Jacks complete Centenary season sweep

Thursday, January 28

Shreveport, La.

7 p.m.

South Dakota State University

Centenary

1/28/2010 11:00:00 PM | Men's Basketball

By: SDSU Sports Info

SHREVEPORT, La. - The South Dakota State men's basketball team picked-up its first-ever Summit League season sweep on Thursday with an 81-75 win over Centenary in front of 927 fans at the Gold Dome in Shreveport, La.

The Gents fall to 7-14 overall and 2-8 in The Summit league, while the Jackrabbits improve to 11-10 overall with the win, 7-3 in league play, and even though head coach Scott Nagy likes the win, he expected a different outcome.

"It's the first time in the three years that we've been in the league that we've swept a team, and we talked about how difficult that would be," said Nagy. "We talked before the game that this would be a difficult game, that we'd have to play 40 minutes and we did, but we shouldn't have had to. If our kids would have done just little bit better job and paid a little bit more attention and been a little bit more aggressive, this would have been a 20-point game instead of a six-point game."

Clint Sargent led the Jacks with 18 points, including a 5-for-9 night from beyond the arc, but he got plenty of help, as three other Jackrabbits also scored in double figures. Nate Wolters scored a career-high 17 points off the bench and dished out a career-high eight assists. Garrett Callahan and Kai Williams both scored 10 points in the win, Williams added a game and season-high 11 rebounds for his second double-double in the last three games.

"In the second half, all we did is play off of Nate, we just screened for Nate and played off of him and he got people shots," said Nagy about the play of his true freshman point guard Wolters. "He got eight assists and 17 points, and it's just so nice to have a guard like him, that if you put the ball in his hands and you know that it's going to end up in a good spot."

David Perez scored a game-high 19 points for the Gents in the loss, Daman Starring added 17, while Pedro Maciel and Maxx Nakwaasah both finished with nine points.

Centenary jumped out to an early lead, and led by as many as nine points midway through the first half, but the Jacks outscored the Gents 20-5 over the final 10 minutes of the half to take a 29-23 lead into the lockerroom at halftime.

SDSU scored the first five points of the second half to go up 11, but Centenary chipped away at that lead and eventually tied the game at 47-all with just over 10 minutes to go in the game.

Wolters broke the tie with one of his two three-pointers, and the Jacks never trailed again. SDSU went 8-for-10 from the free throw line down the stretch to secure the win.

The Jackrabbits return to action on Saturday, when the travel to Tulsa, Okla., to take on Oral Roberts. The Jacks won the first meeting with the Golden Eagles 72-70 in the first meeting of the season at Frost Arena. ORU improved to 12-10, 7-3, with a 71-57 win over North Dakota State on Thursday.