Night one is in the books for the South Dakota State men and womens teams at the Summit League Tournament. Both teams had Jackrabbit fans on the edge of their seats at times throughout the game. Between the Paige Meyer threes and the William Kyle III dunks, the Jackrabbits put on a show in Sioux Falls.
Nothing came easy for the Jackrabbit women in their tournament opening win over Omaha. Omaha came out like a team that has played in two of the past three finals. However, the Jacks pulled away behind a 23 point game from Paige Meyer and the team hitting five of seven threes in the quarter.
The Jacks struggled from behind the arch for most of the game going 5-17 from three the first three quarters, but behind 2 Ellie Colbeck threes the Jacks pulled away to win by 13. Turnovers were a major concern for the Jacks; they had 20 total and gave up 17 points off of those. Omaha also did a good job of containing the Jacks once Brooklyn Meyer got into foul trouble. They caused a lot of issues for the Jacks trying to get the ball into the post by double and triple teaming Mesa Byom and others when passes were sent in to the post.
Byom also played really well in relief of Meyer in the post. She had two major blocks in the first quarter and finished with six points and 12 rebounds.
The Jacks could afford a slow start to the game against Omaha but likely cannot moving forward. With the jitters shaken out, I expect to see the Jackrabbit women play strong Monday against the winner of South Dakota and St. Thomas.
On the men’s side, SDSU got out to a slow start trailing 16-6 early but ended the half on a 24-0 run, propelling the Jacks to a big first round win. Behind four thunderous slams from WK3 and five players scoring in the double figures, the Jacks continued their hot run down the stretch.
The bench production for the Jackrabbit men has been slow this season, but it came out in a big way tonight. Behind 10 from Kalen Garry, the Jacks got 16 bench points which will be important for them to make a run in the tournament. Not only did his offensive performance stand out tonight, but Kalen’s defense was also strong throughout the night. Kalen often guarded Kareem Thompson and did not let him or the supporting cast get going for ORU.
Charlie Easley had 14 points including 4 threes, and Luke Appel had 18 points and 9 rebounds which were vital to the success of the Jacks on Saturday. Zeke Mayo had one of the most efficient halves of his career to get the Jacks in front. He was 6 of 7 from the field with 13 points in the first half and was a major part of the big run for the Jacks.
We saw one of most complete games defensively from the Jackrabbits and that will be what leads them to where they want to go in Sioux Falls. If they can come out and play with the intensity they did the rest of the weekend, there is no reason they shouldn’t be playing for the championship Tuesday night!