Andrew Holtan | The Brookings Register
BROOKINGS – North Dakota State completed a season sweep of South Dakota State on Wednesday night as the Summit League-leading Bison beat the Jackrabbits 74-66 at First Bank & Trust Arena.
“Hats off to North Dakota State,” said SDSU head coach Bryan Petersen. “They played a good basketball game, especially in the second half, and made some key plays. Both sides of basketball, they really separated from us. … We just came up short in some key moments, especially, like I said, in the second half.”
SDSU (12-16, 5-8) trailed 52-51 with 9:27 to go. The Bison (22-6, 12-1) then scored six straight points to go up 58-51 with 7:21 to play. The Jacks cut the lead to 62-58 with 4:47 left but Damari Wheeler-Thomas converted an and-one and Andy Stefonowicz made a jumper to make it 67-58 with 3:34 left.
Kalen Garry hit a three with 1:07 to go to cut the lead to 70-66. Damari Wheeler-Thomas then made one of two free throws but Jaden Jackson missed a triple on the other end and the rebound was knocked out of bounds. Wheeler-Thomas calmly knocked down two free throws and that put the game out of reach.
This was the sixth loss in conference play that has been by 11 points or less. Petersen has talked about how the Jacks need to get over the hump and execute late in games and he felt like Wednesday night was another example of that.
“It’ll be interesting to see what the film says, but it did seem like Wheeler-Thomas and a couple of their guards, it seemed like when they were longer possessions and then they just either got downhill and scored a layup or got fouled in key moments,” Petersen said. “I thought we just didn’t do a good enough job of getting those key stops.
“… We need to get the key stop. It’s a three-point game, four-point game. Maybe we score and we’re coming down the other end. We need to get these stops. We need to find a way to keep these guys out of the paint.”
The two teams went back-and-forth in the first six minutes of the game. The Bison then went on a 7-0 run to go up 19-12 with just under 12 minutes to go in the first half. SDSU was down 23-22 and went on a 10-2 run to take a 32-25 lead with 5:56 to play in the half. However, the Bison answered with a 12-2 run of their own and led 37-34 at halftime.
“You know, you always want to close the half [good],” Petersen said. “We always talk about the first four minutes [of the second half] and the last four minutes [of the first half]. You always want to play good basketball during that time frame. So, yeah, that hurt because, obviously, we probably stalled some of our momentum because our best scoring run was [right before that].”
The Jacks shot 44.6% from the field and they were 8-of-26 from three. SDSU’s three starting guards, Joe Sayler, Jaden Jackson and Kalen Garry, went a combined 4-of-19 from three, with Jackson being 2-of-10.
Petersen said he wants those three to keep shooting as long as they are open shots that come from a pass, which he thought a lot of them were on Wednesday night.
“I still think our three starting guards, some of the best things that they do is make three-point shots. You know, so as a coach, I think you’ve still got to give them confidence if they’re [shots from playing] inside-out [or from] one more [pass]. We got to take them. At the end of the day, we got to give our guys confidence to take wide open threes,” Petersen said.
Mors and Damon Wilkinson led the Jacks with 18 points each. Wilkinson also grabbed eight rebounds. Luke Haertle scored eight points off of the bench.
NDSU shot 48.1% from the field and was 6-of-21 from three. Wheeler-Thomas led the Bison with 23 points and he was 3-of-6 from three and 8-of-11 at the free throw line. Noah Feddersen had 19 points.
The Jacks had a 35-33 advantage in rebounds. SDSU had 10 turnovers and NDSU had five. The Bison were 18-of-26 at the free throw line and the Jacks were 8-of-14.
This was the third-straight loss for the Jackrabbits at home. They now would have to win their final three games of the season if they want to avoid going under .500 in conference play for the first time since 2009, when they went 7-11. SDSU will have a regular season overall record of under .500 for the first time since 2017.
SDSU senior forward Matthew Mors said the Jacks need to keep turning the page after these losses and try to get better before the Summit League Tournament, which begins in two weeks.
“Losing sucks, but we have to get over it. It’s one game at a time, one practice at a time, and so that’s our mentality. I mean, we have three regular season games left, and I don’t know, come March, I just know that we’re going to keep battling our butts off every single day [to be playing well then],” Mors said.
SDSU will play its final home game of the season on Saturday when it hosts North Dakota. Tip off is scheduled for 2 p.m.
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