South Dakota State's upset bid falls short against Providence in NCAA Tournament
Matt Zimmer
BUFFALO — Baylor Scheierman, Doug Wilson and the Jackrabbits were ready for the national stage.
Taking on 4th-seeded and 11th-ranked Providence, 13-seed South Dakota State came out in Thursday’s first-round NCAA tournament game intent on making the dozens of college basketball prognosticators who had picked SDSU as an upset special look like geniuses.
Scheierman drilled a 3 on the Jacks’ opening possession. He lobbed a pair of long alley-oop passes that Wilson hammered down powerfully. Later, Scheierman whistled a behind-the-back pass to Wilson leading to a fast-break lay-up. He didn’t need to throw it behind his back — he did it for style points, and the KeyBank Center crowd was here for it.
The Jacks built a two-point lead in a game that didn’t see a single stoppage of play for more than eight minutes off the clock. The arena was buzzing. Basketball Twitter was lighting up with admiration for the Jackrabbits’ electric attack. It was the same brilliance South Dakota State had ridden to 21 consecutive wins and the first 30-win season in Summit League history, but turned up to 11.
Then came the first timeout of the game, and then another immediately followed. Both teams needed it — Wilson could barely catch his breath, Scheierman was dragging. But after a more than five-minute break in the action, the Jacks weren’t the same when they returned to the floor.
“It was a double-edged sword, because we were cooking,” SDSU coach Eric Henderson said. “But our guys were tired. We needed that rest.”
When the game resumed, SDSU struggled to get their swagger back, and struggled to keep up the pace that had them rolling early. They went five minutes without scoring, and their lead became an eight-point halftime deficit.
Providence would push that lead as high as 14 in the second half, and the Jacks would fight back to whittle it down to three. In the final minute, Doug Wilson fouled Jared Bynum on a 3-pointer, all three free throws were good, and the Friars advanced with a 66-57 win. The call on Wilson drew ire from some, and it loomed large. So did the Friars’ bench, which outscored SDSU’s 19-0, and so did their 41-32 rebounding edge.
But on a day when the nation’s top 3-point shooting team scored 30 points fewer than their season average and made a pedestrian 7-of-23 shots from beyond the arc, Henderson believed that stretch in the first half was where the game was won and lost.
“We can look at (the foul against Wilson) as a big play in the game, and it was,” Henderson said. “But I thought that stretch with about eight minutes to about two minutes left in the first half — we gave them second-chance points and a couple of easy baskets in transition, and then we gave them the flow and didn’t score at those times, so they were able to stretch it out to eight points, and that’s really where I felt like probably was as big an impact as any other part of the game.”
Providence defense makes game difficult for Jackrabbits
Scheierman finished with 18 points, 10 rebounds and three assists. Wilson had 13 points, as did Alex Arians. Freshman Zeke Mayo hit three big 3-pointers and scored 11 points.
But the Friar defense made everything difficult to earn. Yes, the Jacks missed some good inside chances and a couple of open 3s, but in a physical game where there were constant battles for loose balls and rebounds, where every pass was contested and few shots came without a hand in the face, it was hard not to credit the Providence defense. Especially in the first half stretch Henderson mentioned, and the early stages of the second in which the Friars almost put it out of reach.
“(Defense) definitely gave us some momentum going into halftime, getting some stops,” said Bynum, who had 12 points for the Friars (26-5). “Going into the half we had a good lead and then coming out in the second half we wanted to build on that lead, and we had a pretty good first four minutes and got out to another big lead.”
As soon as it got to 14, though, the Jacks quickly scored eight straight to cut it to six, and they stayed in it for the duration. A Scheierman layup cut it to 60-57 with 59 seconds to go, but the Jacks didn’t score again.
“They play really physical and they’re really long at pretty much all five positions,” Scheierman said. “And they do a great job on defense trying to take away what they want to take away, and they were pretty good at it.”
The Jacks (30-5) held Providence leading scorer Nate Watson to just six points on seven shots, but the Friars used a total team attack to win. Noah Horchler had 13 points and nine rebounds and Aljami Durham had 13 points, eight rebounds and six assists to go with Bynum’s 12.
All throughout their 21-game winning streak, Henderson used words like togetherness and connected in explaining his team’s success. But on Thursday, it was a Friars squad with seven seniors that offered similar sentiments in the traits that helped them drop SDSU to 0-6 all-time in the NCAA tournament.
“Together, close-knit, real tough, real gritty,” Durham said. “We all came together today, from top to bottom. From coaches to the last person on the bench, I feel like we all had an impact on this game, and I feel like we all had a hand in this win.”
South Dakota State-Providence stats
S. DAKOTA ST. (30-5)
Wilson 6-14 1-2 13, Arians 5-9 2-3 13, Easley 1-4 0-0 2, Mayo 3-9 2-2 11, Scheierman 7-17 1-2 18, Mims 0-2 0-0 0, Appel 0-2 0-0 0, Dentlinger 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 22-57 6-9 57.
PROVIDENCE (26-5)
Horchler 5-12 2-2 13, Minaya 3-8 2-2 9, Watson 3-7 0-0 6, Durham 5-12 2-3 13, Reeves 2-6 0-0 6, Bynum 3-9 4-5 12, Croswell 1-3 0-0 2, Breed 2-4 0-0 5. Totals 24-61 10-12 66.
Halftime_Providence 31-23. 3-Point Goals_S. Dakota St. 7-23 (Mayo 3-8, Scheierman 3-8, Arians 1-3, Easley 0-1, Wilson 0-1, Mims 0-2), Providence 8-22 (Reeves 2-2, Bynum 2-5, Breed 1-2, Horchler 1-3, Durham 1-5, Minaya 1-5). Rebounds_S. Dakota St. 29 (Scheierman 10), Providence 37 (Horchler, Croswell 9). Assists_S. Dakota St. 12 (Wilson, Scheierman 3), Providence 13 (Durham 6). Total Fouls_S. Dakota St. 11, Providence 12.
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