Casey Wonnenberg

The SDSU men’s basketball team ended the regular season on a negative note, as they lost to Nebraska-Omaha 63-74 on Friday and USD 63-78 on Saturday.

“Two games in a row we’ve had only one guy in double figures. We need our key players to play a lot better,” said head coach Scott Nagy. Against UNO junior guard Andy Moeller had 12 points and senior guard Marquise Richardson had a 23-point performance against USD. Richardson also had 9 rebounds.

Two minutes into the game USD immediately jumped to an 8-0 lead. After the Jacks cut USD’s lead down to one, USD regained composure and went on a 28-10 run to make the score 19-38. At halftime SDSU trailed 35-42.

With 11:57 remaining in the game, the Jacks tied it up at 49. However, the Coyotes replied to their enthusiastic, “sea of red” fans. The final score was SDSU 63 and USD 78. Whereas USD shot 43 percent from the floor, SDSU shot only percent.

“I would like to shoot better than 33 percent from the floor. We took a lot of bad shots,” said Nagy.

One positive note from this weekend is that sophomore star Matt Jones, who has been out almost all season due to illness, returned Friday night to battle Nebraska-Omaha.

On Saturday night Jones said, “I expect to play on Tuesday. I was wore out after last night, so I didn’t play tonight. Tuesday is the big game.”

Tuesday night initiates NCC semi-finals. For the first round the women and men SDSU teams have both earned home-game advantage. “We’ll put this all behind us. It starts all over Tuesday,” said Moeller.