by Bryan Boettcher, USD Sports Information
VERMILLION, S.D.—South Dakota jumped out to a 17-0 lead and that proved plenty in an 81-60 win against St. Thomas Thursday inside the Sanford Coyote Sports Center.
The Coyotes (16-10, 9-6 Summit) have won three in a row and completed a regular season sweep of the Summit’s newest member. The Tommies (8-18, 2-12) have lost 11 in a row.
Mason Archambault (Standing Rock Sioux) scored a game-high 21 points on an efficient 6-of-9 shooting that included two 3-pointers. He also had five assists and four rebounds. He did all of that while chasing down Riley Miller on the defensive end of the court. Miller led the Tommies with 17 points on 6-of-13 shooting.
Kruz Perrott-Hunt added 19 points and Hunter Goodrick had 10 for the winning side. It was those two plus Archambault who combined for all 17 points at the start. The trio made six of its first seven shots from the jump and four of those were triples. St. Thomas’ first points came on a Kevin Cunningham drive more than six minutes into the contest.
“Defense really set the tone,” said USD assistant coach Casey Kasperbauer. “They are a team that wants to shoot 30 3’s a game and they shot 34 tonight. They only made nine, which is 26 percent and that’s a great number for us.
“We wanted those 3-point attempts to be on the move and we didn’t want to foul them either. They can get you up in the air because they are such good shooters. If they were dribbling to a shot, we liked that and we were going to live with the result.”
Miller made 4-of-8 3-pointers in the first half, but his teammates combined for 0-of-8. Miller had all but nine of the Tommies’ first-half points, but was limited to three shots and three points in the second half.
South Dakota also made nine 3-pointers, but needed 15 fewer attempts to get there. It’s the sixth game in a row the Coyotes have made 8-9 3-point shots and with a similar amount of attempts each time. The team is up to 39 percent shooting from beyond the arc in Summit play.
It was the touches in the paint that setup most of those long shots and indeed USD had a 32-22 edge in points in the paint. They also got to the free-throw line 22 times and made 18 compared to 7-of-9 for St. Thomas.
“We simplified our offense in the second half and started to drive more and that’s why we were able to live at the free-throw line,” said Kasperbauer. “We started getting into attack mode and that was a difference in the game.”
