South Dakota State takes on St. Thomas and South Dakota this week in a pair of Summit League road contests.
The Jackrabbits are 15-3 on the season with a 5-0 mark in Summit League action. SDSU is coming off a three-game homestands and most recently topped North Dakota Saturday afternoon at First Bank & Trust Arena. The Jacks have shot better than 50 percent from the floor in each of the last four games and eight times this year.
St. Thomas is 9-9 overall and 1-4 in the Summit League, but is coming off a 67-53 win over Omaha last weekend. Four Tommies scored at least 10 points in that win, led by 18 from Jo Langbehn. After Omaha pulled within six with 4:49 to play, UST clamped down on defense and held the Mavericks scoreless that rest of the way.
Against conference opponents, SDSU leads the way in scoring offense (83.6 PPG), scoring defense (61.4 PPG) and scoring margin (22.2 PPG). Comparatively, UST is seventh in offense (64.6 PPG), fourth in defense (70.0 PPG) and seventh in scoring margin (-5.4 PPG).
KEY STORYLINES
- South Dakota State takes on St. Thomas Saturday afternoon in St. Paul for the Jackrabbits' first road game since January 4.
- The Jackrabbits are 5-0 in Summit League action and the lone unbeaten team remaining in the conference.
- The Jackrabbits enter the contest one win shy of 250 Summit League regular season wins since joining the conference for the 2007-08 season. In Coach Johnston's head coaching career, he has 299 regular season conference wins going back to the Division II era.
- South Dakota State is the top ranked team in the latest College Insider Mid-Major Poll and is receiving votes in both the AP Poll and the Coaches Poll.
- Brooklyn Meyer averages 17.0 PPG and is shooting .609 on the season, which ranks 11th in the country. She has six 20+ point games this year, including three of the last four.
- Paige Meyer posted the first points-assists double-double in at least SDSU's DI era Saturday with 11 points and 10 assists. She is averaging a career-high 5.0 assists per game.
- Madison Mathiowetz is averaging 13.2 points and 5.3 rebounds per game in conference action, both well above her overall season averages,
- As a team, SDSU ranks 11th in the country in 3-point shooting (.373) and 17th in overall field goal shooting (.474).
- The Jacks have won 12 of their last 13 matchups. SDSU's three losses this season have come to teams currently in the top 20 of the AP Poll.
- SDSU has won 52 straight Summit League regular season games. That streak ranks top 10 in NCAA history for consecutive regular season conference victories.
-GoJacks.com-