In the weekend match up the Jackrabbit women controlled game one from the opening tip. Trailing by one point in the first quarter, there was never a doubt that the Jacks would win. In game two the both teams fought back and forth until USD got hot in the 4th quarter getting up by 8 points with 2:56 left in the game. According to ESPN the SDSU women at one point in the Saturday game of the double header had a .3% chance of winning. They trailed 67-75 with just two minutes left in the game and went on a 13-0 run to finish off the regular season sweep of the little sisters of the south.
This series did a few different things for the Jacks. In the series Myah Selland (in my opinion) clinched the player of the year award while racking up her 5th Summit League player of the week award. She had 17 points in game one and 26 points in game two. These performances also nearly clinched the Summit League title for the Jacks. SDSU now holds what is basically a 3 game lead of the Coyotes. Winning the head to head tiebreaker and now a 2 game lead with 6 games remaining, the Jacks would have to lose 3 of their last 6 games to lose the regular season conference title.
The Jackrabbit men had more of a difficult time this weekend with the Coyotes. Whether it was the lack of consistent play (five games in 55 days) or lack of a challenging conference schedule up to this point, the Jacks got off to a slow start. SDSU lost game one in what can only be categorized as one of the worst games the Jacks have played this year. The final score came out to a 64-56 loss and while the Jacks hung tight it was not as close as the score indicated. In game two the Jacks offense came alive and they put the hammer down in the second half to take a series split.
From this series of the storied rivalry, a few positives can also be taken away for the Jacks. First off, Baylor Scheierman is becoming an All-Summit League first teamer. He had 15 rebounds in game one helping continue his double double streak. The streak ended in game two but he hit two big threes going into the half cutting the 12 point Coyote lead down to 6. He also came one assist and two boards away from a triple double to go along with his 19 point performance. We saw Matt Dentlinger come back as a dominant scorer with 21 points on 10-11 shooting. The Jacks had a repeating issue at the free throw line over the weekend, shooting 50.5% in game one and 60.6% in game two. SDSU now has a major problem they need to work out before the Summit League tournament. The end result of game one could have been different if at least half of the free throws attempted were made. For now the Jacks fall to second in the Summit League by technically two games due to the lack of games played. With this upcoming weekend series with Oral Roberts the men need a sweep.
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