BROOKINGS, S.D. -- It's been three seasons since North Dakota and South Dakota State have met on the hardwood, but that will change Tuesday night when the border-state rivals square off in Brookings. The gap between matchups won't go that long again for the forseeable future as this is the final non-conference affair between the two programs before renewing a conference rivalry next season in the Summit League.
Tip-off against the Jackrabbits is set for 7 p.m. in a game that will be televised on Midco Sports Network and streamed on ESPN3.
UND VS. SDSU SERIES
All-time: UND leads 106-82
In Brookings: SDSU leads 55-35
Last Meeting: SDSU 74, UND 72 (Nov. 21, 2014; Brookings)
UND Head Coach Brian Jones vs. SDSU: 1-4
UND Head Coach Brian Jones vs. Otzelberger: First Meeting
SDSU Head Coach T.J. Otzelberger vs. UND: First Meeting
SDSU Head Caoch T.J. Otzelberger vs. Jones: First Meeting
WHERE TO WATCH/LISTEN/TRACK
TV: Midco Sports Network
Radio: 100.3 FM (GF) | 740 AM (Fargo)
Audio: www.UNDSports.com
Live Stats: www.GoJacks.com
Live Stream: ESPN3
IN THE PAINT...
• UND arrives in Brookings coming off back-to-back losses for the first time this season. The latest setback was an 88-79 home loss to in-state rival North Dakota State on Saturday.
• NDSU is the only one UND's six December opponents that did not participate in a postseason tournament last season.
• The Jackrabbits, who were the preseason Summit League favorites, ironically played Gonzaga, who UND will play Saturday in Spokane, in the opening round of the 2017 NCAA Tournament in Salt Lake City last March.
• This will be the final matchup between UND and SDSU before the Fighting Hawks join the Summit League next season. The Jackrabbits have taken four of five from UND in Division I tilts.
• The two teams were both members of the North Central Conference from 1927-2004. UND owned an 84-68 advantage in those regular-season games.
• The teams traded double-digit blowouts in their first DI contests during the 2011-12 season. SDSU won 92-54 at Frost Arena before UND returned the favor five days later in Grand Forks by posting an 89-70 victory at The Betty.
• The Jacks have won the last three meetings all by single digits.
OPPONENT PREVIEW: SOUTH DAKOTA STATE
• Head coach T.J. Otzelberger guided the Jackrabbits to an 18-17 finish in his first season replacing Scott Nagy in 2016-17 and has his club off to an 8-4 start this year.
• South Dakota State finished 8-8 in Summit League play, but the fourth-seeded Jacks won the Summit League Tournament in Sioux Falls and advanced to their fourth NCAA Tournament in the past six seasons.
• The West Region's No. 1 seed Gonzaga knocked off the 16th-seeded Jackrabbits 66-46 to end their season.
• Junior Mike Daum is the reigning Summit League Player of the Year after he averaged 25.1 ppg and broke SDSU's single-season scoring record with 878 points.
• So far in 2017-18, Daum is averaging a team-high 19.6 ppg and 7.3 rpg and was named the Summit League Athlete of the Month for November after leading SDSU to wins over a pair of Power 5 programs (Ole Miss and Iowa).
• Joining Daum in averaging double figures are freshman David Jenkins, who is one of the top scoring reserves in the country, and senior Reed Tellinghuisen.
• Jenkins is averaging 13.7 ppg and is shooting 42.3 percent from beyond the arc, while Tellinghuisen is scoring at an 11.8 ppg clip and has already eclipsed the 1,000-point plateau for his career (1,151).
• Tellinghuisen and Tevin King (9.3 ppg) are the only two Jacks besides Daum to start all 12 games.• SDSU is 5-0 at Frost Arena this season and averaging 86.4 ppg in those contests.
• The Jacks went 2-1 at the Cayman Islands Classic (Nov. 20-22)< which included an 80-72 win over Iowa and a 94-80 win over Buffalo after droping the opener vs. Wyoming (77-65).
