South Dakota State senior Cody Larson scored a career-high 27 points, and added a game-high 12 rebounds, to lead the Jackrabbits to a sixth straight win with a 76-72 victory over Oral Roberts. 

 

SDSU closes the first half of Summit League play with a 15-7 overall record and a 6-2 mark in the league, while ORU falls to an even 10-10 overall and to 4-3 in league play.

 

“I’m just super proud of our kids, because we just didn’t get off to a good start again, defensively we just weren’t very good to start the game, then we started guarding,” head coach Scott Nagy said. “We’re playing good enough defense, we’re just not rebounding the basketball, particularly on the defensive end.”

 

The Jackrabbits win the tip and scored on their first possession, but the Golden Eagles came right back with a 15-6 run to open up an early 15-8 lead six minutes into the contest.

 

Cody Larson, who started 0 for 5 from the field, started to heat up, scoring 16 straight points for the Jackrabbits, part of a 22-11 SDSU run that ended with the Jackrabbits leading 30-26.

 

The Jackrabbits would increase that lead to as many as five points at 25-20 with 6 minutes, 10 seconds left in the half on back-to-back buckets from Larson, who made five in a row after the cold start, including a pair of 3-point plays.

 

From there, ORU got things going again, and closed the half on a 10-4 run after Zach Horstman hit beat the halftime buzzer to cut the Golden Eagle lead to 36-34 at halftime.

 

SDSU scored the first five points of the second half to take an early 39-36 lead, only to see ORU come back to for the first of three second half ties at 41-41 less than four minutes into the frame.

 

The Jacks didn’t trail again until the Golden Eagles forced the second of three second half lead changes at 48-47, but the Jacks forces the final lead change on their next possession, a Jake Bittle jumper with 11:52 left that put them up 49-48.

 

The lead would grow to as many as seven points on two occasions, the last being 67-60 with 5:14 remaining, when the hosts made one last charge, starting with 3-pointers on back-to-back triples to cut the lead to 67-66 just over a minute later.

 

A Bixby Okla., native playing in his home state for the first time, Bittle answered with a layup to push the lead back to three, and the Jacks made just enough free throws down the stretch to secure the win, the team’s first inside the Mabee Center.