UND didn't play its best basketball but it was still good enough to take a 57-36 win against Houston Baptist on Saturday night in a Great West Conference game.
The win clinched the regular-season Great West title for UND. Utah Valley, which had been one game behind UND in the loss column entering the day, lost in overtime at Texas-Pan American.
UND improved to 8-1 in the league with one game to play. Utah Valley, with the loss, dropped to 5-3 in the league. The Sioux will carry the top seed into the upcoming Great West Conference postseason tournament in Chicago.
Allyssa Wall and Nicole Smart each scored 14 points to lead the Sioux, who improved to 18-10 overall.
But UND didn't get off to a good start. The Sioux led 26-19 at the half against a team they dominated in Grand Forks.
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"Mentally, we weren't focused at all," UND coach Gene Roebuck said. "I don't know if we were overconfident or what it was. We were somewhere else today."
UND rolled in the second half, though, and now its game next Saturday at Utah Valley doesn't have the meaning it did earlier in the day.
During its two-game trip to the Great West schools in Texas, UND struggled with its shooting. Against HBU, the Sioux shot 39 percent.
Outside of Wall and Smart, no UND player scored more than six points.
Houston Baptist was led by Devyn Weymouth's 13 points. The Huskies shot only 25 percent from the field.
UND owned a 44-32 rebound advantage, led by Wall's eight boards. Charnise Mothershed grabbed seven rebounds.
