Difference makers, on and off the court.

Nearly 250 kids converged on Frost Arena for the Hy-Vee Fast Break Clinic on Jan. 29 to learn some of the basics of basketball and get an up-close look at the Jackrabbits.

Student-athletes from SDSU’s 21 sports assisted in helping kids to work on their footwork, shooting, passing, and dribbling. Participants were rewarded with a t-shirt and a ticket to Saturday night’s doubleheader against Southern Utah. The event was free with a canned food item.

The event also proved to be a way to see some of SDSU’s athletes in a different element, conveying the teaching points that they hear everyday in practice.

“I found myself teaching the kids the same drills Coach Nagy is teaching to us everyday in practice, so it’s a great time,” said men’s basketball player Payton Tivis.

With plenty of school-age youngsters across the floor, there was a sense that SDSU is trying to mold Jackrabbit fans out of these kids through the event.

“We hope so. Really when you look at it, the most important thing is how these kids feel about the student-athletes and you want them to be proud of them and I think they certainly can,” said SDSU men’s basketball coach Scott Nagy.

“It’s great for our community. Not just the Brookings community but there’s a lot of area South Dakota kids here from some of the surrounding communities. It’s a great way for us to be involved and interact. It’s a good lesson for all of our student-athletes on being involved in the community,” said SDSU women’s basketball coach Aaron Johnston.

Many of the players got their points across to the young kids in a vibrant way, jumping around and adding color to their normally focused demeanors.

“I wish some of our players would play defense the way they are teaching the kids to play. Taking charges and talking, it’s great. I think it puts our athletes in different perspective and it’s fun to see how they react as coaches,” Johnston said.

Matthew Weelborg, a six year-old from Brookings, said that shooting was his favorite part of the clinic and “all of the players” were pretty cool.

“It’s great to just hang out with the kids and show them a little something, it’s fun,” Tivis said.

The event is something that is an important theme in the SDSU athletic department.

“It’s not just this. There’s so many things that our student-athletes do and are involved in and our student-athletes do a great job at it. They’re our most important ambassadors,” Nagy said.

What makes a rivalry?

It’s that one team that you hate the most. The team that you look forward to playing each season and immediately check the schedule when it comes out to see when another chapter to the rivalry will be written. If your team loses that week, you can at least feel a little better about it if your rival also loses. They are the team that when you are up by five touchdowns in the fourth quarter, you hope to score a couple more and keeping on blitzing their quarterback.

You cheer against them no matter what, unless them winning directly improves your chances to get a better seed for the playoffs or they knock out a team in front of yours. And that win can’t help your rival at all when it comes to making the playoffs or making their season more of a success.

A lot of it has to do with the history between two teams. You usually don’t start out as rivals. Somewhere along the way a moment or a game or a player changes how these two teams view each other. They go from just another team or division opponent to the team that if you could only win one or two games all season long, you want it to be against them.

I think that the best type of rivalry is one where both teams are good and something is on the line when they play nearly every time. While there is still the hatred, underneath that is respect that year in and year out, you know that to get where you want to go, you probably have to take care of business on the field against your rival.

But are some rivalries really rivalries.

Probably the biggest rivalry in NBA is the Lakers and the Celtics. In the 80′s I would call it a rivalry. Every year of the decade saw one of these two teams in the Finals, with them winning eight of them combined. They played in three Finals over four years with the Lakers winning two of them. That is a rivalry. But only in the 80′s. Before that they had met in the Finals seven times in 11 years, mostly in the 1960′s, with Boston winning all seven times. That is not a rivalry.

The Bears and Packers is the longest running rivalry in the NFL with at least one games being played between the two in a non strike year since 1921. They have played 182 times with the most recent coming this past Sunday as the Packers won 21-14 to advance to the Super Bowl.

Growing up, I remember how people would say that the Packers and Bears were rivals and I never really got why. The Bears were never any good when I was a kid while the Vikings and Packers always played close, exciting games that actually meant something in the standings. The Packers-Vikings rivalry is noted for being very balanced. In the first 97 meetings, the total offensive yardage, points scored, wins, turnovers and time of possession are all within five percent of each other. These are the closest margins for a rivalry longer than 15 years. Plus the whole Brett Favre thing.

