Patrick Mitchell's Athletic Career Continues

North Dakota fans will remember Patrick Mitchell, a good forward for them who graduated a couple of years ago. Well, his athletic career may be continuing - in rugby:

THREE American athletes will train with the Sydney Swans over the next two weeks in a bid to win a place on the club's international rookie list.

Jason Holmes, Mark Cisco and Patrick Mitchell – all more than 200cm tall – arrived in Australia last week and will spend the next fortnight working closely with the Swans Academy under premiership coach Paul Roos.

We wish him the best of luck!

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Top Departing Players #15: Patrick Mitchell

With the throes of the offseason all around us, I thought it would be fun to take a look at the 20 best players that are departing from the Big Sky, either due to graduating, declaring for the draft, or transferring.

North Dakota has been one of the youngest teams in the country for the past two seasons, but there has been one major upperclassmen contributor - Patrick Mitchell. He is not a guy that would wow you with his athleticism, or with any one skill, but a guy that did a little bit of everything well.

Offensively he could score in a variety of ways. He is 6'8'' but was more of a perimeter player than post player. He shot 37% threes on 168 attempts, which was huge for a team that only had a few shooters. He was also pretty solid inside the arc. He had an effective FG% of 52.7%. He took good care of the basketball and had a low turnover rate. Offensively, he was a nice complementary piece.

He was OK on the glass, averaging 4.6 per game with a solid defensive rebounding rate. Again, not a guy that will lead the team, but a solid piece there. He was a good weakside defender, and had a block rate of 5.8%, which would have ranked second in the Big Sky. He was a guy that would allow other defenders to play tighter on their man, because he had good timing blocking shots.

North Dakota played tons of sophomores last season (after playing tons of freshmen the season before), and Mitchell was one of the few guys with experience. He was valuable because he could play around the talents of the guys around him. He didn't need the ball to succeed, and he would help out in a multitude of ways. Those guys are always important to any team.

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A Look at North Dakota

FightingSioux.com had a good little preview article on the men's hoops team, so let's take a look at it. The Fighting Sioux will be in their final season in the Great West Conference, and will be joining the Big Sky next year (if you did not already know).

Head coach Brian Jones has all five starters back from his 2011 Great West Conference Tournament championship team. The squad posted a 19-15 record and earned an automatic berth to the CollegeInsider.com Tournament. The sixth-year head coach only lost 9.4 percent of his team's scoring as senior captains Derek Benter (4.0 ppg) and Chris Clausen (3.1 ppg) were the only departures.

This is why everyone around the program is excited about this team now and in the future. They have an excellent five-man class that will all be sophomores, which means that they should have a two solid years together in the Big Sky. If they can improve this year, they will be very interesting entering the Big Sky and ready to possibly compete right away.

Huff earned second team All-Great West honors after leading the team with a 13.3 ppg average. His 452 points also broke the UND freshman scoring record held by Scott Guldseth (418, 1989-90). He finished the season with five 20-plus scoring efforts, including a career high 31-point outing in a road win at Houston Baptist.

Huff is the potential player of the year in the Great West, and will be one of the most talented guys in the Conference the minute UND enters the Big Sky. A lot of the Sioux's hopes rest with Huff, who will need to be a star for UND to take the next step.

Huff, Schuler and Webb teamed with fellow freshmen Brandon Brekke and Aaron Anderson to be the highest-producing rookie class in Division I basketball last season. The freshmen quintet accounted for 65.4 percent of UND's scoring a season ago (1,517 points). The freshmen at Memphis finished second, scoring 63.9 percent (1,615 of 2,524 points) of the Tigers' buckets and the rookies at Kentucky were third, producing 60.5 percent (1,721 of 2,845 points) of the Wildcats' scores.

See above. The hopes of the program rest with these five guys.

Juniors Spencer Goodman and Mitch Wilmer will return to the playing rotation after having their seasons prematurely cut short with injuries. Goodman started all 11 games he appeared in before suffering an injury in the opening minute of play at UMKC (Dec. 18). Wilmer appeared in nine games off the bench, but was lost for the season after suffering an injury in the second half of the North Dakota State tilt (Dec. 11).

The biggest weakness for UND is their size and depth up front, and hopefully the return of these guys will help. They have a lot of talent in the backcourt, but they were often undersized last year. If this can be helped by players such as Goodman and Wilmer, and stressed in recruiting, that will help immensely.\

They should be fun to watch play this year, and perhaps the best team that UND has seen in quite some time.

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Patrick Mitchell - The Best Player on North Dakota's Team

When people think about the future of North Dakota basketball (which, I know the majority of people DO lay in bed at night thinking about the future of North Dakota basketball), the first thing that comes to mind is their five-member class of 2014, and for good reason. As a class, they had a very successful freshman year, and they provide a lot of hope for the future, particularly when North Dakota enters the Big Sky next season and is eligible for the NCAA Tournament.

For next season, however, their best player is probably Patrick Mitchell, who will be a senior. The 6'8'' F averaged 10.6 PPG and 5.8 RPG last season for the 17-16 Sioux.

Mitchell is a solid all-around player... he doesn't dominate in any area, but he does a little bit of everything. Probably his best attribute is his versatility on offense. He shot 37% from downtown (on 140 attempts), but he also shot a solid 49.6% from 2s, and got to the line a solid 105 times. His 52.7 EFG% was second on the team behind only Brandon Brekke.

He also had the highest DR Rate on the team, at 19.6%, which was about 200th in the nation. For a team that does not have a lot of height (or, frankly speaking, talent) down low, this is huge for UND. Mitchell can also make some opponents think twice in the lane, as he had a 6.8% Block Rate, 92nd in the nation.

He could stand to improve his FT shooting a bit, as he shot only 63.8%, and any improvement would make a difference since he is adept at getting to the line.

Mitchell is not the most athletic guy you'll find at this level, but he is a very good player, and a big key to what UND wants to do this season. He will be missed after his graduation. In the end, I think Sioux Blog probably said it best:

... it’s important to note that while Huff is the most talented player on the team, Mitchell is probably its best player.