BROOKINGS – South Dakota State overcame chilly shooting with stingy defense and a dominant performance on the glass, beating Oral Roberts 68-55 during Summit League women’s basketball action Saturday afternoon in front of a Lamb Bonanza crowd of 2,829 at Frost Arena.
The Jackrabbits shot just 33.3 percent (22-of-66) but held a 50-34 rebounding advantage, including 21-6 on the offensive end. They racked up 23 second-chance points to the Golden Eagles’ zero.
“It was a good win for us,” said SDSU coach Aaron Johnston. “Neither team was making a lot of shots; it just was a defensive game. Both teams do defend very well; physical at times in a good way.
“I was really pleased with our week and really pleased with this game. Not always are we going to score 80, 85 points and every shot is going to go in; we’re going to have to win some games and do it with defense and do it with rebounding, and I think this game was a good indicator that we’re capable of that. At times this year we’ve struggled in those areas – how we defend and how we rebound – so the team should feel really good about winning the game with those two areas and help kind of build some confidence that we can do well there.”
ORU finished at 35.3 percent (18-of-51) from the floor. SDSU made as many free throws as ORU attempted – 19.
“The (defensive) consistency this week was really good,” added Johnston, whose team beat Denver 76-59 Wednesday. “I still think we have an excellent offensive team and I think we can score but if we want to be as good as we can be, we’ll have to find some consistency with how we rebound and defend. We had a lot of second-chance points this week; we had a lot of offensive rebounds – it just helps a lot; it helps our defense get set; it helps a bunch of different areas. And we needed them today; had we not had them, we would have had a hard time scoring points and it would have been a very different game at the end, so it was very critical.”
Myah Selland scored a game-high 19 points, grabbed seven rebounds and dished out three assists.
Madison Guebert canned a trio of treys while adding 14 points and Tagyn Larson had 11 markers to go with eight boards and four blocked shots. Tylee Irwin also corralled eight boards.
The Jackrabbits led 19-17 after a quarter and 34-26 at halftime. The teams exchanged buckets throughout the third, before SDSU closed the period with a 7-2 run to grab a 53-40 advantage.
The Jackrabbits held the Golden Eagles without a field goal for the game’s final 5 minutes, 35 seconds to seal the deal.
“That’s something we’ve really been focusing on this week,” Selland said when asked about defense and rebounding. “It showed against Denver and we wanted to make sure it wasn’t just kind of a one-time thing – that was something we really focused on again tonight and it paid off.”
SDSU’s two wins during the week saw it surrender just 114 points after the Jackrabbits gave up 105 in a double-overtime loss at South Dakota.
“After the USD game we really evaluated our defense mostly and have worked every day in practice to make our defense better … I think we’ve done really well with that,” added Larson.
Lakota Beatty had 15 points and Rylie Torrey 10 for Oral Roberts (10-8, 3-2), which plays host to South Dakota on Friday at 7 p.m.
South Dakota State (12-6, 4-1) heads to Grand Forks to face North Dakota on Friday at 7 p.m.
Notes: The Jackrabbits are 85-8 in Summit League home games. … Macy Miller has 2,024 career points and Guebert 1,591 as they are sixth and 16th, respectively, in Summit League history. Guebert has 321 3-pointers.
SOUTH DAKOTA STATE 68, ORAL ROBERTS 55
Oral Roberts (10-8, 3-2 Summit)
Regan Schumacher 0-1 0-0 0, Maya Mayberry 3-12 1-3 7, Rylie Torrey 2-4 4-4 10, Lakota Beatty 6-12 1-2 15, KeniJo Lippe 2-6 3-4 7, Katie Kirkhart 0-2 3-4 3, Sabela Reigosa 0-1 0-0 0, Rachel Skalnik 0-1 0-0 0, Jordan Gilbert 3-7 1-2 9, Montserrat Brotons 2-4 0-0 4. Totals 18-51 13-19 55.
South Dakota State (12-6, 4-1 Summit)
Tagyn Larson 3-12 5-8 11, Myah Selland 6-15 6-6 19, Madison Guebert 3-9 5-6 14, Macy Miller 1-7 2-2 4, Tylee Irwin 3-7 0-2 6, Rylie Cascio Jensen 1-6 0-0 2, Lindsey Theuninck 0-0 0-0 0, Sydney Palmer 1-2 0-0 3, Paiton Burckhard 4-6 1-3 9, Sydney Stapleton 0-2 0-0 0. Totals 22-66 19-27 68.
Oral Roberts 17 9 14 15 – 55
South Dakota State 19 15 19 15 – 68
3-point goals – ORU 6-16 (Gilbert 2-2, Torrey 2-4, Beatty 2-5, Mayberry 0-1, Kirkhart 0-1, Skalnik 0-1, Lippe 0-2), SDSU 5-26 (Guebert 3-8, Palmer 1-2, Selland 1-4, Larson 0-1, Stapleton 0-1, Irwin 0-3, Cascio Jensen 0-3, Miller 0-4). Rebounds – ORU 34 (Torrey 6), SDSU 50 (Larson, Irwin 8). Assists – ORU 8 (Beatty 4), SDSU 12 (Selland, Guebert, Miller, Cascio Jensen 3). Steals – ORU 5 (Mayberry 2), SDSU 7 (Irwin 2). Blocks – ORU 2 (Reigosa, Brotons 1), SDSU 7 (Larson 4). Turnovers – ORU 16, SDSU 13. Total fouls – ORU 22, SDSU 16. Fouled out – Mayberry, Lippe. Technical fouls – none. A – 2,829.
