By Wayne Nelson
Herald Staff Writer
SIOUX CITY, Iowa -- It's been more than three seasons since the UND men's basketball team swept a pair of North Central Conference road games in Vermillion, S.D., and Sioux City.
During the 1994-95 season, UND swept its final two regular-season road games against South Dakota and Morningside to share the NCC title. Road sweeps in the NCC are rare. And when visiting teams do sweep, they usually find themselves in contention for the league title.
UND completed the difficult road sweep on Saturday night, hanging on to beat Morningside College 96-91 at Allee Gymnasium and improve to 4-1 in the league and 10-4 overall.
And, like the Sioux win at South Dakota on Friday night, UND's free throw shooting again produced the victory.
The Sioux were 34 of 38 from the line, which followed a 21-of-25 performance at South Dakota. UND's free throw shooting and its ability to hold off two second-half runs by Morningside served as a major confidence boost after last week's stinging home loss to North Dakota State.
"We figure we can wins games on the road,"said Sioux point guard Hunter Berg, who scored 21 points and made all eight of his free throws."Now, if we can win at home, we'll be all right."
Four Berg free throws with 9.8 seconds left finally ended the suspense. They also gave the Sioux enough reasons to believe they can contend for the NCC title, which would be the first since that South Dakota and Morningside sweeping 1994-95 season.
Berg's free throws came after the point guard was fouled by Shawn Timm and took a knee from Seth Madole, which resulted in a technical foul. The four free throws gave the Sioux a 95-88 lead.
Berg now has made his last 25 free throw attempts."They're just going in,"Berg said of his free-throw shooting."They didn't feel as good as they did (Friday) night, but they went in."
UND led 48-39 at the half, only to see Morningside open the second half with an 11-0 run. The Sioux, behind Chad Mustard's bullish inside play, held off that charge and opened a 79-69 lead with six minutes left.
But the Mustangs, keyed by Tim West (23 points), twice cut the deficit to two points before Mustard, Berg and Marcus Travis scored key baskets or free thows in the final 2:30.
"We're getting a little tougher,"UND coach Rich Glas said."We handled the runs Morningside put on us. When Morningside makes runs in this gym, it's usually over."
But not this time.
"We just had to keep our heads,"Berg said."It wasn't the end of the world. We just said we were OK and went out and got it done."
Mustard's 26 points led the Sioux. He was 8 of 13 from the field and made all 10 of his free throws."We made some smart plays on offense down the stretch,"Mustard said."When they made those runs, it was us not being smart on offense or lackadaisical on defense."
UND also received key points at various times from Hunter Reinke (14 points), Travis (10) and Brady Larson (nine).
The Mustangs were without coach Jerry Schmutte, who was sidelined with a back injury. His assistants ran the team.
"We kind of take pride in our defense, and they flat out kicked our butt,"assistant Troy Larson said."That's the best offensive execution we've seen this year."
| UND (96) | |||
| Name | FG | FT | Points |
| Mustard | 8-13 | 10-10 | 26 |
| Travis | 3-7 | 3-4 | 10 |
| Behrens | 4-8 | 1-2 | 9 |
| Berg | 8-13 | 8-8 | 21 |
| Jacobson | 1-4 | 2-2 | 5 |
| Larson | 2-2 | 4-4 | 9 |
| Ristvedt | 0-3 | 2-2 | 2 |
| Reinke | 4-8 | 4-4 | 14 |
| Badding | 0-1 | 0-0 | 0 |
| Totals | 27-59 | 34-38 | 96 |
| Morningside (91) | |||
| Barber | 5-12 | 3-3 | 15 |
| Musick | 5-7 | 8-10 | 22 |
| West | 9-17 | 4-4 | 23 |
| Drevo | 4-9 | 3-4 | 12 |
| Wooten | 4-9 | 2-6 | 10 |
| Madole | 2-6 | 1-2 | 5 |
| Hogan | 0-1 | 0-0 | 0 |
| Horsley | 0-3 | 0-0 | 0 |
| Totals | 30-72 | 23-31 | 91 |