SIOUX FALLS South Dakota State captured its 12th Summit League Tournament title on Sunday afternoon as the Jackrabbits beat Oral Roberts 84-68 at the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center in Sioux Falls.
It was a great day, said SDSU head coach Aaron Johnston. Having a chance to win another championship is a phenomenal moment for our players, for our team. It says a lot about what theyve accomplished this year and what theyve accomplished throughout their careers, along with what our program has accomplished over a lot of years.
SDSU got out to an 11-2 lead and was able to hold off Oral Roberts the rest of the way. Nine of the first 11 points for the Jacks came from beyond the arc and Johnston said that set the tone for the rest of the game.
… The start was really important, seeing our perimeter players knock down some threes, Johnston said. We really thought that Brooklyn [Meyer] was going to have a lot of attention today and you saw that. That was their plan, so being able to make some perimeter jump shots really settled people early.
The Jacks led 19-10 at the end of the first quarter, but then the Golden Eagles went on an 11-2 run to begin the second to tie things up at 21-21. SDSU then led 32-29 with three minutes to go in the first half and the Jacks outscored the Golden Eagles 14-7 the rest of the half and took a 46-36 lead into halftime.
Paige Meyer and Madison Mathiowetz hit back-to-back threes to begin the second half to stretch the lead to 16 points. However, the Golden Eagles wouldnt go away. They went on an 8-0 run to make it 56-49 and later made it a five-point game with two minutes to go in the third. SDSU responded again though and closed the quarter with five-straight points to make it 65-55 heading into the fourth.
It was 67-58 with 8:14 to play and the Jacks scored six in-a-row to put the game out of reach.
Paige Meyer led the way for the Jacks with 26 points, nine assists and five rebounds. She was named the tournament MVP and Johnston had high praise for the senior point guard after Sundays victory.
Paige is special in so many ways. Shes overcome injuries and shes playing through different injuries right now that some people dont know about. Her talent, its just hard to get your hands around how she can impact the game. She makes threes, she can put it on the floor and get to the basket, she finds [players] inside, her defense is fantastic. As I sit here and talk about these things, it doesnt even come close to describing the impact she has on the floor. I think we all trust her and shes an elite, elite player and a phenomenal leader, Johnston said.
SDSU had two other players score over 20 points in the win as Haleigh Timmer had 21 points and Mathoiwetz had 20 points. Mathiowetz said that her and her teammates make sure that they root for each others success and thats what allows SDSU to have so many players have big games.
Its so fun to feed off each others energy. We just want to succeed as a team so much and [watching each other play well] just feeds our success, Mathiowetz said.
It was the third-straight Summit League Tournament championship for SDSU. It will be the Jacks 13th NCAA Tournament appearance. SDSU prepared itself for whats ahead in the coming weeks with a tough non-conference schedule. The Jacks played four teams from power-four conferences and three ranked teams in the non-conference.
As of Saturday night, Charlie Creme of ESPN had the Jacks projected as a No. 9 seed and heading to Los Angeles. It would be the second time in the past three seasons that SDSU would be a nine-seed as the Jacks took down No. 8 seeded USC in 2023 before falling to top-seeded Virigina Tech in the second round.
Johnston said he thinks his teams resume is solid and believes that they will have a shot to make a run in the NCAA Tournament.
Were sitting here at 29-3, Johnston said. Our non-conference schedule ranks 10th in the country. Its the 10th-most difficult non-conference schedule in the country. We havent had any bumps in the road since that non-conference schedule. This is as good of a team that we will take to the NCAA Tournament and weve taken some good ones. But its a different year with bracketology and stuff.
… I just think we have a lot of the pieces that it takes to be a really good team. We have great guard play. We talked about Paige and what shes capable of doing. We have great post play. Weve seen Brooklyn and what shes capable of doing. We can defend size and we can defend athleticism. So, we have a lot of things that we can do. I think were certainly equipped to go on and win [NCAA Tournament] games.
SDSU will find out where theyll be heading for the NCAA Tournament on March 16 at 7 p.m.
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