Daum's historic night lifts Jacks to road win

Saturday, February 18

Fort Wayne, Ind.

7 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. CT

South Dakota State University

14-16, 7-8SL

Fort Wayne

18-10, 7-7SL

South Dakota State

Fort Wayne

Photo by: Inertia Sports Media/Dave Eggen

2/18/2017 9:42:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

Sophomore scores 51; most in NCAA Division I this year

FORT WAYNE, Ind. -- Mike Daum posted the nation's top scoring performance of the year and South Dakota State pulled out a 97-89 road win over Fort Wayne Saturday night.

1,521 fans at the Gates Center witnessed history as Mike Daum scored 51 points for the Jackrabbits to go with 15 rebounds. He was 16 of 17 at the charity stripe.

Joining Daum in double figures was Skyler Flatten, who had 14 with four 3-pointers and Chris Howell, who finished with 12 points and six rebounds.

SDSU (14-16, 7-8 Summit League) shot 53.6 percent from the field and hit 26 of 30 free throw attempts, adding 11 3-pointers. The Mastodons hit 52.2 percent of their field goals with seven 3-pointers and a 10 of 13 effort at the line.

A frantic pace carried the teams through the opening half with 95 combined points as the Jacks went into the locker room down 48-47.

Trailing 19-12 past the 13-minute mark, SDSU scored nine straight over the next 90 seconds to take a 21-19 lead. From there, a pair of momentum swings put Fort Wayne up eight before SDSU responded with a 14-4 run and led, 40-38, at 5:46. The final six minutes of the period saw pace of play slow, and State went to the break behind one.

SDSU opened the second on a 9-4 run to take the lead, and though Fort Wayne regained control briefly with just over 16 minutes to play, 12 points from Daum in the next four minutes put the Jacks in the driver's seat past the 12-minute media timeout.

FW tied it two more times on the night, but the Jackrabbits never relinquished their advantage and led by as many as eight. Inside two minutes to go, the 'Dons cut the lead to one, 90-89, but State scored the final seven points to pull out the win.

Head Coach T.J. Otzelberger
On tonight's game ...
"I feel like our guys really competed. That was a high level game and obviously a phenomenal individual scoring performance by Mike Daum, but I thought a lot of our guys really chipped in, made some really key plays defensively on the glass and finished some big plays in transition. Down the stretch we got some stops and that led us to victory."

On team fighting for a road win ...
"We talked tonight about three things before the game and winning on the road. No. 1 is rebounding, because when we win the rebounding battle we're going to be successful. No. 2 is making sure that we do a great job valuing the ball and No. 3 is making sure we get to the free throw line. We did a great job with all three tonight."

On Mike Daum's historic performance ...
"He was great. Obviously he can really score the ball and he was phenomenal tonight. It was maybe the best individual performance I've seen out of a player in all my years of college coaching. I'm really proud of him."

On team's approach as season winds down ...
"We need to keep getting better, keep growing as a team. Our guys have really done that, put the extra time in and are really growing as a group. We can only control what's in front of us and each day our guys are improving."

Game Notes

South Dakota State has officially clinched a spot in the 2017 Summit League Tournament in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Mike Daum's 51 points is the most for an NCAA Division I player this season. Central Michigan's Marcus Keene scored 50 against Miami (Ohio) on Jan. 21, 2017.
Daum is the second player in the last 20 years to have 50 points and 15 rebounds in a game, joining Grambling's Brion Rush who did it in 2006 (Per ESPN Stats and Info).
Daum is now 20th in SDSU history for points with 1,261 points. He passedd Chad White (1,234) and Mark Schultz (1,259) on the night. Next up is Ron Wiblemo with 1,272 points.
Daum's 51 points is the second most in school history, trailing only Nate Wolters who went for 53 points at Fort Wayne on Feb. 7, 2013.
Chris Howell reached double figures for the fifth time in seven games.
Daum reset the school records for 3-point and free throw attempts by an individual with 17 each, and tied his school record with 16 made free throws.
On 12 Saturday's this year, Daum has scored 373 points and grabbed 121 rebounds, good enough for averages of 31.1 points and 10.1 rebounds per game. He has seven 30-plus scoring performances on Saturday's this year as well.
Daum is now four points shy of SDSU's single season scoring record of 747 points, set by Chris White in 1991-92.

What's Next
South Dakota State hosts Denver on Feb. 25 for Senior Night. Tipoff from Frost Arena is 4 p.m., in the final game of the regular season.