At a time of year when talk of quality wins and quadrants and power rankings can be almost overbearing, sometimes it’s worth taking a step back and acknowledging that teams can and do have outstanding years, even if they may not make the NCAA Tournament.
Before this season, if anyone had said the South Dakota Coyotes-a nickname that cool deserves to be attached to the school name at every chance-would win 26 games, any Coyotes fan would’ve taken that in a heartbeat. In fact, if any observer of the sport at large would’ve been told USD would win 26 games, give TCU and UCLA a run on their home courts and even play respectably at Duke, they would’ve figured it was one of the stories of the year outside the sport’s main spotlight, a still-young NCAA Division I program continuing a dramatic rise the past couple years.
South Dakota accomplished all of that this year, and yet somehow still did it almost silently. Blame some of that on location, some on the shadow of a superb program in its own state, and some on the ever-greater focus in this sport on numbers and power ratings and bracket projections. Unfortunately, it seems good old-fashioned great stories slip by if a team doesn’t have the scheduling advantages from its finances to give it the requisite number of Quadrant 1 wins even as it accumulates 13-14 losses.
By any standard, the Coyotes have had an outstanding year. For as great of a year as USD has had, though, it came up just short in the Summit League Tournament final Tuesday night, falling to top seed South Dakota State 97-87 in front of more than 11,000 fans at the Denny Sanford Premier Center in Sioux Falls, S.D.
It was nothing less than one of the most attractive matchups of this entire conference tournament season, the Summit’s clear top two teams meeting in their home state, in arguably the most underrated conference tournament in the country, with an NCAA bid on the line in the rubber match after the two split their regular season matchups. On this night, South Dakota played good, but rival South Dakota State played better.
The Jackrabbits shot 47.7% and hit 14 of 28 from three-point range, including eight triples in the first half in building a 12-point halftime lead. Mike Daum was superb again with 25 points plus 11 rebounds, but so were David Jenkins (29 points) and Reed Tellinghuisen (18 points, 11 rebounds). So good is SDSU that when Daum went out midway through the first half with his second foul and his team down a point, the Jackrabbits went on a 28-12 run.
South Dakota did not have its best night, shooting 37.8%. Leading scorer Matt Mooney scored 30 points but was just 9 of 26 from the field, including a number of shots notably seeming to touch every inch of the rim before bouncing or spinning out. And the Summit League’s best defense was unable to slow down the Jackrabbits’ potent offense, the 97 points allowed a season high and just the fourth time this year an opponent had scored 80 or more.
“They were clicking on all cylinders, and we’re very good defensively and we looked very average tonight,” said South Dakota head coach Craig Smith. “A lot of that was them, some of that was us.
“When he (Daum) fouled out they became obviously a very different team, and they basically started spacing us and driving us. They were just driving us, and we were just very inconsistent with our switches. But at the same time, you know, I didn’t think we played well at all, and we gave ourselves a chance.”
“I give them a ton of credit-they’re a very good team,” Smith added. “We’re a very good team, and they beat us tonight. I said last night let the best team win, and they beat us tonight. You tip your hats to them. Jenkins is a freshman…like we said last night, you do your best to put them in position and then you’ve got to make some plays too, and they made plays. Jenkins made plays tonight.”
The Coyotes did hit 11 three-pointers of their own and showed significant fight, just as they have in defeat previously this year. USD cut a 20-point second-half deficit to six late, showing the same spunk it displayed at UCLA in the final five minutes slicing a 24-point margin to two, and even at Duke when it turned a 29-point deficit into a respectable 16-point final margin. Even in defeat, the Coyotes have rarely gone quietly this year, with five of their eight losses by five points or less.
South Dakota came out of nowhere a year ago, a team picked seventh in the Summit’s preseason poll winning its first league championship before falling to South Dakota State by three in a terrific tourney semifinal game. The Coyotes did win 22 games and played in the NIT, then the most successful season since the program became a full NCAA Division I member in 2012-13.
The Coyotes did not win the Summit title this year, but their overall season has been even more impressive. The 26 wins are a school Division I record, and a 26-8 mark includes nine road wins and 13 wins away from home. USD was neck-and-neck with South Dakota State in the race for the league title all year and defeated the Jackrabbits by 19 at home in January, and there also were the close calls at UCLA and TCU (by five points).
On top of that, South Dakota has become-like South Dakota State-one of the more entertaining teams to watch in the country. The Coyotes move without the ball, cut hard, play excellent team defense and are an overall pleasure to watch. Mooney-an outstanding guard and first team all-Summit performer at 18.6 points per game-and Hagedorn were the only two double-digit scorers, but the sum of the team’s parts is far more than the individual numbers might suggest.
“Really proud of our team, you know, this game doesn’t define us, we’ve had a historic season,” said Smith. “We’ve done some great things, and in terms of the basketball part with 26 wins and all the stuff that everyone likes to talk about, our road wins are top 15 in the country, etc., etc. But more than all that, I just can’t tell you how proud I am of this team. I’ve been coaching for 22 years and, I’m going to try not to lose it here, but these guys to my right Mooney and (Tyler) Hagedorn, going right down the line, there’s not a guy I don’t love to coach.
“At times they’ll drive you crazy but they’re just phenomenal, I just wish people could be as fortunate as I am to be around these guys every single day as we are. It’s just a true joy. We’ll bounce back from this and just have to keep getting better.”
It was an emotional press conference after the game, with Mooney speaking of his faith and testifying how “it’s tough to praise Him in our defeats, it’s easy to do that in victories (but) I know He has a plan” and also apologizing to USD fans for his play.
About Mooney, Smith said: “Matt’s a perfectionist. Matt’s the kind of guy that, if he hits the bullseye, he’s not happy unless it hits the center of the bullseye. That’s Matt and that’s why he’s very good. You’re talking about a guy that had one Division I scholarship offer out of high school.
“This guy didn’t just fall off the airplane and become a great player,” Smith continued, before becoming emotional himself. “The stuff he’s had to do and how hard he’s had to work to get to this point, and to see it firsthand, it’s pretty remarkable what he does.”
Hagedorn also reflected on the team’s four seniors and how he would love the opportunity to play with them again.
“We’d love to play more basketball,” said a tearful Hagedorn. “We know it’s not going to be in the NCAA Tournament…we’ve just got to cherish every moment we get to play with the four seniors. All four seniors mean so much to our team, and being able to play with them again and practice, or even potentially another game would be amazing to play with them again.”
Unfortunately, that opportunity won’t be in the NCAA Tournament, and it may not be in the NIT either. That would be a shame for a team with 26 wins in a good league like the Summit, which is ranked 17th in the conference RPI, higher in some other metrics.
That should not dampen a bit what the Coyotes have done this year. USD was side-by-side all year in its league with an excellent South Dakota State that now has a string of three straight NCAA tourney berths. The only thing left for USD to do is to knock down the door to its first NCAA Division I Tournament appearance, and with possibly all five starters returning next year, another banner season is certainly a goal worth shooting for.
“We lose the four seniors, who are huge parts of our team…after the season is over with, we’ve got a lot of guys back, and most of us will be upperclassmen, so next year’s definitely looking up,” said Hagedorn. “We’re just going to have to get back to the grind and continue to every single day do the best we can to come back to give us another opportunity to punch our ticket.”