For example, the Bears and Packers have rarely ever been good at the same time. This year was only the fourth time in the storied and much talked about histories of these two franchises that both have made the playoffs in the same year. From 1942 to 1993, neither team made the playoffs in the same season. They have 21 NFL Championships between them, but only two since 1968.

Usually, big time rivals enhance their battles with epic games in the playoffs. Whether it is Yankees-Red Sox, Colts-Patriots, or Lakers-Celtics, these rivals have played each other with as much on the line as possible. The Bears and Packers have done that twice. In 90 years.

For me, I hate no team more than the Green Bay Packers. I can count the number of times I have wanted them to win on my one hand and that’s only because it would have benefited the Vikings without also helping the Packers.

It goes without saying that I will be cheering for the Steelers to win the Super Bowl even though they have won six of them already.

Four starters reached double-digits and the Jackrabbits defeated the hapless Gents, as the SDSU rolled Centenary by 24 points.

The winless team with four scholarship players didn’t stand a chance.

That sentiment likely represented the majority of the 1,319 fans who showed up to Frost Arena to see that winless team in its last season at Division I before moving to Division III.

SDSU (11-4, 3-1) trampled Summit League bottom feeder Centenary (0-16, 0-5) 86-62 behind a near perfect statistical night from freshman Jordan Dykstra and a business-like approach in handing the Gentleman its sixteenth-straight loss to open the season.

Dykstra finished with 17 points and nine rebounds on a perfect 7-of-7 shooting from the field to bolster SDSU’s field goal shooting to 51 percent on the night. His only statistical blip: two missed free throws, something he was quick to point out.

“I missed two free throws, I had like four easy lay-ups because of Nate dishing it to me, so it’s props to my teammates more than anything.”

The Jacks likely didn’t need a prolific effort shooting from the field against the Gentlemen, but they did anyway, shooting 51 percent from the floor and 9-of-20 from beyond the arc. Four of the five SDSU starters finished in double figures despite none of them playing more 22 minutes. The only starter not to finish in double figures, guard Nate Wolters, still finished with seven points, six rebounds and six assists.

That led to considerable minutes for the SDSU bench, something Scott Nagy believed would happen heading into the matchup with the statistically last-ranked Centenary.

“The bench struggled a little bit, half our turnovers came from the bench,” said Nagy, whose team also finished a season-high 23 assists to go with averaging 94 points in their previous three games. “But we’ve been getting good bench play all year and I think they played better in the second half.”

It was a game largely played without SDSU’s starting five – and most notably – Sargent and Wolters. But it was also a game in which Dykstra, a true freshman, was taken out of the game early with the game out of reach. Dykstra’s 7-for-7 from the field raised his season field-goal percentage to 50 percent while countering that with 42 percent shooting from three-point range.

“He spent so much time early concentrating on defense and rebounding that his offense wasn’t very good,” Nagy said. “But you don’t forget how to play offense, and his shooting is coming around.”

#1.1839696:1446605821.png:mbb-cent-BRUA-002.png:SDSU?s Jordan Dykstra takes the ball to the basket against Centenary in the first half of their Jan. 6 game. :Collegian Photo by Stephen Brua

Respect.

That one word may singularly define what the Jackrabbits have sought after and earned this season.

It started early, with SDSU topping the Iowa Hawkeyes on the road by double-digits. A win against established mid-major program Nevada and an overall 11-5 start are attributable to a progression head coach Scott Nagy anticipated. The 11-5 mark at this point is a three-game improvement over last season, when the Jacks started 8-8.

That improvement partially falls on the hands of sophomore guard Nate Wolters. Wolters, whose statistical achievements include six games in which he’s scored 25 points or higher, 53 percent shooting from three-point range (ranking him 10th in the nation), and the Summit League’s leading scorer, for starters. In addition, he ranks first in the Summit League in assist-to-turnover ratio, a stat that indicates his level of control on SDSU’s offensive scheme.

“He’s really good,” said Jackrabbits head coach Scott Nagy. “I was really proud of how he played in the Centenary game, he just does what we need him to do.”

