Coyote comeback falls short against NDSU
USD men’s basketball hosted NDSU Wednesday night with both teams coming into the matchup without a loss in Summit League play.
The Coyotes fell behind early, 15-5 just five minutes in on hot shooting by the Bison, led by Dexter Werner and Paul Miller. They went on to take their largest lead of the game by going up 17 points with 7:45 left in the first half.
While the Coyotes managed to stop the bleeding and cut the lead down to 13 at the half, the Bison stayed hot, shooting 47.1 percent.
The Coyotes started chipping away at the lead with a 3-pointer by Trey Dickerson to start the half and gained some momentum with the home crowd behind them.
While the Coyotes kept up with the Bison in shooting to open the half, trading several made baskets for about five and a half minutes, they would go on to get four straight free throws by Trey Burch-Manning. Suddenly the halftime Bison lead was in half with the Coyotes down just by seven with 13:49 to play.
The Coyotes tightened up their defense and forced the Bison to shoot just 3-10 and 1-4 FT and caused five turnovers in the next ten minutes.
The Coyotes found their first lead of the game during that defensive spree with 6:45 remaining on a pair of free throws by Carlton Hurst. The next four minutes were both teams going back and forth taking their leads back until Tyler Hagedorn’s 3-pointer combined with a driving layup by Matt Mooney gave the Coyotes a four point lead with just 1:48 remaining.
After a timeout and a quick 3-pointer by Khy Kabellis and layup by Werner, NDSU found themselves down by just one with only a minute to play.
The Coyotes weren’t able to hold off the defensive charge by the Bison as they would miss their next two jumpers and both free throws, allowing Werner to gain the lead back on his own pair of free throws with only five seconds remaining on the clock. A long 3-point heave at the buzzer was just missed as the Coyotes took the loss to the Summit League rivals.
This was USD’s first loss at home, first loss in Summit League play and 8th lost overall this season.
The men’s next game is at home against the Fort Wayne Mastodons on Jan. 14 at 1 p.m.
