Coyote men’s basketball looks to end three-game skid this week

Hitting the road did not serve the Coyotes well, as they fell to Denver 52-66 and Omaha 83-96 last week.

USD had trouble flipping from the two extremes of basketball — Denver plays a slow, grind-it-out style of the Princeton offense and Omaha is one of the fastest teams in the country per possession.

Following the Denver game, in which the Coyotes only managed eight assists as a team against UNO, USD faded down the stretch.

Coyote head coach Craig Smith said he knows the team has it in them to improve.

“Denver sat in their match up zone and it got us a little tentative and standing around. We really struggled shooting the three all weekend,” he said. “Both games combined we were four for 28 and that’s hard to overcome when you’re shooting at that level.”

Smith said one of the issues the Coyotes faced during the road games was their lack of ability to finish possessions.

“We just didn’t get downhill and finish possessions. When you go 2-13 from the three it’s hard to overcome,” he said. “At the end of the day out of everything, we really didn’t tighten up at the defensive end. That’s where our major issues are right now.”

One of the bright spots against UNO was junior guard Shy McClelland, who, despite a poor shooting night, was able to get to the free throw line and convert seven of nine.

McClelland said he knows the importance of cashing in at the line.

“Those are easy points,” McClelland said. “As a child my grandma used to tell me they’re like layups. So I just had to get back to my roots.”

With the quick road trip behind them, the Coyotes now return for a three-game home stand in which they’ll face Fort Wayne, Oral Roberts and North Dakota State.

The last timeout against Fort Wayne was ugly for USD. The Coyotes lost 65-85 and had trouble getting anything to go as a team.

“That was probably our worst game of the year, for sure the worst in conference play.  They’re a very good team, they’re the best three point shooting team in the conference. Max Landis is playing at an all-league level and the Konchar kid is playing exceptionally well,” Smith said. “The challenge for us is we’ve just got to keep getting better. We’ve got to find ways to win and just get over the hump.”

The loss against Fort Wayne resonated with the team. McClelland has one simple solution to help them flip the script this time out.

“Defense. We didn’t have a good defensive stand up there in Fort Wayne and they took advantage of us. Here we’ve got to crack down on defense and get the job done,” McClelland said. “Offense will come at the end of the day, we’ve been playing it all of our lives. It’s easy to put the ball in the hole, we’ve just got to stop someone from putting the ball in the hole.”

In their last game against Oral Roberts, USD came away with a 94-84 win. Despite already having taken one this year from the Golden Eagles, Smith knows just how good they are and how the team must be careful not to forget that.

“Oral Roberts has an elite scorer in Obi Emegano, he’s a preseason player of the year. They’re kind of going through a stretch like we are,” Smith said. “They’ll play really well at times, then just kind of go into a funk at times. Both teams are in a similar pattern right now so we’ve just got to worry about us.”

The Coyotes are next in action this Thursday at home to take on Fort Wayne at 7:00 p.m. USD also plays this Saturday in the DakotaDome against Oral Roberts, tip off is set for 2:00 p.m.