Besides Wolters’ adroit ability to score, other Jacks have excelled in that category as well. Clint Sargent, a senior guard from South Sioux City, Neb., ranks second on the team in scoring and continues to drive up the SDSU all-time scoring list. Griffan Callahan, after shooting 29 percent from beyond the arc last season, is shooting 45 percent from there this season. Not only that, he leads the nation in free-throw shooting, having missed only one free-throw all year.

But SDSU has had their downfalls, too. They rank last in the entire nation in three-point defense, lessening the impact of their three-point shooting offense, which ranks second in the Summit League and eighth in all of D-I.

“We’re one of the worst in the country at defending the three and it’s because we’re small and try to take care of the inside,” Nagy said. “But you have something to do with it, it’s got to be on you, too.”

In addition to that, the skilled offensive prowess of the Jacks has not shown from the free-throw line. At 69 percent, SDSU ranks fifth in the Summit League in that statistic. Against Oral Roberts on Jan. 8, they shot 11-of-21 from the charity stripe while nearly matching that percentage from the three-point line.

With the conference season in full swing, the Jacks hope for their current trend: winning basketball games. With a 90-82 loss to Oral Roberts, a game in which Wolters tallied 32 points that elicited Golden Eagles head coach Scott Sutton to proclaim Wolters, “the best guard in the league,” SDSU hits the road against Western Illinois and IUPUI.

“It would have been nice to get that win at home,” said Wolters after the Oral Roberts game. “We got to go on the road and get two wins to bounce back.”

Anything for respect.

#1.1839687:2767900048.png:Collegian-5.png:Jordan Dykstra makes a move toward the basket while under pressure from ORU defenders Jan. 8.:Collegian Photo by Robby Gallagher

The three-point line could have been thirty feet away. It wouldn’t have mattered.

And the crowd of 2,637 could have yelled even louder during the battle back. That probably wouldn’t have mattered either.

Oral Roberts (6-12, 3-3) went 14-of-17 from beyond the three-point line – a team record for percentage – and shot 65 percent from the field, leaving Frost Arena winners in a 90-82 battle against SDSU (11-5, 3-2) Saturday, Jan. 8.

Even with the prodigious outpouring of threes, of which the Golden Eagles made 11 of their last 12, the Jacks had a chance. After trailing 65-52 with less than 12 minutes left, SDSU cut the lead to two, only to see Golden Eagles guard Warren Niles drain two three-pointers, neither one a wide-open look.

“They made some big shots,” said SDSU head coach Scott Nagy. “Niles made two threes with people draped all over him – we knew he could do that and he did it.”

Not as if SDSU didn’t stack up a nearly equatable offensive performance of their own. SDSU sharpshooters Nate Wolters and Clint Sargent shot a combined 9-of-15 from three-point range, and junior Griffan Callahan cashed in four threes of his own. Those three players combined for 68 points. But none of them had an answer for Oral Roberts’ shooting on the night, in fact Callahan was baffled at Niles’ last three-pointer, a 22-footer at the top of the key with a hand in his face as the shot clock expired.

“We felt we were ready for them,” Callahan said. “For him (Niles) jumping up and hitting a three like that – it’s ridiculous.”

The same could be said for Wolters. Playing nearly all 40 minutes (39), the sophomore point guard finished with 32 points on a stalwart 12-of-16 shooting from the field, while tallying five assists.

“(Nate) Wolters, in my opinion, is the best guard in the league,” said Oral Roberts head coach Scott Sutton. “And that’s saying a lot … we couldn’t guard him.”

It didn’t seem like there was much guarding of anyone – regardless of the team – in the second half. The Golden Eagles shot 71 percent from the floor in the second half, including a mind-bending 91 percent from beyond the arc (11-of-12) while SDSU shot 50 percent and notched seven threes. Oral Roberts and the Jacks finished with 48 and 46 points in the second half, respectively. But SDSU shot only 11-of-21 from the free throw line, their worst percentage of the season.

“All we got to do is make some free throws and the second half is completely different,” Nagy said.

