Four of the five Jackrabbit starters scored in double figures and one more hit the mark off the bench, as South Dakota State ran away with an 85-68 wire-to-wire win over Weber State on Monday at Frost Arena.
The Jackrabbits improve to 2-0 with the win, while the Big Sky Conference favorites start the season with an 0-2 mark.
“I was really concerned about this game, that’s a really good basketball team that we beat tonight,” head coach Scott Nagy said. “Turnovers were the difference in the game because they shot 50 percent and we shot 50 percent, and they took 12 more free throws, which I didn’t like. I did feel like, physically, we got manhandled a little bit, but they’re big, they’re much bigger than us and I thought our kids showed good toughness. It’s really a good win, because these guys (Weber State) are going to win a lot of games.”
The Wildcats turned the ball over 22 times, which resulted in 27 Jackrabbits points, while the 12 SDSU turnovers resulted in 13 Weber State points.
The Jacks scored the first six points of the game on 3-pointers from Reed Tellinghuisen and George Marshall, capitalizing on four early Wildcats turnovers to take an early 11-2 lead.
SDSU led by as many as 11 points on two occasions in the first half, but took a 12 point lead into the locker room when Marshall hit a 3-pointer as time expired in the first half.
Up 45-33 to start the second half, Weber State cut the lead to eight points at 53-45 with 14 minutes, 49 second left in the game, only to see SDSU respond with a 10-0 run, capped by five straight points from Lane Severyn that put the Jacks up 63-45 with just under 12 minutes to play.
The lead grew to as many as 20 points, as the Jackrabbits cruised down the stretch to secure their 19th consecutive home win.
Marshall led the way with 17 points in the win; Deondre Parks scored 16 in his season debut after sitting out the opener due to injury. Tellinghuisen finished with 14, while Jake Bittle and Mike Daum both scored 10 points. Daum also tied for team-high honors in rebounds with Keaton Moffitt with five.
Weber State’s Jeremy Senglin led all players in the game with 20 points with teammate Joel Bolomboy adding 15 points and a game-high 11 rebounds for the game’s only double-double. Kyndahl Hill scored 11 points off the bench for the Wildcats in the loss.
The Jackrabbits hit the road for their next five games, starting with a contest at Illinois State on Thursday night in Normal, Ill., at 7 p.m. The Redbirds enter the game with a 1-1 mark after falling at San Diego State, 71-60, in their opener, followed by a close 67-66 home win over Morehead State on Monday.
