The South Dakota State women are rolling with two weeks to go in the regular season. A staple of coach Aaron Johnstons career is having his teams playing their best ball at tournament time. That is exactly what is happening right now. The Jackrabbits are having strong production from multiple players on the court. Paige Meyer is having a great freshman season, and is the front runner for Summit League Freshman of the year. She played her best game of the year against a tough USD team with a win to tie up the conference standings.
The Jackrabbits had their top performance from Myah Selland against Omaha on Saturday, as she nearly had a triple double. We are also seeing Paiton Burckhard and Tylee Irwin ready playing well before their final Summit League championship run. Paiton has been knocking down threes and unlocking a new side of the offense for the Jacks. Since the loss to USD on January 8th, the Jackrabbit women have been one of the most dominating teams on both ends of the court. They have won every game by at least 10 points and have been defending with great energy.
The big push all year with Meyer starting was to play with an uptempo pace and we have seen that out of the Jackrabbit women more and more each week. With the Jacks getting out in transition, their lack of size at times becomes a nonfactor in games. heir length on defense, led by Irwin and her versatility to guard multiple positions, has really helped the Jacks hit their stride.
The bench production has been a huge benefit for the women. This has kept the starters from running up their minutes in order to stay fresh for the big games and play strong at the end of the year. The Jacks can go five deep at any time with scoring production from all five at any time. We have seen every player on the roster get on the court in multiple games. That could be a huge advantage come tournament time when at times the biggest advantage is your stars being fresh. We will see if that can lead the Jackrabbit women back to the top of the summit in Sioux Falls!
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