Mike Daum goes for 29 and 20 as South Dakota State rolls past North Dakota

BROOKINGS – South Dakota State had one of its worst outside shooting performances ever on Saturday at Frost Arena. They easily dispatched North Dakota anyway.

The Jacks were as efficient inside the 3-point arc as they were horrific from beyond it, taking the action into the lane to power past the Fighting Hawks 80-55 in front of a crowd of 3,541. It was the 9th win in a row for SDSU and got them to the 20-win plateau for the second straight year and sixth time at the Division I level.

Mike Daum had 29 points and 20 rebounds on a day when SDSU went 3-for-25 from 3-point range and still shot 50 percent overall from the floor. The Jacks outscored UND 52-20 in the paint, and went 27-for-35 on 2-pointers in the game, and dominated the second half after going to the break with a mere 33-32 advantage.

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Still. 0-for-15 in a half, at home, for a team that specializes in 3-point shooting? What gives, Mike?

“Coach wrote something on the board about it at halftime that I won’t repeat,” Daum snickered. “He was not happy. Our shot selection was not where it normally is in the first half. We were not aggressive getting downhill and getting those kickout open 3s. We were just settling and not really spacing correctly and it led to us not getting the shots we wanted.”

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Jacks coach T.J. Otzelberger doesn’t normally try to interfere with his teams’ shot selection, but with how well they were getting things done on the inside, it was time for the coach to get his players to try something else.

“We talked about how defense -- guarding and getting deflections and steals would get us going on the other end,” Otzelberger said. “That second half defensively is as well as we’ve played in a half.”

The Fighting Hawks (9-16, 3-9) scored just 23 second-half points on 8-of-26 shooting. But defense was only part of it. Daum hit a 3 on the first possession of the second half to end the 3-point shutout, but that didn’t open the floodgates as expected. So eventually SDSU (20-6, 10-1) had to change things up.

“We definitely have to improve shot selection,” said freshman swingman Alex Arians. “One thing we talked about at halftime was we’ve got to throw it to Mike more to get paint touches, and when we’re getting those kickout open 3s after that the paint touches are higher percentage shots.”

David Jenkins had 14 points for SDSU, hitting 2-of-7 3s. Everyone else was a combined 1-for-18. But the Jacks outscored UND 17-6 at the line and held a 43-30 edge on the boards.

Skyler Flatten had 11 points for SDSU, using three steals to get the Jacks energized on the break, but outside of Daum’s usual dominance it was Arians that carried the rest of the load. He played a game-high 36 minutes and scored 14 points on 6-of-7 shooting, adding six rebounds, three assists, two steals and no turnovers.

Cortez Seales led UND with 15 points, eight rebounds and four assists while Filip Rebraca had 12 points and seven boards and Marlon Stewart 10 points and three assists.