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BROOKINGS, S.D. – Two of The Summit League's hottest teams will square off on Saturday (Feb. 25) in the regular season finale when IUPUI heads to South Dakota State for an 8:30 p.m. tipoff inside Frost Arena. The Jaguars come in having won four-in-a-row and six of the last seven games. SDSU (23-7, 14-3 Summit) has also won four straight seven of their past eight outings.
Saturday's game can only be heard on WNDE.com or through the free iHeartRadio app available for smartphones. The game will not be heard on 1260 AM because of a scheduling conflict.
IUPUI (14-16, 7-10 Summit) has now won three straight road games with recent wins at Southern Utah, Nicholls State and North Dakota State on Thursday (Feb. 23). At NDSU on Thursday, senior
Alex Young scored a game-high 21 points and classmate
Stephen Thomas ended up with 14 points and five assists, including a key runner and clutch free throws down the stretch. IUPUI's third senior,
Christian Siakam, registered his ninth career double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds and sophomore guard #Ian Chiles# added 12 points, all before halftime.
The Jaguars led from start to finish, but had to dig in late after a Mike Felt three cut IUPUI's lead back to three with under three minutes to play. However, Young came up with a key three-point play and Thomas finished off the Bison from both the floor and the foul line. Marshall Bjorklund paced four NDSU players in double-figures with 17 points and freshman point guard Lawrence Alexander added 16 points, four assists and three steals. The Bison's top scorer coming in, Taylor Braun, added 15 points and eight rebounds but played just four first half minutes due to foul trouble.
Thursday's win avenged an earlier home loss to the Bison and helped assure IUPUI of no worse than the No. 7 seed heading into next week's Summit League Tournament.
The Jaguars will be seeking similar revenge on Saturday as the Jackrabbits won the previous meeting between the two schools, 97-93 in overtime back on Dec. 1. In that game, SDSU led by as many as 15 in the second half before IUPUI climbed all the way back to take a two-point lead with under a minute to play. The Jaguars missed the front end of a one-and-one opportunity with 31 seconds left and SDSU point guard Nate Wolters capitalized by swished a three at the other end. IUPUI had to fight to get to overtime as
Sean Esposito split a pair of free throws with six seconds left to cut the lead back to two. On the second miss, Young grabbed the rebound and was fouled on the putback attempt. The lefty hit both freebies and Wolters missed a long potential game-winner in regulation. After the game was tied at 93 all with just over a minute left, SDSU scored the final four points of the game beginning with a Griffan Callahan tip-in of a Wolters miss with 39 seconds to play. IUPUI turned it over on the ensuing possession and missed a potential game-tying three with 15 seconds to play as SDSU escaped with the victory.
Wolters, a leading candidate for Summit League Player of the Year, leads SDSU in scoring (21.4 ppg), assists (6.1 apg), steals (46) and minutes played (35.3 mpg), while sitting tied for second on the squad in rebounding (5.0 rpg). Sophomore Jordan Dykstra averages 11.3 points and a team-high 5.1 boards per game while Callahan is third on the team in scoring at 11.1 points per game. Four SDSU regulars shoot better than 41 percent from three-point range led by Brayden Carlson's 48.3 percent clip. He and Dykstra have both hit 43 threes while Callahan leads the squad with 69 makes. Chad White has drilled 41 at a 45.1 percent clip.
Young and Wolters are two of five Summit Leaguers currently ranked among the top 15 nationally in scoring average. Young has increased his scoring output to 20.9 points per game and is now 9th in all of Division I college basketball. The Summit League Preseason Player of the Year is currently tops in all of college basketball with 2,260 career points, having tallied more than 150 more points than his closest competitor.
IUPUI comes in with a 6-3 lead in the all-time series and a 2-2 mark inside Frost Arena.