Deondre Parks and Jake Bittle combined to go 14 of 15 from the floor and both set career-highs for points in leading South Dakota State to an 86-64 win over Omaha on Wednesday at Frost Arena.
Parks finished with a game-high 26 points and Bittle 21 for the Jackrabbits, who improve to 16-7 overall and to 7-2 in The Summit League. The win also marks the seventh straight for the Jacks overall and the 14th in a row at Frost Arena. The loss drops the Mavericks to 8-12 overall and to 2-6 in league play.
“The rebounding has been a problem for us, but what I’m I gonna do, complain? We won the game by 22,” head coach Scott Nagy said. “I’m telling they players they’re doing a good job, and I am proud of them, and I told them after the game that I’ve coached a lot of good basketball teams and I think these guys have handled success just about as good as any team I’ve coached. They’ve been very workmanlike, our practices have been good.”
The Jacks finished with a 36-34 edge in rebounds overall, but the Mavericks finished with an 18-5 advantage on the offensive glass, which resulted in 20 second chance points for Omaha, compared to five for SDSU.
SDSU shot 56.5 percent for the game, 26 of 46, and shot 65 percent in the first half, 13 of 20, but started slow, turning the ball over four times and missing a shot in their first five possessions.
Omaha missed its first three shots, but made its next two, which gave the Mavericks a 5-0 lead less than three minutes into the game, but SDSU quickly regrouped and tied the game at 7-all on a Reed Tellinghuisen 4-point play two minutes later, part of a 7-0 SDSU run that ended with the Jacks leading 10-7 with 16 minutes, 18 seconds left in the first half.
The Jacks never trailed again, as the 7-0 spurt turned into a 20-3 run, capped by a pair of Parks 3-pointers that gave SDSU a 23-10 lead, still with 11:41 left in the first half.
Omaha cut the lead to as few as five points with just over four minutes left in the half, but the Jacks got the lead back to 41-31 at halftime.
The Mavericks scored first in the second half to cut the lead to 41-33, but SDSU scored the next nine points and never let Omaha get any closer than 13 points the rest of the way.
Cody Larson joined Parks and Bittle in double figures with 15 points and tied with Bittle for a team-high seven rebounds. Keaton Moffitt led the Jacks with a career-high five assists.
Mike Rostampour led the Mavericks with 18 points and a game-high 11 rebounds. CJ Carter added 12 points and Tre’Shawn Thurman 10 in the loss. The Mavericks finished the game shooting 33.3 percent from the floor overall, 22 of 66, and 3 of 16 from 3-point range, 18.8 percent.
SDSU looks to make it eight wins in a row on Saturday, when it hosts Denver in the 43rd Annual Pork Classic. The Jacks and Pioneers tip at 4:30 p.m., following the SDSU women’s game against North Dakota State at 2 p.m.
