Jacks handle winless Centenary in Shrevport

Drue Aman

Drue AmanSports Editor

Sometimes winning is easy. The Jacks (15-9, 7-6) jumped out to a 28-point first half lead and coasted to a 102-73 win against still winless Centenary (0-25, 0-13) Feb. 5.

Those 102 points included six players scoring in double-figures, draining an almost standard 12 three-pointers while every player on the roster played at least 10 minutes and scored at least one bucket.

Yes, SDSU can shoot the ball, and senior guard Clint Sargent has been the poster boy. His three three-pointers put him atop the career threepoint shooting record, replacing assistant coach Austin Hansen.

“Probably nobody’s happier than Coach Hansen,” said SDSU head coach Scott Nagy in his postgame radio interview. “He’s as good a shooter as I’ve ever coached.”

The easy-handling of Centenary came in the first half, in which the Jacks scored 54 points – a seasonhigh – and outpaced the Gentleman by 28-points in the game’s opening 20 minutes.

Not that Centenary shot poorly.

In fact, the Gentleman – in their last season at Division I and almost certainly the last matchup between the two teams – shot 58 percent in the second half in keeping pace with the Jacks over the final 20 minutes. But individual performances were in plentitude, led by Jordan Dykstra’s 20 points on 6-of-7 shooting from the field with 11 rebounds in only 17 minutes.

“I was concerned whether we’d show up or not,” said Nagy of his team’s mentality entering the game.

“When you play a team that’s gone through what these guys have you take them lightly, but our guys didn’t.”

The win assured SDSU of its first winning season since 2003, and its first since entering Division I in 2004.

At 7-6 in conference play with three of their final five games on the road, the Jacks will enter their final week of home play against Western Illinois and IUPUI.