BROOKINGS – The South Dakota State men’s basketball team will travel to St. Paul, Minnesota, on Thursday to take on the Tommies of St. Thomas for the 17th time, but the first time at the Division I level.

St. Thomas (8-8, 2-2) is in its first season at the Division I level after becoming the first program to jump from Division III to Division I. The Tommies had the third most all-time wins at the Division III level and SDSU head coach Eric Henderson said he thinks the timing of the transition to Division I is perfect for UST.

“The timing is terrific,” he said. “They have a lot of older guys and so they’re not going to be afraid of anything. They’re actually looking forward to every challenge and they don’t have a lot of pressure on them. And when you play free and you’re older, you’re experienced and a little stronger, a lot of good things usually happen. 

“… Coach [John] Tauer has been there a long time and he does a terrific job. They play with great freedom and they play with great pace, and they really understand their system because he’s been there so long. He recruits to it and he gets his kids to play extremely hard. So I think the timing is right for them and they do a great job of understanding who they are.”

UST is led by John Tauer who is in his 11th year as the head coach of the Tommies. The Tommies won two D-III National Championships, in 2011 and 2016, the 2016 one coming under Tauer. The St. Paul native’s record at UST is 218-50, the best winning percentage among active D-III coaches. He also became the second fastest among active D-III coaches to reach 200 wins. 

“… I know that I have a lot of respect for coach Tauer,” Henderson said. “I have a lot of respect for their program. They go about things right way. They play the right way and I know they have big goals there. … I like playing against good teams and I like playing against good programs. … To get better I think you have to play good teams and that’s something that they add. They add a lot of value to our basketball league.”

Given that all of the guys on the Tommies were recruited to play D-III basketball, what Tauer and UST has done so far this season is impressive. Part of the reason UST has seen some success in its first season at the D-I level is its experience.

The Tommies have seven players that are either seniors or graduate students and six of those seven players are their top-six scorers. Riley Miller and Anders Nelson are second and third, respectively, in scoring in the Summit League. The two guards average 17.3 and 17 points per game, respectively.

UST loves to shoot the three. The Tommies are third in the country in total 3-point attempts. They are fifth in total 3-point makes and shoot 39.2% from beyond the arc, which is tied for ninth in the NCAA.

Henderson said UST’s experience and the way the Tommies run their offense is why they have had some success this season.

“Two things stand out to me,” Henderson said. “Number one is their experience. Their top six guys are all seniors, so they’ve played a lot of basketball together and are very connected on both ends of the floor. And then stylistically, they’re second in the country as far as 3-point attempts for their field goal percentage. They’re just above 50%, so over half of their shots come from behind the arc, which is second in the country. So they really, really shoot it . 

“They really, really space it and they move very, very well without the ball. You look at our style, we’re very, very efficient as well, but we usually have somebody on the block and don’t have an open post. They’re the opposite. They don’t spend a lot of time posting up, but what they do a good job of is cutting. But their paint is empty, so they can cut through there and you have to protect the basket on cuts, but also have to make sure your guarding the arc.”

SDSU (15-4, 6-0) is an even better 3-point shooting team. The Jacks lead the country in 3-point percentage, shooting 44.5% from beyond the arc. The next best team is Davidson, who is shooting 42.3% from three.

The Jacks have one of the most efficient offense’s in the country. They rank 12th in adjusted offensive efficiency, which is the number of points scored per 100 possessions, at 116.2. The 11 teams ahead of SDSU are all ranked in the AP Top 25 except for Iowa, who was the top receiving votes getter this week.

The problem at times this season has been SDSU’s defense. The Jacks rank 285th out of 358 teams in defensive efficiency at 107.9. Henderson said his team has been making strides on defense and the numbers show.

Since conference play has started, the Jacks have been giving up 72 points per game, which is second in the Summit League behind only Kansas City (70.8). SDSU is allowing teams to shoot 44.5% from the field, which is also second in the Summit League behind only Oral Roberts (41%). 

Henderson said he thinks his team can get to a championship level of defense, but they need to become more consistent on that side of the floor.

“There’s times where we do have [championship level defense]. The biggest thing that we talk about with our team is consistency and doing that for 40 minutes. Staying engaged and keeping that edge for 40 minutes. It doesn’t matter what the score is, we have to make sure we’re engaged, we’re focused and make sure we’re playing connected championship level defense for 40 minutes. That’s something we’re talking about in practice. We’re working on it in practice and we’re trying to do some different things to make sure we’re getting better at that for longer periods of time,” Henderson said.

This is the first time in program history that SDSU has started 6-0 in Summit League play. Henderson said he’s proud of the Jacks’ start, but there is still a lot of basketball to be played.

“[Starting 6-0] is something that we should be proud of and we are. I’m not trying to minimize it or anything like that because we are proud of how we’ve been playing and we understand we need to continue to get better. But in all reality, it is very early. We’ve had some good wins, there’s no doubt about that, all of them have been good wins, but we can’t look at the past. We have to look forward and continue to take the approach that we’re going to get better every single day. We certainly hope we’re not a finished product. We certainly hope we’re not playing our best basketball six games into league play,” he said.

This will be the first time the two schools have played since 1973. The first 15 matchups came before 1960 and SDSU holds a 9-7 series lead. Tip off between the Jacks and Tommies is scheduled for 7 p.m. You can watch the game on tommiesports.com/watch.