• SDSU also picked up a big road win at Ole Miss, knocking off the Rebels 99-97 in overtime. The Jacks are 5-0 this season when scoring 90-plus points.
INSIDE THE SERIES
The North Dakota-South Dakota State men's basketball series dates back just over 100 years as the two programs first met on Feb. 19 of 2017. UND won that contest 44-11 and would win the first five meetings in the all-time series.
Saturday's matchup at Frost Arena will be the 189th between the two border rivals. This is the last season the two will play a non-conference affair as both will be Summit League members after UND joins that league prior to the 2018-19 season.
Both teams were members of the North Central Conference from 1927-2004 and UND owned an 84-68 advantage in regular-season NCC matchups.
FROST BITE
UND owns a 10-27 all-time record in Frost Arena and was the first victim of the Jackrabbits in their current arena back on Feb. 3, 1973 (77-62 loss). SDSU had opened the venue the day before with a setback to North Daktoa State.
BETTY BEWARE
The Fighting Hawks went 11-2 at The Betty last season and own a 122-56 record in the building that opened prior to the 2004-05 season. UND is off to a 2-2 start at home this season and has now won eight-consecutive home openers.
ON THE HORIZON
The Fighting Hawks play their third and final opponent that played in the 2017 NCAA Tournament on Saturday when they take on Gonzaga. This will be UND's first trip to play in Spokane since 1972 when the Bulldogs won 90-73. Gonzaga owns a 4-0 edge in the all-time series that dates back to 1956.
DID YOU KNOW?
UND's last two visits to Brookings have been decided by a total of three points: a 71-70 loss on Nov. 28, 2012 and a 74-72 loss on Nov. 21, 2014). The Fighting Hawks have not won in Frost Arena since an 84-72 win on Feb. 11, 1995 -- a stretch of 14-straight defeats.
RECORD REWIND
The North Dakota men's basketball program holds a 1566-1039 (.602) record all-time since Dr. George Sweetland led the first team onto the court in 1904-05. North Dakota is 946-282 (.770) all-time when it comes to defending its home court.
STEWART GETTING COMFORTABLE
Sophomore Marlon Stewart scored just 26 points (8.7 ppg) in his first three career games for UND, but is averaging nearly double that figure in his last six games (17.0 ppg), including a career-hig 24 points against Utah Valley (Nov. 25) and team-high 23 against NDSU (Dec. 9). That was his third 20-plus point game of the season for Stewart. He had a career-high nine helpers in UND's outing against Presentation (Nov. 28).
SEALES MISSES NDSU CONTEST
Head coach Brian Jones had started the same unit in each of UND's first eight contests, but that streak came to an end vs. NDSU last Saturday. Junior captain Cortez Seales missed the NDSU contest dealing with a personal matter back in his home state of Iowa, but is expected back for the SDSU game on Tuesday. Junior Jafar Kinsey earned his first Division I start in Seales' place.
AVANTS-ING HIS STREAK
Junior captain Conner Avants scored 11 points in the loss to North Dakota State (Dec. 9), which extended his personal-best streak of reaching double figures to six-straight games. He is averaging 14.2 ppg during that stretch and shares the team lead in double-figure scoring games this season at seven with Geno Crandall.
WALTER DELIVERS
Sophomore Kienan Walter played a career-high 24 minutes off the bench against NDSU (Dec. 9) and delivered with a career-high 11 points. He made his only two field-goal attempts, but also connected on six-of-eight free throws. The six-foot-nine forward also equaled his season-high with four rebounds.
CLOSING IN ON 1K
With his 20-point outing against North Dakota State (Dec. 9), junior Geno Crandall moved his career point total to 971. Crandall is looking to become the sixth player in UND's Division I history and 36th overall to reach that plateau. Crandall, who has only played in 67 career games (14.5 ppg), is on pace to become the fastest of UND's previous five DI 1,000-point scorers to reach that feat. Troy Huff (2010-14) was the fastest among the current quintet after taking 74 career games to reach the milestone. He ended his career as the program's third all-time leading scorer with 2,005 points.
