South Dakota senor Eric Robertson scored six of his career-high 16 points in the final three minutes to lead the Coyotes to a 76-72 win against CSUN on the final day of the Northern Illinois Showcase.
Both teams finished their opening weekend with a 1-2 record. The Coyotes beat the Matadors for the third consecutive season with margins of one, three and now four points.
Robertson was 6 of 9 from the field and 4 of 4 from the free-throw line. His jumper tied the game at 68-68 with 2:57 remaining. He gave the Coyotes the lead for good with a layup on the next possession and made two free throws with 14 seconds remaining to give South Dakota a 74-69 advantage.
Coyote point guard Shy McClelland iced the game with two free throws with 7.5 seconds left. He had a season-high 11 points to go with four assists. Tre Burnette and Casey Kasperbauer added 13 points apiece.
Freshman Jason Richardson scored 20 of his season-high 22 points in the second half to lead CSUN. He made four 3-pointers in the final half and handed out a game-high seven assists. Micheal Warren had 11 points and the Matadors got 10 each from Tre Hale-Edmerson and Tavrion Dawson.
Robertson and freshman Tyler Hagedorn scored eight points each to help the Coyotes take a 33-30 lead into halftime. No lead was greater than four in the opening stanza. Burnette, South Dakota’s leading scorer through two games, played just four minutes of the first half due to two fouls in the game’s first six minutes.
As they had in the first two games, the Coyotes built a lead of nine points early in the second half only to give it all back. Hale-Edmerson scored four points during a 13-4 run that put CSUN ahead 52-51 with nine minutes to go.
Kasperbauer and Burnette answered with back-to-back 3’s to put the Coyotes ahead 57-54 with 8:20 remaining. Those two combined to make 17 of South Dakota’s 25 3-pointers during the Showcase. Kasperbauer was 11 of 24 from beyond the arc in the three games and stands with 197 career triples.
Richardson’s third 3-pointer of the half gave CSUN a 67-66 lead with 4:29 left. He also hit a 3 with 12 seconds left that made it 74-72 with 12 seconds left ahead of McClelland’s free throws.
South Dakota next competes at 7 p.m. Friday against Kansas State in Manhattan, Kan.
