Callahan cracks top-10 in Jackrabbit win

Thursday, February 4

Frost Arena

7 p.m.

South Dakota State University

Southern Utah [Family Fun Night]

2/4/2010 11:00:00 PM | Men's Basketball

By: SDSU Sports Info

South Dakota State senior Garrett Callahan led the Jackrabbits with 17 points and moved into the top-10 in career scoring at SDSU in an 84-60 win over Southern Utah on Thursday in Frost Arena.

The Jacks improve to 12-11 overall and 8-4 in Summit League play with the win, Callahan finished the night with 1,369 career points, good for 10^th all-time, but says he'd trade the points for wins any day.

"It's a great honor, but it's not about that, and the guys know it," said the Seneca, Ill, native after the game. "Honestly, know that we're winning is enough for me."

"I've said this before, he moved into the top-10 in scoring against the best players we've ever played against at South Dakota State," said SDSU head coach Scott Nagy of Callahan's milestone. "I think that it's a tremendous accomplishment. What he and Kai (Williams) have done in particular and the stats that they have put up against the best competition South Dakota State has ever played against, I think has been way understated."

In addition to Callahan's 17 points, Clint Sargent scored 14, Anthony Cordova 13 and Kai Williams 12 points in the win. Williams also pulled down a game-high 12 rebounds for his third double-double of the season, all three of them in the last five games. Senior Mark Engen added a career-high eight points in 10 minutes, going a perfect 3-for-3 from the floor and 2-for-2 from the foul line.

Davis Baker led the Thunderbirds, who fall to 6-16 overall, 2-9 in league play with the loss, with 17 points, only five of which came in the second half. No other SUU player scored double figures.

Southern Utah jumped out to a quick 4-0 lead to start the game, but the Jacks responded with a 10-0 run, one of five runs in the game of seven or more points, to take a six-point lead. The T-Birds would keep pace for the rest of the half though and trailed the Jacks by just four points at the half at 32-28.

SUU cut the lead to one at 36-35 early in the second half, but the quickly pushed the lead back to four, and then went on another 10-0 run to take a 53-39 lead that continued to grow, reaching 27 points before the T-Birds hit a late three-pointer to cut the final deficit to 24 points.

After allowing SUU to shoot 50 percent in the first half, the Jacks held the T-birds to just 31 percent in the second half and forced 12 turnovers to put the game away. The Jackrabbit shot 52 percent in both halves of the game.

The Jacks return to action on Saturday, when they host UMKC in the 38^th Annual Pork Classic at 7:30 p.m., following the SDSU women's game against UMKC at 5 p.m.

The Kangaroos enter Saturday's game with a 10-12 record overall, 4-7 in league play after a 58-56 win at North Dakota State on Thursday in Fargo.