Centenary hands Jacks another road loss

Saturday, February 28

Shreveport, La.

2:30 p.m.

South Dakota State University

Centenary (La.)

2/28/2009 1:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball

By: SDSU Sports Info

SHREVEPORT, La. ? The South Dakota State men's basketball team remains winless in Summit League road games (0-18) after dropping its final contest of the regular season to Centenary, 77-67, on Saturday afternoon at the Gold Dome in Shreveport, La.

The loss ends the Jackrabbits regular season with a 12-19 overall record and sends them to The Summit League Championships next weekend in Sioux Falls as the No. 7 seed with a 7-11 league record. That means that the Jacks play the loser of the North Dakota State/Oral Roberts game on Saturday at 8:30 p.m.

The Bison and Golden Eagles play on Saturday at 7 p.m. in Tulsa, Okla., where the winner earns the No. 1 seed and the loser the No. 2 seed in the league tournament.

The Gents end the regular season with an 8-22 overall record, 2-12 in Summit League play, which means that they need IUPUI to beat Western Illinois on Saturday in Macomb, Ill., to earn the No. 8 seed at next weekend's tournament.

Clint Sargent returned after sitting out the last five games with an injury to lead the Jacks with 20 points off the bench, Anthony Cordova added 13, while Michael Palarca tied a career-high for the second straight game with 10 points.

Centenary's Nick Stallings led all players with 22 points, Maxx Makwaasah added 15 points off the bench and Gary Redus 11 points in the win.

The first half featured five ties and eight lead changes with the final tie coming at 33-all with a 1:21 left in the half before a Stallings three-pointer ended gave the Gents a 36-33 lead at half.

The Jacks would come back in the second half to lead by as many as four points at 50-46 with 11:16 left to play, but the Gents came back with a 19-0 run over the next five minutes to turn a four-point deficit into a 15 point lead at 65-50 with 6:17 on the clock.

SDSU answered with an 8-0 run over the next five minutes, but the could get no closer than five points down the stretch, as the Gents went 9-for-10 at the free throw line over the final minute to secure the win and keep their tournament hopes alive.

The Jacks struggled to shoot 39 percent from the floor on 23-of-59 shooing. The Gents did not fair much better, shooting 41 percent on 24-of-58 shooting, but did go 22-for-31 (71 percent) from the free throw line and 7-of-21 from three-point range (33 percent), while the Jacks shot went 16-for-25 (64 percent) from the line and 5-of-19 (26 percent) from long distance.