South Dakota State junior transfer George Marshall made his home debut on Wednesday and led all scorers with 17 points in the Jackrabbits to a 75-44 win over Western Illinois in the Jacks Summit League home opener.

 

The Jackrabbits, who played at home for the first time since Dec. 13, improve to 10-7 overall and to 2-1 in the league, snapping a four game skid in extending their home winning streak to 10 in the process. The Fighting Leathernecks fall to an even 7-7 overall and to 2-1 in league play.

 

“We’re just better offensively when we have pace to us, even at the start of the game I felt like it was very slow, we were standing around and it felt sluggish,” head coach Scott Nagy said. “Then we started to get stops and played with better pace, we have to play with better pace in our offense, and we can’t do that unless we play good defense.”

 

The Jackrabbits held the Leathernecks to 31 percent shooting for the game, 18 of 58, and to just 22 percent from 3-point range, 4 of 18. SDSU shot 47 percent for the game overall, 26 of 55, and 37 percent from distance, 10 of 27. The Jacks also won the rebounding battle 42-31.

 

SDSU won the tip and scored on a Cody Larson layup, then missed its next five shots, but the Jacks also limited the Leathernecks scoring, and then used a 7-0 spurt to turn an 8-7 WIU lead into a 14-8 SDSU lead with 11 minutes, 29 seconds left in the first half.

 

The Jacks added a 10-2 run later in the half before taking a 34-20 lead into the locker room at halftime.

 

A 9-0 run midway through the second half put the Jacks up 50-23 with 11:11 left before the Jacks removed all doubt to the outcome with a 22-4 run, which included 11 in a row over the next 10 and a half minutes, and ended with the Jacks up by 32 points at 63-31 with 6:24 on the clock.

 

In addition to his game-high 17 points, Marshall added five rebounds in the win. Larson and Deondre Parks both finished with 14 points, with Larson adding seven rebounds. All 14 Jackrabbits in uniform played in the game, with 10 of them finishing with at least two points and/or two rebounds.

 

Garret Covington and J.C. Fuller lead the visitors with 11 points each; with Covington tying Larson with a game-high seven rebounds.

 

The Jackrabbits look to even their Summit League record to 2-2 on Saturday, when they travel to Omaha to take on the Mavericks in Ralston Arena at 4:30 p.m.