BROOKINGS, S.D. – South Dakota State’s Clint Sargent hit seven treys and scored a game-high 23 points and Nate Wolters added 21 points and 11 assists as the Jackrabbits rolled past IUPUI, 81-70 at Frost Arena on Thursday night. SDSU (16-9, 8-6 Summit) erupted with an 18-0 second half run to blow a 49-45 game wide open the rest of the night.
Senior
Leroy Nobles led five Jaguars in double-digits with 19 points and junior
Alex Young added 14 points and six boards in the loss. Junior
Stephen Thomas chipped in 13, all in the second half, and
Sean Esposito and
John Ashworth tallied 10 each.
The loss snapped IUPUI's season-long four-game winning streak and split the home-and-home series with SDSU this season.
“We just didn’t play with a lot of energy tonight,” IUPUI Head Coach
Ron Hunter said. “I thought we looked lethargic from the opening tip. I don’t know if it’s the travel or just a letdown from last weekend, but at the end of the day, we didn’t get the job done. Credit South Dakota State, they jumped on us and never really let us get going.
“They played us tough on defense and we knew they could really shoot the basketball. We’ve got to regroup, get some rest and hopefully get up to Fargo and get a win. That’s not going to be easy either because they’ve got a good team up there too.”
IUPUI (15-11, 9-4 Summit) fell behind by as many as 12 in the first half, but rallied with a 7-0 burst to make it 39-34 by the break. Ashworth fueled the run with a 10-footer in the lane and an open three with 39 seconds left before halftime. After a defensive stand, Ashworth fed Young on the final play of the half and the reigning Summit League Player of the Week hit a tough turnaround as the final horn expired.
The second half began with a
Christian Siakam putback and an Esposito trey to knot the score at 39 all with 18:41 left. SDSU answered quickly with Sargent’s fifth three of the night to go back up, 42-41, but Thomas retaliated with a tough runner. The hosts scored the next seven points on three drives, the last of which was a Jordan Dykstra three-point play. IUPUI closed within four on a Nobles drive and Young putback, before the Jackrabbits delivered the crippling blow.
IUPUI was stuck on 45 for the next 6:15 as the Jackrabbits buried the Jaguars with 18 straight. SDSU’s Dale Moss punctuated the run with a high-flying one-handed dunk off an inbounds play and Sargent swished a three, prompting Hunter to call a timeout.
“For whatever reason, we reverted back to earlier in the season and had a huge lull on offense,” Hunter said. “We lost our aggressiveness and stopped going to the basket. We’re not a great jump shooting team, so that played right into their hands.”
Thomas finally stopped the bleeding with 8:39 to play with a runner, but IUPUI was down 20 at that point. A late 9-0 Jags run helped the final margin look more respectable, but IUPUI got no closer than 11 in the final 11 minutes.
Overall, South Dakota State shot 52.6 percent from the floor and 9-of-17 (52.9 percent) from beyond the arc. Sargent, who became SDSU’s all-time leader in threes made last week, hit 7-of-11 from three to fuel the Jackrabbits attack. Dykstra added 13 points and five boards off the bench on 6-of-8 shooting.
IUPUI hit 45 percent overall and just 7-of-23 (30.4 percent) from three in the loss. The Jaguars were a perfect 9-of-9 from the free throw line, but seven of the makes came in the final 3:33 of the contest. Thomas was 5-of-5 at the line and Nobles was 4-of-4. Nobles made 7-of-13 shots overall and grabbed four boards.
SDSU outrebounded the Jaguars 33-39, led by Tony Fiegen’s nine caroms.
IUPUI will cap the two-game road trip on Saturday when it heads north to Fargo, N.D. to play the North Dakota State Bison. Tipoff is scheduled for 8:00 p.m. EST with Scott McCauley’s pregame coverage on 88.3 FM / The Walk starting at approximately 7:55. IUPUI won the earlier meeting against NDSU in Indianapolis, 67-64 on Jan. 13.
