The ol’ blog had some problems today getting stuff to stick, so I know what the Bison men’s basketball team went through last night. A few thoughts from the 90-84 loss to Minnesota State Moorhead — and they’re not pretty.

• Defense. Specifically perimeter defense. Dragon guard D.J. Hamilton scored 32 points and although some of those were of the major college variety, still, there was nobody who could shut him down out front. The only Hamilton the Bison play who should be capable of scoring 32 would be Oakland guard Reggie Hamilton.
• Effort. I mentioned this to fellow scribe Eric Peterson, who wrote the story for The Forum, but the Bison players had blank-like looks to them at times. Maybe that goes back to effort on defense, but an exhibition game is not practice.
• Leadership. Maybe it’s been good in practice and maybe it was good in the Canadian Tour in August, but there wasn’t much evidence of it against the Dragons. NDSU needs to find somebody to take the reigns from Freddy Coleman and Michael Tveidt.
• Don’t overreact. It was an exhibition game, and this team is young. On the positive side, it was a lesson learned despite it not counting on the won-loss record.