VERMILLION, S.D.—South Dakota made a strong opening statement to Summit League play with an 86-69, start-to-finish drubbing of Omaha Thursday inside Sanford Coyote Sports Center. It was the team's largest margin of victory in a conference game in four seasons.
 
Trey Dickerson scored a season-high 17 points while Matt Mooney and Tyler Flack added 16 each as the Coyotes (10-6, 1-0 Summit) improved to 7-0 in their new facility. It was the team's first 1-0 start to Summit play in three seasons.
 
Omaha (7-7, 0-1), which entered the game with the highest non-conference RPI amongst Summit League teams, trailed 29-9 with less than seven minutes to go in the first half and never recovered. The Mavericks had six field goals in the first half, were 0 for 7 from downtown, and committed 11 turnovers in trailing 45-23 at the break. Zach Jackson led UNO with 14 points.
 
South Dakota in the first half shot 51 percent from the field, buried half the team's season-high 10 triples, and had a rebounding edge of nine. Dickerson and Mooney combined to equal the Mavs halftime total of 23 points. Dickerson had back-to-back drives to the hoop to spark an 8-0 run to start the game. Mooney hit three 3's in a four-minute stretch in the later part of the half and had 13 in the first.
 
"Right out of the gate, I thought we jumped on them," said USD head coach Craig Smith. "I'm really proud of how we played it and how we finished it off. We took great shots and really attacked the rim."
 
Most of Flack's performance came near the midway point of the second half when he scored 10 unanswered points and 12 in a row for South Dakota in a span of two minutes. He had just reentered the game after taking a spill that forced him to the athletic training room when he hit his first 3 since November. He followed that with a three-point play, back-to-back mid-range jumpers, and then a high-flying dunk on an assist from Trey Burch-Manning that put USD ahead 75-49 with eight minutes to go.
 
"I thought our game plan was very good," said Smith. "We did some things we hadn't done much this year and our guys executed very well. You can see what we can do when we're clicking on all cylinders."
 
The Coyotes finished 32 of 66 from the field (.485) which included a 10 of 18 performance from downtown. Burch-Manning had 10 rebounds, five offensive, to go with six points. Carlton Hurst had a pair of dunks as part of his 7-point, 7-rebound effort. True freshmen Triston Simpson and Tyler Peterson scored seven points apiece off South Dakota's bench. Mooney was credited with a career-high six steals.
 
Omaha's all-Summit League guard Tra-Deon Hollins had five points, four assists and five turnovers. Preseason all-Summit pick Tre-Shawn Thurman had nine points on 3 of 9 shooting. Marcus Tyus, who has a 37- and a 33-point performance to his credit this year, had nine points on seven free throws and one field goal in 12 attempts.
 
Next up for South Dakota is a rivalry game at South Dakota State (7-9, 0-1) Saturday in Brookings. Tip from Frost Arena is 1 p.m.