Seniors Sink Gophers in Minneapolis

Tuesday, December 8

Minneapolis, Minn.

7 p.m.

South Dakota State University

8-1

Minnesota

5-4

South Dakota State

Minnesota

12/8/2015 11:32:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

By: SDSU Sports Info

MINNEAPOLIS – Playing without the services of point guard George Marshall, his fellow seniors picked up the slack. Keaton Moffitt started in his place and scored six points with five assists, Jake Bittle scored a career-high 25 points and dished out five dimes, while Deondre Parks added 21 points and six rebounds as South Dakota State defeated Minnesota 84-70 on Tuesday night at Williams Arena.

Off to their best start at the Division I level, the Jackrabbits improve to 8-1, while the Golden Gophers fall to 5-4 after back-to-back losses to Summit League foes.

"I think one of the reasons why we played well is we had three very good practices and it led into good play. We ran a play for Jake right off the bat, he didn't make the shot, but at least it got him going, and then he really got going, he obviously played very well. When he's good and he's energetic, we're hard to beat, we're really hard to beat," head coach Scott Nagy said. "I thought our bench did a great job; TK (Tevin King) got good minutes, made some good plays and Keaton did a tremendous job. It was just a good team win."

The Jackrabbits came out hot, and used 12-0 run to take an early 17-5 lead, capped by a Bittle 3-pointer from the left baseline, his second of the game, which drew a timeout from the Golden Gopher bench with 13 minutes 17 seconds left in the first half and the Jacks leading 19-5.

The Jacks added a 10-0 run later in the half that gave them a 29-12 lead, capped by Reed Tellinghuisen 3-pointer with 9:21 left in the half, drawing another timeout from the Minnesota bench.

SDSU's lead reached as many as 23 points in the half, the first time on a Parks 3-pointer and the second on Moffitt runner in the lane that gave the Jacks their 45-22 halftime lead.

Minnesota tried to mount a comeback in the second half, but the Jacks answered the bell every time, and held a double-digit lead for not only the entire second half, but for the final 29-plus minutes of the contest.

Along with the standout seniors, sophomore Reed Tellinghuisen added 14 points and added a game- and career-high with 11 rebounds for his second double-double of the season. King finished with four points, two rebounds, three assists and a steal in 20 minutes on the floor.

Nate Mason led a pair of Golden Gophers in double figures with 18 points, while Dupree McBrayer added 13 points in the loss, nine of which came from the foul line, as Minnesota shot 25 free throws compared to 14 from the Jackrabbits.

SDSU looks to extend its overall winning streak to three and its home winning streak to 21 on Sunday, when they host UC Santa Barbara at Frost Arena at 2 p.m.

NOTES: Minnesota leads the all-time series with SDSU, which dates back to the 1930-31 season, 17-1 … the teams played in front of an announced crowd of 10,378 at Williams Arena in Minneapolis … SDSU improves to 3-32 all-time against the Big Ten Conference, with the other two wins coming against Iowa, including a 79-69 win on Nov. 14, 2010 … SDSU led at halftime in all nine games this season … SDSU tied a season-high with 11 3-pointers … SDSU went 13 of 14 from the free throw line, 92.9 percent, to shoot over 90 percent from the line for the first time since Jan. 16, 2014, when it went 20 for 22 vs. Western Illinois … two Jackrabbits scored more than 20 points in the same game for the first time since Parks (26) and Bittle (21) vs. Omaha on Jan. 28, 2015 … Marshall's team-long streak of 34 consecutive starts ended, leaving Tellinghuisen with the team's longest streak of starts with 27 … both of Tellinghuisen's double-doubles came this season (14 points, 10 rebounds at Illinois State on Nov. 19)