BROOKINGS Its a big week for the South Dakota State mens basketball team. The Jackrabbits can clinch the Summit League regular season title on Thursday when they take on North Dakota in Grand Forks and then SDSU will travel to Fargo to face North Dakota State on Saturday.
SDSU (17-12, 10-4) enters the weekend with a one game lead on UND and a two game lead on NDSU. The Jacks beat the Fighting Hawks 80-61 in the opening game of conference play so a win on Thursday would clinch the outright regular season title.
Theres no other way to look at it, [its an important week], said SDSU head coach Eric Henderson. The nice thing about it, with the parity in the league, everyone has hope. Everyone still has hope and whats happening is, you can see peoples fan bases getting more excited about it too. You look at the crowds at North Dakota and North Dakota State, both of them, theyre pretty exciting environments. We know were going to go into a pretty hostile crowd too.
UND (17-12, 9-5) lost its first three games of conference play and the Fighting Hawks have won nine of the 11 games since.
One of the turning points for the Fighting Hawks was the return of senior guard Tyree Ihenacho. After earning Summit League Freshman of the Year honors in 2020-21, Ihenacho decided to transfer to James Madison. He played the past two years for the Dukes and after seeing action in 39 games with 22 starts, Ihenacho decided to transfer back to UND.
After getting back to Grand Forks, Ihenacho was awaiting a waiver from the NCAA to allow him to be eligible to play for the Fighting Hawks since it was his second time transferring. It was looking grim until mid December when a federal judge granted that all two-time transfers could play this season. In 17 games this season the senior is averaging 14.6 points, 5.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists.
Henderson said the reinstatement of Ihenacho was when the tide started to turn for the Fighting Hawks.
I think theres a couple things [with the turnaround for UND], Henderson said. Number one, Ihenacho became eligible. I think it was his third game back [when we played them the first time]. So he was just kind of getting back into the lineup and they were playing a lot of guys.
I think they were just trying to figure out who they were going to be, especially with Ihenacho being back. You look at the last seven or eight games, theyve really settled on a rotation of seven or eight guys. The guys are just comfortable with their roles [right now] and understanding the impacts that they can make on that team.
SDSU tied its season-long win streak of three games on Saturday when the Jacks had a come from behind 77-72 victory over St. Thomas. That was two days after the Jacks beat Denver 97-70 and a week after SDSU beat Omaha 85-77.
Fifth-year senior guard Matt Mims broke out of a cold streak last week as he scored a career-high 21 points in the win over Denver and followed that up with 11 points in his final game at home. In the two games last week he was 9-of-14 from the field and 5-of-9 from beyond the arc. He also had five steals in the two wins.
Mims missed the first two months of the season with a foot injury and Henderson these past two games were what he expected him to look like at this point in the season.
It was a pretty significant injury. You know, you come back and youre super excited. There was a little bit of a lull in there, especially shooting the basketball. He kind of snapped out of it last weekend. So, as far as my expectations, I always felt like Matt could make a big impact, especially stretching the floor and affecting the perimeter with the way he defends and the energy and the stuff he brings to our team. Nothing surprises me with that kid, to be frank. He works so hard and the dude bleeds blue. He loves being a Jackrabbit and he takes so much pride in putting on that uniform and giving it his all, Henderson said.
These two games in North Dakota will be the final games of the regular season for SDSU. As noted earlier, if the Jacks win in Grand Forks on Thursday theyll win the regular season conference championship, but SDSU would also clinch the No. 1 seed in the Summit League Tournament, which will be played in Sioux Falls March 8-12.
Henderson said being able to play their quarterfinal game on Saturday instead of Sunday is always an advantage, but the bigger motivation heading into the weekend is winning the conference title.
I think theres some advantages to being the No. 1 seed and so I think there is some motivation there. Just winning conference championships, like weve talked about before, is something you have to take pride in. Sometimes it gets overlooked, but its not easy. So, to be able to put yourself in a position to possibly make that happen, were excited about that, Henderson said.
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