CRANDALLIZED
Junior Geno Crandall has equaled his career-high of five steals three different times already this season and now has 143 for his career. With his latest five-steal performance against NDSU (Dec. 9), Crandall moved into fifth place on UND's all-time charts knocking his mentor Aaron Anderson from that perch.
ANOTHER FIRST
Junior Geno Crandall has achieved a growing list of “firsts” this season and he added another one in the overtime loss to Utah Valley (Nov. 25). For the first time in his career, Crandall notched a double-double with 15 points and a career-high 10 rebounds against the Wolverines. Crandall's double-double is also the first of the season for a Fighting Hawk. Classmate Conner Avants was a rebound shy of his first career double-double against UVU (Nov. 25), finishing with 12 points and nine boards.
THE POWER OF EIGHTY
When the Fighting Hawks score 80 or more points, good things tend to happen. A season ago, the team went 16-1 when reaching that plateau with its only loss coming to Arizona in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.
So far this season, the Fighting Hawks are 3-0 when scoring 80-plus points and are averaging 77.1 ppg, which is third highest among Big Sky teams.
JONESING FOR SUCCESS
Iowa grad transfer Dale Jones earned a starting role entering the 2017-18 season for his new team and the 6-foot-8 forward has proven his worth early on this season. Jones reached double figures twice at the Rainbow Classic and nearly scored as many points (31) in those three games as he did in his two-year Iowa career (33). Injuries limited him to just 11 games for the Hawkeyes.
Through nine games for the Fighting Hawks, Jones is averaging 8.6 ppg and a team-best 7.4 rpg, which is also third best in the Big Sky.
SUCCESS INSIDE THE ARC
The Fighting Hawks are off to a slow start from 3-point territory (26.3 percent; 52-for-194), but have made up for that with a 53.3 percent clip inside the arc.
Overall, UND is shooting 44.3 percent from the field, which is the fourth best in the Big Sky Conference. Junior captain Conner Avants is fourth among Big Sky players with a 56.3 field goal percentage.
HIGH THEFT VOLUME
UND enters the SDSU game ranked second in the Big Sky, averaging 9.0 steals per game. Led by junior Geno Crandall (20; 2.2.g, third in Big Sky) and sophomore Marlon Stewart (14; 1.6/g), the Fighting Hawks are forcing opponents into 15.6 turnovers per game and have registered 10 or more steals in four of their last seven games.
SALT LAKE CITY REUNION
North Dakota was one of eight teams that played at the Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City last March for the opening round of the 2017 NCAA Tournament. The Fighting Hawks will play two of the other seven teams that were Iin SLC this week when they travel to both South Dakota State (Dec. 12) and Gonzaga (Dec. 16). The Jackrabbits, who was the West Region's 16th-seed, played the top-seeded Bulldogs in the first round, falling 66-46 to the tournament's eventual runner-up.
HAWK-UMENTARY
• After going 31-for-54 (57.4 percent) from the foul line in their first three home games, the Fighting Hawks made their first 19 attempts against NDSU (Dec. 9) and finished the game 29-for-34 (85.3 percent).
• Sophomore Kienan Walter buried a pair of 3-pointers in the same game for the first time in his career at Creighton (Dec. 5). After a 1-for-9 start to the season, Walter is 3-for-4 from beyond the arc in his last two games. He is also 11-for-16 inside the arc this season (68.8 percent).
• Sophomore Marlon Stewart had 14 assists and 11 turnovers in his first four games. In his last five games, he has produced 15 assists again, but only committed five turnovers.• With a 9.0 spg average, UND is tied for 24th in the NCAA in that category through Sunday's action (Dec. 10).
• True freshman Tray Buchanan is second among UND's reserves in scoring this season at 4.3 ppg. He opened his career by making his first seven free-throw attempts before missing his final two at Creighton (Dec. 5). His 77.8 percent clip is second on the team.
• Junior guard Cortez Seales leads the team with six blocks in the early part of the season. He now has 29 blocks in 68 career games.
-- UND --
