ROOKINGS The South Dakota State women are in the midst of a stretch where they are playing five of six games against three of the top four teams in the Summit League. Thursday the Jackrabbits travel to Fargo to take on second place North Dakota State and then will head to Vermillion on Saturday to play fourth place South Dakota.
The Jacks (15-5, 7-0) are coming off a 96-60 win over Oral Roberts, who is now in third place in the Summit League. At the beginning of the stretch SDSU beat USD 73-55 in Brookings and SDSU will head to Tulsa to play Oral Roberts on the road on Feb. 10 to finish it off.
After not knowing for sure what the potential of his team would be this season due to injuries and trying to figure out a rotation in the first part of the season, SDSU head coach Aaron Johnston said this stretch will really tell him how good the Jacks are.
Two or three weeks ago, you maybe had an idea of who you thought would be at the top [of the conference], but not enough games had been played to know for sure, Johnston said. Now that were about halfway through [conference play] and about to turn the corner, you see who the groups are, and if you want to be in that top group, you have to beat some of the top teams. This is a stretch where we play a bunch of them.
This set of games will give us a good idea if were going to be in that top group or not, and then after that, well kind of have to see. Playing against top teams is exciting and I know our team wants that challenge.
NDSU is 11-8 overall and 5-1 in the Summit League. The Bison are averaging 73.9 points per game (second in the Summit League) and are shooting 42.5% from the field (second in the conference). On defense, NDSU is giving up 68.9 points per game (sixth) and is allowing opponents to shoot 45.1% from the field (eighth).
The Bison are led by two guards who are averaging over 14 points per game. Sophomore Elle Evans is averaging 14.7 points and 4.8 rebounds per game. She shoots 44.3% from three, which is 16th in the country. Senior Heaven Hamling who is averaging 14.3 points and 4.6 rebounds per game.
Johnston said the Bisons physicality will make them tough to go up against.
Theyre having a really good year. They have, in some ways, an experienced group. Theyve added some new faces that have been really productive in helping them. They play really physically. They play with balance, meaning they do some inside and outside stuff, offensively. And then defensively, they take away some stuff with their physicality, Johnston said.
SDSU is by far and away the best defensive team in the Summit League. In conference play the Jacks are giving up 56.7 points per game, which is 9.5 points less than NDSU who is second in opponents points per game.
A few weeks ago Johnston mentioned that he felt his team would need to lean on its defense more this season because they werent playing efficiently offensively. In their past four games the Jacks have averaged 83.3 points per game and Johston said his team as a whole has been making shots during that stretch, but they still need to take care of the ball better as they had 22 turnovers against ORU on Sunday.
We didnt do a great job of slowing down Oral Roberts, Johnston said. We had to score points against them to win. But in some of our other games our defense has really settled us and steadied us. I really like how were playing, for the most part, defensively. Theres a few things that we have to get better with, but weve really played hard on that side of the ball.
Offensively, our ability to make shots has started to be noticeable, and making shots in a variety of positions, not just one or two people. We have to continue to do a better job of taking care of the ball. Our defense will have to be there until our offense becomes more efficient and does a better job of taking care of the ball.
Heading into the game against USD (15-7, 4-3) on Saturday, SDSUs focus will be on junior guard Grace Larkins. Larkins is fourth in the Summit League in scoring, averaging 16.4 points per game this season. She scored 18 points in the first game against the Jacks and could have scored more but played only 29 minutes due to foul trouble.
Johnston said the Jacks will try to do some different things to limit Larkins on the offensive end on Saturday.
[Larkins] is a tough cover because of her ability to shoot it. She gets to the basket with penetration and shell post up. So, you have to have a pretty versatile defensive player that can do all of those things. I know well have to mix things up. In our previous game [against USD] we did an okay job. She got into foul trouble, so that helped. Well have to figure out how we want to defend her because there were times where we struggled with what I just talked about, Johnston said.
Thursdays game will tip off at 7 p.m. and you can watch it on the Summit League Network. Saturdays game will be at 1 p.m. and will be on the Summit League Network and Midco Sports Two.
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