Hansen has 28 as Hawks top Wesmen

• Tevin Hurd

Press Photo by Dustin Monke Dickinson State senior Tevin Hurd, right, pushes the ball down the court as Winnipeg’s Dominique Brown pursues the play on Thursday night during a men’s basketball game at Scott Gymnasium.

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Jarek Hansen believes a technical foul called on the University of Winnipeg (Manitoba) for dunking in pregame warm-ups was the catalyst for the best scoring night of his Dickinson State men’s basketball career.

Hansen made two free throws before the game even started and then proceeded to score 18 more in the first half. The junior from Williston finished with a career-high 28 points to lead the Blue Hawks to an 80-63 win on Thursday night at Scott Gymnasium.

“Those technical free throws, that’s kind of what got me in the rhythm, first of all,” Hansen said. “Then most of my points, I feel like, were in the paint. It was the guards penetrating and kicking to me for easy buckets. The guards were doing all the hard work it felt like.”

Hansen was 8 of 8 from the field and 3 of 4 from the line in the first half, scoring 20 at the break — already a new career high for him — as DSU raced to a 53-31 halftime lead, its best first-half total of the season.

DSU shot 18 of 28 (64 percent) from the field in the first half.

“The thing that I liked about the first half was they were attacking,” DSU head coach Ty Orton said of his team. “They weren’t (shooting) 3s, we had layups, we attacked off of penetration, we had attacking cuts. We didn’t step back and relax and think our 3-ball was going to win the game for us. We got the lead because of how we attacked.”

Hansen had 20 points before the 5-minute mark of the first half, driving for a layup that capped DSU’s 25-5 run, which spanned most of the half as Winnipeg struggled to get into an offensive flow.

The Wesmen (5-12) committed 29 turnovers and shot 37 percent from the field.

“We knew we were going to be a little rusty,” Winnipeg head coach Mike Raimbault said. “We hadn’t played in two weeks.”

Winnipeg didn’t panic, however. It tried clawing back in the second half as the Blue Hawks (7-9) struggled from the field early.

It took back-to-back 3-pointers by Hansen and John Hanstad midway through the second half to spark DSU back to a big lead. Robbie Morey added a trey that put the Blue Hawks ahead 68-42 with 8:24 left and DSU rarely saw its lead dip below 20 points the rest of the way.

DSU shot 7 of 25 (28 percent) from the field in the second half.

Orton said the second half didn’t go as swimmingly for the Blue Hawks as the first half did.

Travis Krahn, who led Winnipeg (5-12) with 15 points, hit a pair of 3-pointers late to narrow the gap. Krahn scored all his points on 3-pointers.

“We weren’t attacking as much, we weren’t passing the ball as much,” he said. “I think we played the score and that’s something we’ve been working on. We want to play the possession and not the score.”

Nevertheless, Hanstad finished with 17 points and Casper Hesseldal added 12 points and 12 rebounds for the Blue Hawks, who visit Montana State-Billings in an exhibition at 7 p.m. today.

It is the Blue Hawks’ final game before taking 11 days off for Christmas break. They return Dec. 28 and 29 for the Rocky Mountain College Classic in Billings.

Orton said his team’s rest will be well deserved.

“These kids are tired,” he said. “They’ve been pushed hard, they’ve had a really tough schedule — as tough as anybody — and they’re tired. They really stepped up tonight and won a game they needed to win.”

UNIVERSITY OF WINNIPEG (5-12): Brayden Duff 2-4 1-2 5, Craig Sharpe 2-6 0-0 5, Dominique Brown 4-10 1-2 12, Benny Iko 3-5 0-2 7, Travis Krahn 5-12 0-0 15, Eric Zimmerman 2-6 2-2 7, Mark McNee 2-7 0-2 4, Pawel Gacon 0-2 0-0 0, James Horaska 0-4 0-1 0, Kelvin Smith 3-6 2-2 8, Joshua Stolar 0-0 0-0 0. Totals: 23-62 6-13 63.

DICKINSON STATE (7-9): Casper Hesseldal 4-9 4-8 12, Tevin Hurd 1-4 1-1 3, Robbie Morey 3-7 0-0 7, Jarek Hansen 10-14 6-8 28, John Hanstad 5-14 5-6 17, Donavyn Persley 0-0 0-0 0, Jeff Hurd 0-1 0-0 0, Jeremy Samuelson 1-1 2-2 4, Isiah Thomas 0-1 0-0 0, Ryan Kittleson 1-1 4-6 6, Connor Cunningham 0-0 0-0 0, Daniel Casey 0-0 3-4 3, Carl Dynneson 0-1 0-0 0. Totals: 25-53 25-35 80.

Halftime: DSU 53-31. Total fouls: UW 30, DSU 16. Technical fouls: UW Horaska. 3-point goals: UW 11-28 (Krahn 5-10, Brown 3-6, Iko 1-2, Sharpe 1-3, Zimmerman 1-3, Horaska 0-2, Smith 0-2), DSU 5-19 (Hansen 2-4, Hanstad 2-10, Morey 1-3, T. Hurd 0-1, J. Hurd 0-1). Rebounds: UW 36 (McNee 7), DSU 40 (Hesseldal 12). Assists: UW 13 (Iko 4), DSU 13 (Kittleson 3). Steals: UW 2, DSU 7 (Hesseldal 2, Morey 2). Turnovers: UW 29 (four with 4), DSU 21 (three with 4).

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