Stopping perimeter shooting would benefit, too. Though Oral Roberts’ 14-of-17 effort from three-point range will likely be the worst SDSU gives up all season, SDSU is allowing 43 percent shooting from deep, the worst in the Summit League. The Jacks’ focus on containing the middle and inside game of Oral Roberts helped contain Damen Bell-Holter, a 6-9, 245 pound forward to only seven points, but created an outside shooting night for Oral Roberts they would like to forget

“We left some guys open intentionally, but 14-of-17 from three, it’s ridiculous,” Wolters said. “It’s just one of those things.

#1.1839686:2577064992.png:Collegian-4.png:Nate Wolters scores two of his game-high 32 points against Oral Roberts Saturday. SDSU lost to Oral Roberts, 90-82, in the Lamb Bonanza Jan. 8.:Collegian Photo by Robby Gallagher

There were specks of blue amongst the crowd of 13,302 mostly maroon and gold fans on hand at Williams Arena on Dec. 23, and for good reason.

SDSU likely brought it’s best team since moving to Division I to Minneapolis for a meeting with No. 16 Minnesota.

The only problem is that the Gophers have assembled their best team in recent years, enough to prevail double-digit winners, 85-73.

Clint Sargent and Nate Wolters shot the ball well from deep and the Jacks won the rebounding battle for the game against the much larger frontline of Minnesota. The game was tied with 6:30 left before errors on both ends of the court allowed the Gophers to pull away late in the game.

The hardest part to grasp is how well the Jackrabbits played against this caliber of team. SImply put, the Jacks did some things better than they have all season, namely rebounding and free throw shooting.

Don’t get me wrong, SDSU won’t be settling for a moral victory for their performance against the 10-1 Gophers, which now marks six straight seasons whereMinnesota have beaten the Jacks at the Barn.

There is however, a sense that SDSU is on the verge of defeating the border foe in the near future and beating a Top 25 caliber school. A win against a team that is a name in college basketball could do wonders for a school that could use any national notoriety.

Minnesota was the toughest test of the non-conference schedule and might be the best team the Jackrabbits will play all season. Unless a Summit League team somehow finds its way into the national Top 25, it was likely the only ranked opponent SDSU would play for the year.

SDSU played a favorable schedule during non-conference play that was filled with home games, exactly what would help a young team adjust to the ebb and flow of a college basketball season. In fact, I loved what the team did to schedule the quality of teams that came to Frost Arena earlier this year.

However, you can schedule all the quality opponents you want. Eventually you have to beat them. The game against Minnesota had that feel to it.

The Jacks are past the point of just going and playing someone to collect a check, regardless if it was good matchup or not. It is time to be able to go and defeat a strong squad on the road. A win at Iowa and a strong showing at Minnesota should be the start of SDSU being able to go on the road and playing well against a power conference team.

If NDSU stopped the SDSU Jackrabbit men’s basketball team’s outside shooting prowess in their victory last week, UW-Milwaukee flat out stole it and used it for themselves on Saturday night.

The Panthers hit 14 three-pointers, while the Jacks struggled from the outside again, leading to a 82-70 defeat in front of 1,622 fans at Frost Arena on Dec. 11.

In the last week, the Jacks have not shot well against formidable opponents and have seen their shooting percentage, which is among the best in the nation, fall as teams catch on to their shooting abilities.

“People have kinda figured us out. We’re a jump shooting team and they’re really sticking tight to our guards and we don’t have much going on inside,” SDSU head coach Scott Nagy said.

On the contrary, UW-Milwaukee is not known for their long-range shooting.

UWM wasted no time getting on the board via the three-point shot, nailing three of them in the first two-and-a-half minutes. SDSU would draw even at 13 and then take the lead on a pair of Griffan Callahan three-pointers with 10:52 left. The lead would not hold as Lonnie Boga and Tone Boyle followed with threes of their own, putting UWM ahead, 19-16.

SDSU trailed the Panthers closely to open the second half for the first seven minutes before UWM went on a 18-4 run over the next five minutes to open the lead up to 16 points with eight minutes left. Callahan would drain a pair of three-pointers to close within 12 with 5:43 left but the Jacks would not get any closer.

“It’s going to be tough to win when you can’t get consecutive stops in a row,” Nate Wolters said.

Griffan Callahan led the Jacks with a career-high 20 points in the losing effort. Wolters and Clint Sargent each had 16 but the productivity essentially ended there. No other SDSU player added more than six points.

