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EspañolMar. 1—BROOKINGS — In case there was any doubt, the South Dakota State women reminded everyone this week that they are still very much a threat to win the Summit League title and go back to the NCAA tournament.
After snapping first-place North Dakota State's 23-game winning streak on Wednesday, the Jackrabbits bombed South Dakota 82-49 on Saturday in front of 4,449 fans at First Bank & Trust Arena, clinching the No. 2 seed for the conference tournament.
SDSU finishes the regular season 24-6 and 14-2 in the conference, and in the space of four days avenged both of those league losses in convincing fashion.
They made quick work of the Coyotes on Saturday, essentially putting it away in the first quarter. The Jacks led 27-8 after one, using a 1-2 post punch of senior Brooklyn Meyer and freshman Brooklyn Felchle to beat the Yotes into submission.
Meyer ended with 33 points on 13-of-17 shooting while Felchle had 10 on 5-of-6 shooting, all in the first half.
"I feel like we've just been more connected and just more determined in executing our game plans," Meyer said of her team's big week. "It's the last week of the regular season and so we're like, why not go out there and give it our best and trust in each other and I'm just really proud of how we've played this week."
The Jacks also got 12 points from Emilee Fox (including a half-court buzzer-beater before halftime), 10 points and seven assists from Hadley Thul and eight points on 3-of-3 shooting from Mahli Abdouch.
USD (22-8, 12-4) got 21 points from Molly Joyce but they were 3-of-22 on 3-pointers and had just five assists as the Jacks defense took them out of what they wanted to do most of the day.
"I thought our ball movement was just bad," said USD coach Carrie Eighmey. "We had five assists on the game, and that's not very typical of us. It's happened a couple of times this year, but this is not a team that you can not move the ball well against and get good looks. We did not shoot the ball extremely well, but part of that was I didn't feel like we got high quality shots a lot. Some of that was us and our lack of ball movement, and some of that was them and the way that they shrink the floor."
The Jacks closed the regular season on a seven-game winning streak. It's clear the losses to NDSU and USD — which came after a 67-game conference winning streak — got their attention and inspired them to play better. While the Bison still claimed the top seed in the tournament, any thoughts that NDSU would cruise to the title in Sioux Falls have been rendered premature.
"I don't know if it's a statement," said Jacks coach Aaron Johnston. "I think it's wanting to play better. At the end of the day, you're accountable to everybody in that locker room. And you don't want to let anybody in that locker room down, whether you're a coach or a player or whatever it is. We had a lot of talks with players throughout the year, not just recently here this week, but throughout the last several weeks, months even. Players and coaches just kind of voicing that idea, hey, we're together in this. We want to do it. So it's just being motivated by the locker room, not by having to prove it to somebody outside of the locker room."