Jackrabbits set to face off with Fighting Hawks on hardwood

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The South Dakota State’s men’s and women’s basketball teams return to Frost Arena this weekend. The Jackrabbits take on North Dakota on Friday and Saturday with the women tipping off at 5 p.m. and the men starting at 7:30 p.m.

Men

For the men, it will be their first action since playing Jan. 8-9. SDSU was supposed to play at Omaha this past weekend, but the games were canceled due to COVID issues with the Mavericks.

“We were in a situation where we were ready to play games and we were healthy and ready to go. For us not to be able to [play] was certainly disappointing,” said SDSU head coach Eric Henderson. “I felt bad for our guys because during this time I feel like any time that you are able to play games, you should. So that’s what we were hoping for. We tried to get some things to happen within our league and it just didn’t work out for a lot of different reasons. Once found we weren’t able to play any league games, we looked at some nonconference games and honestly I was on the phone with numerous people. … It was really difficult and at the end of the day we weren’t able to find anybody to play. So we worked on ourselves.”

SDSU won its first two Summit League games against Western Illinois. The Jacks defeated the Leathernecks 83-77 and 92-63.

The Jacks are heading into unfamiliar territory this weekend. SDSU already played UND earlier this season in the CU Mortgage Direct Dakota Showcase. That game was considered a nonconference game and the Jacks came away with a 74-62 victory.

The Fighting Hawks (4-11, 3-3) are coming off of an overtime victory against North Dakota State. They are led by senior forward Filip Rebraca. The junior is averaging  16.8 points per game, which is sixth in the Summit League. He is tied for sixth in rebounding averaging 6.9 per game.

Henderson said he thinks UND is a lot different team than they were in December.

“They still have a lot of identity as far as who their best player is and who they want to play through in Rebraca. He’s a special player in our league and is very, very talented offensively and can score in many different ways. … Quite frankly they’re a little bit different than when we played them the first time. They’re playing a little differently and they’ve had so many new guys this year around Filip. They’ve gotten a lot better. Their cohesiveness is a lot better and that’s just from playing games I think,” Henderson said.

SDSU has not had its full roster since the very first week of the season. Senior forward Douglas Wilson missed four games, including the one against UND. Sophomore Noah Freidel missed two games due to a suspension and sophomore Matt Mims missed the previous two games because of a foot injury.
Henderson said he finally has his full team back and he is very excited about it.

“It’s been good because we haven’t practiced a long time every day, but we practiced a lot and Doug practiced every day and was in every drill for the first time all year. … We made practices short, but we made sure that they’ve been high energy to kind of keep that game feel. … Our practices have been spirited. We kind of split our teams up and have gone at each other and have tried to be super competitive. Without being able to play game against Omaha last week we just wanted to make sure thatwe could keep that feel of making sure energy was up and the competitive spirit was up. It’s been pretty cool to see our whole group together,” Henderson said.

Women

The SDSU women improved to 4-0 in the Summit League and 11-2 overall after back-to-back wins over Omaha. The Jacks topped the Mavericks 62-50 and 64-54.

The Jacks have now won eight-straight games. During that stretch they have given up 60.8 points per game. SDSU head coach Aaron Johnston said he thinks his team is playing a lot better on-ball defense.

“… For us defensively, I think we have a good balance of being able to get out in passing lanes and make plays and use our length. But also good balance of being solid and being hard to score on. … We’re guarding the ball a lot better one-on-one. I think that’s always a huge priority for any good defensive team. Being able to contain ball handlers and dribblers. … The one area we could continue to improve on is keeping people off the free throw line. Down in Omaha we just fouled too much. Our defense was really good, but we just put them on the line too many times with shooting fouls. We have a lot of players that can go up and block shots, but we have to make sure we’re doing that without fouling,” Johnston said.

One thing that has plagued the Jacks this season is 3-point shooting. SDSU is shooting 29.4% from beyond the arc which is seventh in the Summit League. Johnston said the biggest problem with SDSU’s shooting has been consistency.

“We have been inconsistent from the 3-point line. I would say since Christmas. … I think our individual players have had some peaks and valleys so I think that’s certainly played out in how we’ve shot it as a team, but it hasn’t been a collective thing where the whole team has shot it well or shot it poorly. … I like our shot selection, so we’re going to keep trusting those players and believing in the them and no doubt they’ll shoot it well enough when they need to,” Johnston said.

The Fighting Hawks come into the weekend with an overall record of 0-11 overall and 0-2 in the Summit League. Their record may not dictate how good they actually are though. Three of UND’s losses have come in overtime and six of them have been by eight points or less.

Just like the men, the Jackrabbit women may also get someone back from injury this weekend. Johston said sophomore Kallie Thiesen, who has not played since Dec. 21, 2019, due to a knee injury may play this weekend.