Tony Meier led the Panthers with a 19 points and five three-pointers. Ja’Rob McCallum was a perfect 4-of-4 from three-point land, finishing with 16 points and Kaylon Williams added 14.

“I think I gave them too much information and it resulted in confusion and led to a lot of our breakdowns.”

SDSU (7-2) had a season-low six turnovers and made it nine straight games allowing less turnovers than their opponent. However, the 14 UWM (5-6) three-pointers was the most allowed by the Jacks since 2006.

“There were just miscommunications on the floor, defensive letdowns. It was more our fault than anything,” Callahan said.

“It’s definitely a tough one to swallow but we’ll just get back on the road and we’ve got three tough on the road straight and get back on track,” Wolters said.

The South Dakota State men started slow, but erupted in the second half to secure its fifth straight win with an 84-58 drubbing of Eastern Illinois behind a career-high 24 points from Chad White on Nov. 27 in front of 1,798 fans at Frost Arena

The Jackrabbits improved to a perfect 5-0 with the win.

White reached the career mark on 9-of-12 shooting, including a 5-for-7 night from three-point range. Griffan Callahan added 16 points on 5-of-6 shooting, with a 3-for-4 night from long range and led the Jacks with eight rebounds. Nate Wolters and Clint Sargent both finished with 12 points in the win and combined for 10 assists, while Jordan Dykstra added a career-high nine points, all in the second half.

Tyler Laser led EIU with 12 points in the loss, James Hollowell and Curry McKinney both finished with 11.

After allowing the Panthers to shoot 57 percent in the first half, the Jacks shut them down in the second half, holding them to 24 percent shooting.

“In the second half we were a good defensive team,” SDSU head coach Scott Nagy said after the game. “We went from tied with them on the boards at halftime to up 12 just eight minutes into the second half. That’s why we made our run.”

The run Nagy refers to would be the 32-8 run the Jacks went on to start the second half and that pushed the their lead from 10 points at halftime to 34 points, 73-39, with 8:41 left to play in the game.

The Jacks went on to win the rebounding battle 33-28 after being tied at 12 rebounds for each team at halftime.

SDSU would boost that lead to as many as 36 with just under seven minutes to play before the Panthers cut the lead to the final 26 point margin.

Maybe it’s not a bad thing to be tall and be able to dribble, shoot and rebound.

That’s the perception of incoming freshmen Jordan Dykstra and Marcus Heemstra, who in reality, are both 6-8. Those perceptions and hype are something the two ignore, only emphasizing the traits of their game they need to improve in their first year at SDSU after standout careers at Rock Valley High School.

“I’ve tried ignoring it,” said Dykstra, a 222-pound forward and all-time leading scorer and rebounder in Rock Valley High School history. “I try to stay humble with myself and always keep working, it’s a new level. Marcus and I are teammates, but we have a lot of other players that we have to get involved with too.”

Other players have noticed the advancement of their play, and in late August, an international trip to Canada to play four exhibition games gave Heemstra and Dykstra an earlier experience than usual with new teammates.

“They’re both really good shooters,” said sophomore and returning starter Nate Wolters. “And they can pass, not just for big post guys, they’re going to help us.”

Heemstra and Dykstra are two players of a youth-oriented roster that includes four freshmen and two sophomores, all with the expectation of seeing playing time, and all between 6-foot-3 and 6-9. That fact elicited a superlative from head coach Scott Nagy, that his roster, all have assets they present to the team.

“They’re all long, all pretty athletic kids, all good passers and ball-handlers,” said Nagy of his six underclassmen. “What they give us is more versatility than we’ve ever had.”

Versatility is something SDSU has seemingly lacked in previous years. That’s something stats can vouch for: three players logged over 30 minutes a game three seasons ago, and four did so in 2008-09. Last season, no players surpassed that mark, and 10 players on the roster cracked the starting lineup, with five of those players not returning this season. Dykstra and Heemstra – along with incoming junior college transfer Aireus Stephenson – enter the program with expectations of playing right away, and productively. All while figuring what their weaknesses are.

“I didn’t know how bad I was defensively,” said Dysktra of the adjustment to the college game. “I need to work on that obviously, just the physicality of the game and the speed of the game are obviously a lot different than what I was used to in Iowa.”

