Sargent?s career night leads Jacks to win at UMKC

Thursday, December 30

Kansas City, Mo.

7:05 p.m.

South Dakota State University

UMKC

Jackrabbits cage Bengals for fourth straight win

12/30/2010 10:54:00 PM | Men's Basketball

By: SDSU Sports Info

KANSAS CITY, MO. - A week after putting up a season-high 23 points at Minnesota, and after missing the last three days with the stomach flu, South Dakota State senior Clint Sargent scored a career-high 29 points on Thursday in a 91-71 Summit League win over UMKC in Kansas City, Mo.

Sargent broke his previous career-high of 25 points, set at Minnesota on Dec. 10, 2008, and helped the Jackrabbits improve their record to 9-4 overall and an even 1-1 in The Summit League in the process.

"I don't know what it is, I just got a couple of shots to fall down," Sargent said. "I thought we did a good job in the second half letting our defense dictate what we did offensively and we were able to make a big run there in the second half."

The Jacks and Kangaroos exchanged the lead nine times in the first half, before the 'Roos took a 39-36 lead into the locker room at halftime.

"We weren't very good in the first half, I was amazed we were only down three," SDSU head coach Scott Nagy said. "Every day in practice we do one on one drills just guarding the ball and we didn't go a very good job of doing that in the first half, but in the second half we guarded and did a much better job."

SDSU shot 46 percent in the first half on 14-of-30 shooting, but bounced back to shoot 63 percent in the second half on 21-of-33 shooting.

The second half also saw five more lead changes before the Jackrabbits took the lead for good on a Jordan Dykstra three-pointer with 17:15 left in the game, part of a 17-4 run that also Nate Wolters record his first-career dunk.

The Jacks continued to increase their lead, which reached as many as 22 before UMKC scored a late basket to cut the lead to the final 20-point margin.

In addition to Sargent's career night, Wolters scored 16, Dykstra scored 11 and Chad White 12 points off the bench.

Spencer Johnson led a trio of Kangaroos in double figures with 19 points and a game-high nine rebounds, only one of which came in the second half. Reggie Chamberlain added 18, but scored only three in the second half. Jay Couisnard pitched in with 15 points in the loss.

The Jackrabbits take their 4-2 road record to Cedar City Utah on Saturday to take on Southern Utah in Summit League action. The game from Centrum Arena begins at 7 p.m. MT.