BROOKINGS The South Dakota State basketball teams will head into this weekends Summit League Tournament in different situations.
The Jackrabbit women are the heavy favorite after finishing the regular season undefeated in conference play, while the Jackrabbit men are one of five teams who feel they have a shot at winning the tournament title.
The two SDSU teams are also heading into the tournament with different momentum as the women have been dominating teams and the men struggled a bit down the stretch.
The Jackrabbit women won each of their final three games by 20 points or more and have held their last five opponents to 61 points or less. SDSU is leading the Summit League in opponent scoring, opponent field goal percentage and defensive rebounding.
Jackrabbit head coach Aaron Johnston said he likes where his team is at defensively, but to be able to win games in March you have to be great on both sides of the floor.
I think defensively when you play well, it gives you a chance to play in every game, Johnston said. I think this time of the year you still have to make plays offensively. You cant win a game with defense and you cant win a game with just offense. I think this time of the year you have to play well in every capacity.
Weve always felt like playing our best basketball means defensively we have to play at a high level. Again, we finished the year with that in mind. We did a great job there and now its about carrying that into a tournament format.
The SDSU men split their final four games of the regular season and a week and half ago lost their starting point guard for the season as Owen Larson suffered a knee injury. In the season finale the Jacks lost 78-62 to seventh-place Denver.
SDSU head coach Eric Henderson said his team is going to put the loss to the Pioneers behind them and make sure they have the right mindset heading into their first game of the tournament on Friday.
Theres a lot of different ways to look at it. Obviously, the outcome at Denver wasnt what we wanted and we didnt play all that well. But you still continue to learn about your team and if youre going to let a loss like that affect your approach going into a conference tournament, you probably dont have much of a chance anyway. So, we want to make sure that our guys are feeling good about themselves this week and make sure that they understand that we believe in them, Henderson said.
This will be the first time since 2017 that the Jackrabbit men are not a top-two seed as SDSU is the No. 3 seed. However, in 2017 the Jacks won three games in three days and punched their ticket to the NCAA Tournament.
In 2017 the Jacks didnt have any expectations and it felt like the pressure was not on them at all. In other seasons when SDSU has been a top-two seed, the Jacks have let the pressure of having a large contingent of Jackrabbit fans in Sioux Falls get to them and have lost to inferior opponents. Henderson acknowledged that sometimes the pressure of being one of the favorites has gotten to the Jacks in past years, but he feels like his program has learned from that and will be going into this years tournament with the mindset of using that crowd to their advantage.
We talk about [the pressure], to be honest. I know theres certainly advantages to playing in Sioux Falls, thats for sure, but there is some added pressure. Its something that we mention to our guys and try to loosen them up and not let them feel that as much as they maybe do. Once you get out there, you can maybe settle down a little bit, and then you get those crazy Jackrabbit fans on your side and it feels pretty good, Henderson said.
The Jackrabbit women are used to being in the position they’re in. This is the fifth-straight season that SDSU has been the top seed in the tournament and the Jacks have won the past two tournaments.
SDSU has won 11 tournament titles since 2009 and Johnston said the Jacks know that they are the team that everyone has been chasing for a long time. He said that although they acknowledge the target on their back, his team wants to focus on the energy that they bring to each game instead of reacting to the opponent.
I dont know if we talk about it a lot that theres a target [on our backs], Johnston said. I think we acknowledge it. If we were in a different shoes, I think you get tired of hearing about one team all of the time. Thats just human nature. We probably talk about it in that regard, but we also talk about, hey, lets be at our best.
Lets not worry about how this other team is going to play and what their effort and energy is, trying to match that. I think we always just talk about, heres what being a great team for us means. Heres what great effort, great energy and focus looks like. Heres the plays that have to happen for those things to show up. So, we definitely focus more on us when it comes to that, but we do acknowledge the fact that we have had a lot of success.
The SDSU women will begin tournament play on Thursday at approximately 2:15 p.m. and face either No. 8 seeded Omaha or No. 9 seeded Denver. The Jackrabbit men will open the tournament on Friday night at approximately 8:30 p.m. against No. 6 seeded North Dakota.
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