“I was kind of a shock at first,” Heemstra said.

With a plentitude of youth, a surge of height, and a bench that Nagy can walk down and “grab good players”, Dykstra and Heemstra may only need modest contributions to accomplish SDSU’s first season above .500 since transitioning to Division I six years ago.

“Excitement would probably be the best word to describe it, and anticipation,” Heemstra said of starting SDSU’s season and his career. “We’ve been here since the beginning of June working out as a team, it’ll be good to get a game in.”

#1.1766753:869257933.jpg:Men’s Basketball Aaron Stoneberger 7.jpg:Marcus Heemstra battles Dakota State?s Bryce Snyder for a rebound on Nov. 1. Heemstra is also on the Jackrabbit baseball team.:Collegian Photo by Aaron Stoneberger
#1.1766751:1225753005.jpg:Men’s Basketball Aaron Stoneberger 5.jpg:Jordan Dykstra brings the ball ahead for the Jacks against Dakota State on Nov. 1.:Collegian Photo

Maybe it’s not a bad thing to be tall and be able to dribble, shoot and rebound.

That’s the perception of incoming freshmen Jordan Dykstra and Marcus Heemstra, who in reality, are both 6-8. Those perceptions and hype are something the two ignore, only emphasizing the traits of their game they need to improve in their first year at SDSU after standout careers at Rock Valley High School.

“I’ve tried ignoring it,” said Dykstra, a 222-pound forward and all-time leading scorer and rebounder in Rock Valley High School history. “I try to stay humble with myself and always keep working, it’s a new level. Marcus and I are teammates, but we have a lot of other players that we have to get involved with too.”

Other players have noticed the advancement of their play, and in late August, an international trip to Canada to play four exhibition games gave Heemstra and Dykstra an earlier experience than usual with new teammates.

“They’re both really good shooters,” said sophomore and returning starter Nate Wolters. “And they can pass, not just for big post guys, they’re going to help us.”

Heemstra and Dykstra are two players of a youth-oriented roster that includes four freshmen and two sophomores, all with the expectation of seeing playing time, and all between 6-foot-3 and 6-9. That fact elicited a superlative from head coach Scott Nagy, that his roster, all have assets they present to the team.

“They’re all long, all pretty athletic kids, all good passers and ball-handlers,” said Nagy of his six underclassmen. “What they give us is more versatility than we’ve ever had.”

Versatility is something SDSU has seemingly lacked in previous years. That’s something stats can vouch for: three players logged over 30 minutes a game three seasons ago, and four did so in 2008-09. Last season, no players surpassed that mark, and 10 players on the roster cracked the starting lineup, with five of those players not returning this season. Dykstra and Heemstra – along with incoming junior college transfer Aireus Stephenson – enter the program with expectations of playing right away, and productively. All while figuring what their weaknesses are.

“I didn’t know how bad I was defensively,” said Dysktra of the adjustment to the college game. “I need to work on that obviously, just the physicality of the game and the speed of the game are obviously a lot different than what I was used to in Iowa.”

“I was kind of a shock at first,” Heemstra said.

With a plentitude of youth, a surge of height, and a bench that Nagy can walk down and “grab good players”, Dykstra and Heemstra may only need modest contributions to accomplish SDSU’s first season above .500 since transitioning to Division I six years ago.

“Excitement would probably be the best word to describe it, and anticipation,” Heemstra said of starting SDSU’s season and his career. “We’ve been here since the beginning of June working out as a team, it’ll be good to get a game in.”

#1.1766814:399461425.jpg:Women’s Basketball Ryan Robinson 6.jpg::Collegian Photo
#1.1766815:716137857.jpg:Women’s Basketball Ryan Robinson 7.jpg::Collegian Photo
#1.1766816:2835346000.jpg:Women’s Basketball Ryan Robinson 8.jpg::Collegian Photo
#1.1766803:2458689537.jpg:Women’s Basketball Ryan Robinson 10.jpg::Collegian Photo
#1.1766807:1728841409.jpg:Women’s Basketball Ryan Robinson 14.jpg::Collegian Photo by Ryan Robinson