by South Dakota State men’s basketball opened 2020 with a 96-79 victory over Oral Roberts Thursday at Frost Arena, shooting 62.5 percent from the field with four double-figure scorers.
Douglas Wilson and Noah Freidel led the attack with 25 and 23 points, respectively. Wilson pulled down for the double-double and Freidel sank 9-of-11 from the field with four 3-pointers.
Matt Dentlinger finished with 18 points, seven rebounds and four assists while Alex Arians added 17 in the scoring column, hitting 6-of-7 from the field and 3-of-4 from deep.
The Jacks (10-7, 1-1 Summit League) were plus-five on the glass, holding Oral Roberts to a season-low 30 rebounds to go with a 60-28 advantage in points in the paint.
“What a basketball game,” head coach Eric Henderson said. “I’m really, really proud of our guys’ effort against, I think, one of the better teams in the Summit League. Coach Mills does a tremendous job there. But our guys’ effort tonight was fantastic. When you look at the stat sheet and you see 19 assists, I’m very proud of how selfless our guys are and how hard they competed.”
ORU built an 11-8 lead early on, but State answered with a 9-0 run to take control for good, closing the burst with an acrobatic Freidel layup at 12:33.
An Arians trey, Wilson alley-oop and Dentlinger hook shot helped SDSU push its lead to double figures (29-19) for the first time, forcing an ORU timeout at 7:37.
The hot-shooting continued the rest of the half, as Arians capped off the impressive start with a driving layup on State’s final possession of the frame, sending SDSU to the locker room ahead, 45-27.
ORU came out firing in the second half with 11 unanswered, cutting the lead to seven (45-38) before David Wingett (Winnebago Tribe) sank his first 3-pointer of the night at 17:48. Freidel snuffed out any comeback hopes for ORU, though, as he scored 15 of the next 19 Jackrabbit points and SDSU grew its lead back to 15 (66-51) at the 12-minute mark.
The Golden Eagles hung around and traded buckets the rest of the way, but never cut the margin to single digits again as SDSU closed out its first league win.
