SIOUX FALLS South Dakota State won its third straight game on Friday night as the Jackrabbits beat Towson 61-48 at the Sanford Pentagon.
It was great, said SDSU guard Zeke Mayo. The atmosphere [at the Pentagon] is like no other. The fans show out every single night whether its here in Sioux Falls or back in Brookings. Its a blessing to play in front of this crowd.
Both teams got off to a bit of a slow start but it was the Jacks that were able to separate themselves from the Tigers in the first half. SDSU led 11-9 with just over 12 minutes to play in the first half and then outscored Towson 16-8 the rest of the half and took a 27-17 lead into the locker room.
The Jacks were then able to extend their lead at the beginning of the second half. Mayo scored the first seven points of the half for SDSU and the Jacks led 34-20 2:40 into the second half. Mayo, who finished the game with 20 points to lead SDSU, said he wasnt worried about shots not falling in the first half.
Im not really worried about shots falling right now because I know Ive put a lot of hard work into that. But at the end of the day, Im about the team, and when we win, its amazing, Mayo said.
SDSU led 46-33 with 9:30 to play, but the Tigers wouldnt go away as they cut the lead to 50-43 with seven minutes left. The Jacks then went on a 9-0 run to put the game away and seal their fourth win of the season.
Coming into the game, Towson was averaging over 40 points in the paint. On Friday night the Tigers had just 18 and Mayo said that was big emphasis for the Jackrabbit defense heading into the game.
We played our hardest on both ends of the floor, but defense especially. We held them to 18 points in the paint and thats been their motto all year, pounding people in the paint. But we did a great job tonight. Our bigs played fantastic. They were physical and they helped us win, Mayo said.
SDSU shot 43.9% from the field and was 6-of-22 from three. Redshirt freshman Kalen Garry had 11 points and seven rebounds, both of which were a career high. Garry said hes starting to settle into his role as he now has eight career games under his belt.
The game is kind of slowing down for me now. Im getting used to playing college basketball. My coaches and teammates have trust in me and I just go out there and hoop, he said.
Luke Appel also had 11 points for SDSU. William Kyle III had 14 points and seven rebounds. Matthew Mors had five points.
Towson shot 27.6% from the field and was 7-of-27 from three. It was the first time this season that the Jacks have held a Division I opponent under 70 points. Garry said it was nice to know that the Jacks can win in different ways this year.
Coming into every game, we just want to play defense and rebound. We know the shots will fall because we put the work in in practice and shoot around and the offseason getting shots up. We trust our offense, but all of the work goes to defense and rebounding right away, Garry said.
SDSU will host Kent State on Tuesday at 8:15 p.m. Its been a bit of an up-and-down non-conference slate so far for the Jacks as they are now 4-4. Mayo said its been a lot about figuring out each others roles and he thinks theyve found some momentum as they have seven out of conference games left.
I think our motto right now is just playing connected. We kind of had our struggles early on in the season. We werent really playing as a unit, but we kind of found or groove down in Florida. So far its carried over and were going to take it day by day and live with the results, Mayo said.
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