Jackrabbits roll the 'Roos

Saturday, February 6

Frost Arena

7:30 p.m.

South Dakota State University

UMKC [Family Fun Night]

2/6/2010 11:00:00 PM | Men's Basketball

By: SDSU Sports Info

South Dakota State scored the first five points and held UMKC without a field goal for a span of nearly 12 minutes of Saturday night's 38^th Pork Classic en route to a 78-57 thumping of the Kangaroos in front of 2,799 Jackrabbit fans.

The Jacks, who improve to 13-11 overall and 9-4 in The Summit League, led by double digits for the majority of the game, but SDSU head coach Scott Nagy never felt like his team fully controlled the game.

"It just kind of felt like we couldn't pull away from them," said Nagy. "I think even after the game, our guys were kind of subdued because they felt like there were some things that they could have done to play better. That's a good thing. When we are winning and aren't satisfied with how we played, that's a really good thing and it's been a long time since we have been able to be there."

Clint Sargent led four Jackrabbits in double figures with 18 points, Griffan Callahan went 5-of-6 from the floor, 3-of-4 from three-point range to finish with 14 points, he also grabbed a team-high six rebounds. Garrett Callahan scored 12 points in the win and moved into a tied for 10th all-time at SDSU with his 241st career assist. Anthony Cordova rounded out the Jacks double digit scorers with 11 points.

Jay Couisnard led the Kangaroos, who fall to 10-13 overall and 4-8 in league play, with 20 points. No other UMKC scored in double figures.

SDSU tied a season-low with just seven turnovers, but lost the rebounding battle 36-28, which did not please coach Nagy.

"I'm not happy about it. We talked about this at halftime; we were living on flow and offense and that's just not how we're going to do things here. That's not how you win basketball games."

Up 12 at the half, SDSU increased its lead to as many as 20 points at 54-34 with just under 12 minutes to go in the game as the 'Roos did not make a field goal until the 8:39 mark of the second half.

UMKC chipped away at the lead and got as close as nine points with 4:27 to play, but Sargent rattled off 10 of the Jacks next 11 points to push the lead back to 18 and seal the win.

The Jackrabbits return to action next Saturday, when they host North Dakota State in Frost Arena. Jackrabbit fans can watch both the men's and women's games in the doubleheader with NDSU live on Midcontinent (Ch. 23 in most areas) and Mediacom (Ch. 10) cable systems throughout the Upper Midwest. The SDSU-NDSU women's game tips off at 5 p.m., followed by the men's game at 7:30 p.m.