Summit League Basketball Championships Day Three Roundup

Landon Dierks, Sports Editor

SIOUX FALLS — Championship Tuesday matchups are set and it’ll be a pair of all Dakota matchups for the automatic bids to the NCAA Tournament. Here’s a brief summary of Monday’s semifinals at the 2020 Summit League Basketball Championships.

Women’s Semifinal One: No. 1 South Dakota 65, No. 4 Oral Roberts 43

USD struggled to get its offense off the ground early, but once the ‘Yotes found their stride the outcome was never in doubt. The Coyotes outscored the Golden Eagles 25-5 and held them to 1-for-20 shooting in the second quarter to pull away.

Hannah Sjerven stood out on both ends of the floor all afternoon, finishing with 15 points, 13 rebounds, seven blocks and three steals in just 22 minutes of action.

ORU’s Keni Jo Lippe recorded a double-double of her own with 18 points and 13 rebounds, but shot just 6-for-20 from the field.

USD advances to the women’s championship game at 1 p.m. Tuesday.

 

Women’s Semifinal Two: No. 2 South Dakota State 76, No. 6 North Dakota State 56

After a sub-40% shooting effort in the quarterfinal, SDSU’s offense found a rhythm, and the defense held NDSU down in the second half, propelling the Jackrabbits into their third straight Summit championship appearance.

Freshman Tori Nelson led the Jackrabbit offensive push, scoring 21 points in the win. She was one of four Jacks who reached double figures.

SDSU advances to play USD at 1 p.m. Tuesday.

 

Men’s Semifinal One: No. 1 North Dakota State 75, No. 4 Oral Roberts 69

The game between the top two remaining seeds in the men’s bracket was tight wire to wire, but No. 1 seed NDSU outlasted ORU to play for what would be the program’s fifth auto-bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Kevin Obanor and R.J. Fuqua combined for 50 points on 19-for-30 shooting and 18 rebounds for the Golden Eagles, but ORU couldn’t get enough from other sources to get them to their first championship game appearance since 2011.

The Bison got contributions of 21 points from Tyson Ward and 17 points, six rebounds and four assists from Vinnie Shahid.

NDSU advances to the men’s championship game at 8 p.m. Tuesday.

 

Men’s Semifinal Two: No. 6 North Dakota 73, No. 7 Purdue Fort Wayne 56

UND rode a first half highlighted by seven made 3s to a seven-point lead heading into the locker room and didn’t look back as they pulled away from cold-shooting PFW down the stretch.

Two nights after upsetting 2-seed SDSU behind 13 made 3-pointers, the Mastodons connected on just 6 of 31 attempts from the outside against the Fighting Hawks.

Keinan Walter put up 20 points and nine rebounds to lead UND, with Filip Rebraca adding a 14-point, 10-rebound double-double.

UND advances to play NDSU at 8 p.m. Tuesday.