Cal Poly tops Jacks in BracketBuster

Saturday, February 21

San Luis Obispo, Calif.

7 p.m. PT

South Dakota State University

Cal Poly

2/22/2009 1:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball

By: SDSU Sports Info

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. – The South Dakota State men's basketball team erased an 18-point first half deficit and led Cal Poly by five in the second half, but Kai Williams three point attempt with eight seconds left went in and out, allowing the Mustangs hang on for a 66-62 win over the Jackrabbits in San Luis Obispo, Calif., on Saturday in the ESPNU BracketBusters.

The loss, which does not effect the Jackrabbits chances at making The Summit League tournament, drops their record to 12-17, while Cal Poly improves to 7-17.

Williams led the Jacks with 19 points in the loss, followed closely by Dale Moss, who continues to shine, with 18 points. Moss also came up one rebound shy of a double-double in leading all players with nine rebounds.

Shawn Lewis led a trio of Mustangs in double figures with a game-high 21 points; Chaz Thomas added 18 and Titus Shelton 10 points in the win.

After taking an early 3-2 lead, Cal Poly rattled off the next 19 points to take a 21-6 lead with just under seven minutes gone in the first half.

Garrett Callahan, who finished the night with nine points (all three-pointers), broke the run with a trey at the 13:09 mark of the first half, and the Jacks started to fight their way back into the game.

Down 15 points at 25-10 with 9:36 left in the half, the Jacks cut the lead to four at 23-21 with an 11-0 run. They would get as close as three points in the first half, but the Mustangs led by seven at 39-32 at halftime.

SDSU scored the first nine points of the second half to take its first lead since the opening seconds of the game at 41-39 with 16:68 left to play and marked the first of eight second half lead changes.

The Jacks largest lead came at 57-52 with 7:13 on the clock, but Cal Poly came back to tie the game at 60 before the final lead change, which came at the 3:34 mark, when the Mustangs took the lead for good at 62-60.

Williams got a clean look at the potential game winning three with eight seconds left, but the ball bounced out of the rim and Lewis got an easy dunk on the other end to seal the Mustang win.

After allowing Cal Poly to shoot 55 percent on 16-of-29 shooting in the first half, the Jacks held them to just 41 percent in the second half on 12-of-29 shooting.

In contrast, the Jacks shot 41 percent in the first half on 13-of-32 shooting and 42 percent in the second half on 11-of-26 shooting.

The Mustangs went 7-of-16 from long distance (39 percent), while the Jacks finished the game just 3-of-19 (16 percent) from beyond the arc.

The Jackrabbits return to action next week, when they wrap-up the regular season on the road at Oral Roberts on Thursday and at Centenary on Saturday.