Jacks Dispatch Coyotes, Advance to Summit Finals

Monday, March 9

Sioux Falls, S.D.

6:00 PM

South Dakota State University

South Dakota

3/9/2015 10:30:00 PM | Men's Basketball

By: SDSU Sports Info

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Just eight days after suffering an 80-64 loss to South Dakota at the DakotaDome, the South Dakota State men's basketball team came out hot on offense and focused on defense on Saturday against the Coyotes in The Summit League Semifinals, and cruised to an 78-65 win.

The top-seeded Jackrabbits improve to 23-9 on the season and advance to the tournament finals on Tuesday, while the No. 5 seed Coyotes end their season with a 17-16 record.

“Our guys had tremendous energy tonight, and I thought, particularly for the first 30 minutes, we were sharp,” head coach Scott Nagy said. “USD has good guards that are very difficult to guard, but our guys did a tremendous job of making things difficult for them. I'm really proud of them, and when we're playing well like that, particularly offensively, it's because our defense is playing well.”

The Jackrabbits scored first, and then used an early 10-0 run to take a 15-5 lead with just under 13 minutes left in the first half, and then used an 12-2 run later in the half to turn a 28-17 lead into a 40-19 lead with under four minutes left in the half.

SDSU pushed the lead to 22 points on a George Marshall 3-pointer two minutes later before taking a 44-25 lead into halftime.

Jacks scored first in the second half, led by as many as 26 points with 13:38 left and led by at least 20 points until the Coyotes cut it to 19 with under five minutes left. SDSU quickly got the lead back to 24 points and didn't let USD back to within 20 until late in the contest.

Nine different Jackrabbits scored in the game, led by Deondre Parks and his game-high 21 points. Marshall added 14 and tied a career-high with eight rebounds. Jake Bittle added nine points, with both Reed Tellinghuisen and Cody Larson adding eight points in the win. Tellinghuisen also tied a career-high with eight rebounds.

Tyler Larson led a trio of Coyotes in double figures with 19 points. Trey Norris added 15 off the bench and Brandon Bos 12 points in the loss.

SDSU moves on the tournament finals for the third time in four years, and plays either No. 2 seed North Dakota State or No. 3 seed Oral Roberts on Tuesday at 8 p.m.

NOTES: SDSU leads the all-time series with USD 121-90-1, and improves to 11-4 all-time in The Summit League Championships, with an even 3-3 record in the tournament semifinals ... SDSU improves to 20-1 this season when leading at the half, to 4-1 in neutral site games, to 16-3 when making more 3-pointers than its opponent, to 18-2 when holding opponents to fewer than 70 points and to 2-1 in games played on Monday ... Parks scored at least 20 points in a game for the fourth time this season