Jacks buzzer beater falls short at UMKC

Thursday, January 15

Kansas City, Mo. (Muncipal)

7:05 p.m.

South Dakota State University

UMKC

Sargent?s career night ends with Jackrabbit loss

1/15/2009 1:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball

By: SDSU Sports Info

KANSAS CITY, Mo. ? Clint Sargent's three-pointer for the win missed its mark and Kai Williams' putback attempt for a tie rimmed out just before the buzzer sounded Thursday night, sending South Dakota State to a 69-67 loss to UMKC at historic Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Mo.

The loss, which drops the Jackrabbits to 8-11, 3-4 in The Summit League, snaps their first league winning streak, prevents them from recording their first three-game winning streak at the Division I level and keeps SDSU winless in league road games.

The Kangaroos improve to 6-13 overall and 2-4 in league play with the win, which also snaps a five-game UMKC losing streak.

Sargent, along with Garrett Callahan, shared game-high honors with 22 points each. Half of Sargent's total came with less than five minutes gone in the game, as he and Cordova combined to score the Jacks first 19 points.

SDSU held Kangaroo standout Dane Brumagin to just four points in the first half, but he came on strong in the second, scoring 19 of his team-leading 19 points the second half. Spencer Johnson added 16 points and Reggie Hamilton 15 in the UMKC win.

The Jacks rode Sargent and Cordova to an early 17-11 lead, but UMKC came back with a 9-0 run that turned into a 16-3 run to erase the Jacks largest lead of the game and take 31-22 lead with 7:57 left in the first half.

Undaunted, the Jacks responded with a 10-0 run to go back up by three points at 39-36 with just under two minutes left in the half, before eventually taking a 41-38 lead with them into the lockerroom, despite being out-shot 52 percent (14-of-27) to 46 percent 15-of-33).

Five of the game's nine ties and seven of its lead changes happened the first seven minutes, 14 seconds of the second half. The last tie game on a Hamilton free throw that knotted the game at 52, the final lead change came on his next attempt, when he put the Roos up for good and kicked of a six minute span that saw UMKC outscore the Jacks 13-4 and match its largest lead of the game at 65-56 with 6:24 to play.

SDSU did not go away though, and held UMKC at 65 until the 2:07 mark, when Hamilton again made a pair of crucial free throws to keep it a two possession game at 67-63.

The Jacks quickly cut it to two points on a Callahan jumper with 1:51 to go, but Hamilton matched him on the other end, scoring with 61 seconds left to put the Roos back up four at 69-65.

Cordova cut the lead back to two points on a layup with 50 seconds to play and the Jacks got the stop they needed on the other end, but Sargent's three and Williams' layup would not fall and the Kangaroos hung on to win.

The hot shooting Roos cooled off a bit in the second half to shoot 48 percent on 11-of-23 shooting, but they still shot an even 50 percent in the game. The Jackrabbits rough shooting continued into the second half, as SDSU struggled to shoot 42 percent on 10-of-24 shooting.

The Jackrabbits did win the battle of the boards 35-27, including 9-2 on the offensive glass, but they came up one shot short.

SDSU returns to action on Saturday in Cedar City, Utah, when they battle the Thunderbirds at 7 p.m. MT in Centrum Arena.

The T-Birds fell at home on Thursday to North Dakota State, 76-53.