The South Dakota State women’s basketball team goes home early after a 91-57 loss to UConn in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
The Summit League Champs ended up with a season record of 30-4. The Jacks started hot leading almost the entire first quarter. Madison Mathiowetz started the Jacks’ roll early as she nailed a shot from behind the arc less than a minute into the game, totaling three of her six points of the night.
Later Mathiowetz was back at it again with another three-pointer putting the Jacks up 8-2 with 5:30 left in the first quarter. Unfortunately for the Jacks, Paige Bueckers started to heat up towards the end of the quarter tallying 11 points in under two minutes.
Going into the second quarter the Jacks trailed 14-19 and would remain to trail for the rest of the game. As Bueckers kept rolling, the Jacks had a hard time keeping the momentum going from the first quarter.
As halftime came, the Jacks were down 28-43.
In the third quarter the Jacks had baskets here and there but were only able to score eight points in the quarter, one of the lowest for the Jacks all season. The Huskies continued their lead, going into the final quarter in Storrs, Connecticut 72-36.
The Jacks outscored the Huskies for the first time in the night 21-19 but it wasn’t enough to overcome the 57-91 deficit.
“Their defensive pressure wears on you, I thought early in the game we were fresh,” Aaron Johnston said. “Their pressure starts to wear on you and not only physically do you get worn down, a couple mistakes and you lose a little bit of your mental edge and it can turn into a run.”
The Huskies scored 35 points off of SDSU’s 25 turnovers, which is the most turnovers for the Jacks this season.
“Their defensive pressure kind of got us out of sync and they were able to score quite a bit in transition and off our turnovers,” Johnston said.
Paige Meyer led the Jacks with 16 points and three assists. Mesa Byom had six points, two rebounds and two blocks. Although Brooklyn Meyer was quiet offensively, she led the Jacks in rebounds with six. Freshman Katie Vasecka was the second highest scorer for the Jacks with seven points and three rebounds.
The Jacks shot an overall of 41.2% from the field compared to the Huskies 57.6% The Huskies only had a total of seven turnovers and outshot the Jacks in all categories. Bueckers led the Huskies with a season-high 34 points standing out in her last game at Gampel Pavilion. She also had three rebounds, four steals and four assists.
Azzi Fudd and Sarah Strong both contributed with 17 and 15 points. Strong led the Huskies in rebounds with seven. Seniors Paige Meyer and Kallie Theisen both agree being a Jackrabbit has been memorable and the experience and lifelong friendships they made are what they will miss the most.
“Obviously really special to be playing in the tournament and to be playing here [UConn],” Theisen said. “I think I’m just gonna take the experience of getting to play with the people I love. Getting a big win yesterday [against OSU] was fun and today didn’t go the way we wanted but just getting to play another game with my best friends definitely meant a lot.”
