McFeely: Possible broken nose won't keep Hamling out as Bison women chase Summit League's second seed

Hamling, a senior guard and the team's leading scorer, took a shot to the nose in the second half of Thursday's 64-44 victory at St. Thomas and finished the game wearing a protective mask. Averaging 16 points, she scored just five on 2 of 7 shooting against the Tommies.

In a postgame radio interview, Bison coach Jory Collins offered that Hamling's nose was probably broken. On Friday morning, Collins still wasn't sure on the diagnosis. Hamling had seen a doctor for X-rays, but the results weren't back yet.

Collins' amateur opinion on Hamling's nose from what he saw on the sidelines at Schoenecker Arena: "It looked different."

That's the bad news. The good news is Hamling will likely play in the regular-season finale Saturday at Western Illinois, in what has become an important contest as Collins tries to build the Bison into a top Summit League program.

"If the nose is broken she'll wear a mask. If it's not she won't," Collins said. "Whatever is the case, I don't think it's going to keep her off the floor."

The win at St. Thomas bumped the Bison to 11-6 in the conference, 17-10 overall. They are tied for second place with North Dakota (11-6, 18-9), which walloped Western Illinois 86-70 on Thursday. A win against the Leathernecks (5-12, 10-18) would assure a second-place tie for NDSU and keep alive the possibility of the second seed in the conference tournament.

An earlier column I wrote jumped the gun on awarding NDSU the second seed if it swept this week. According to the Summit League's tiebreaker criteria, if NDSU and UND win Saturday, UND would get the second seed if Kansas City beats South Dakota and Denver beats Omaha.

The two seed would allow NDSU to play Saturday, March 4, in the quarterfinals against the winner of the game between the No. 7 and 10 seeds. The 7-10 game would be played Friday, so the Bison would have a week off before playing an opponent that had a game 24 hours prior.

If NDSU won its quarterfinal game, it would get a day off before Monday's semifinals. The No. 3 seed would play a Sunday quarterfinal followed by a Monday semifinal.

The two seed would also qualify the Bison for an automatic bid in the Women's National Invitational Tournament if it doesn't win the Summit tournament championship. It's unlikely anybody other than No. 1 seed South Dakota State will win the conference tourney, considering the powerful Jackrabbits are ranked 36th of 361 Division I teams in the NCAA's NET rankings. The Bison are ranked No. 176 and UND is 168th.

Beating the Leathernecks would be an important step for the Bison. A second-place finish, even if NDSU tied with UND, would be the first time since 2007-08 the Bison placed second in the Summit League.

It's been a long time since a Bison women's team has seen this level of success. It's not ready to unseat SDSU at the top of the league, nor is NDSU particularly close to doing that, but with normally powerful South Dakota taking a couple of steps back this season while transitioning to a new coach, second place is there for the taking.

It's not a championship, but it's something much better than an eighth-place finish.

"It'd be a step," Collins said. "We want to compete for our championship someday, but this is where we are right now and this is a step toward that."

The Bison need a better start against Western Illinois than they had against St. Thomas. NDSU scored six points in the first quarter and had only 17 by halftime. The Tommies weren't much better, leading only by a point at the half, a fortunate turn for NDSU.

In his postgame radio interview, Collins said both teams were playing "1950s basketball."

"It was rough and it was both teams," he said Thursday. "I think we were trying to do too much instead of playing our game. We had 11 turnovers, four of which came in transition and a couple when we threw full-court passes trying to get layups. I think our kids were trying to get a knockout punch all at once instead of being patient. We were better in the second half."

The Bison, down 18-17 at halftime, outscored the Tommies 47-26 in the second half.

All was good, other than Hamling getting smacked on the nose. And even that might turn out OK. Or semi-OK.