful of big games), but Fink can still get lost and seems somewhat easy to guard when the opponent has a strong on-ball defender. I think he'll be the guy to fill that role next year, but I'd love to see at least one guy develop into that more unstoppable type of player like those aforementioned Vikings. Fink can sometimes go a whole half only scoring 2-3 points. Again, I have high hopes for him next season, I just want to see him be the guy who fully takes over a game in the last three or four minutes when we need baskets.

-We still had those weird stretches of games where we would either go dead from the field or have 3-4 bad possessions in a row. Some of that comes with youth and inexperience, but if we want to stay competitive in games with teams as strong as Northern and not get snuck up on by teams like Concordia, we can't have those lulls.

-There were times when I loved Bennett Otto on the floor and times when it seemed like he was so far into his own head that he didn't know up from down. I would love to see him come in confidently next season as an experienced upperclassman who plays with an expectation he'll succeed rather than a fear that he'll fail. I'm no sports psychologist, but like I said, he seems to be as much in his own head as anything.

Positives:

-Akoi looked good this season. Not necessarily all-conference good, but close. If he takes a similar step up between this year and next year like he did this past offseason, he should be a very important piece for us moving forward.

-The young kids got better as the season went on. By the end of the year, I was happy to see Rensch subbing in rather than thinking, "Hope this turns out ok." Which isn't a knock on Sam. If anything, in my mind it shows how quickly he matured as the season went on and how much he improved game-by-game. Really excited to see what next year looks like for him. While I had hoped Hinker/Helgren/Loge would be ready to come in and be major impact (possibly even Freshman of the Year-type) players, I was still happy to see them get better throughout the year. They each had flashes (Hinker and Helgren more than Loge, but Loge still had some solid stretches, especially in late January/early February), now we just need to see that talent show up consistently each night and turn into 8-10 (or more) points per game and 5-7 (or more) rebounds per game with each outing.

-Graves has the potential to be an all-conference caliber player next season, particularly offensively. If he gets stronger this summer so he's able to get to the rim and finish through contact next season, I could easily see him averaging 18-22 ppg.

-On paper, we have a strong recruiting class coming in. That being said, I thought this 2022 group had all of the accolades and internet praise you could hope for in a D2 recruiting class, and while they were good at times, they probably didn't hit the levels I was imagining when they committed and signed. But if this 2023 group can come in and integrate well with these young guys and Graves, Otto, etc., it could be a foundation for a fantastic couple of seasons for Augustana. Then again, with the portal and all the other mess happening in college basketball these days, who know how many of them will even stick around for more than a year or two?

My hope is that they will all come back eager and ready to get some revenge on the teams that took it to them in this "down" season.

-Finally, we're in a pretty good place when a winning season feels like a rough season. Obviously as Vikings fans we expect excellence and it's frustrating when that doesn't happen, but other than Northwest Missouri State, even good teams have off years. Hopefully this is an anomoly and not a trend moving forward. I have a feeling it's a setup for some really strong seasons, but the future is definitely tough to predict in the college basketball world.

I'm excited to see what happens on the recruiting trail this summer (not that we have a ton of spots to fill), and even more excited for next season as we see how some of these younger guys work their way in and start building Augustana back up to where we'd like to be.