South Dakota men's basketball opens the 2017-18 season at 6 p.m. on Saturday, hosting Mayville State inside the Sanford Coyote Sports Center. 

The Game
Saturday night opens the 108^th season of Coyote basketball. South Dakota is 66-41 all-time in season openers, including last season's 79-74 victory over Drake to open the season that saw the Coyotes lay claim to the Summit League Championship.
 
The game also brings head coach Craig Smith full circle to his first head coaching gig, as he was Mayville State's head coach from 2004-07. During his three seasons, he simply won the NAIA National Coach of the Year, two Dakota Athletic Conference Coach of the Year awards, set the school record for victories in a season with 28 and guided the Comets to NAIA National Runner-Up honors. Overall, he tallied a 72-29 record while at Mayville State.
 
The Comets
Under the guidance of first-year head coach Darren Tighe, Mayville State looks to improve upon its 9-18 record in 2016-17. Mayville State has played three games this season and owns a 1-2 record. After a 111-52 season-opening victory over Providence College (Canada), the Comets fell 79-70 to Peru State and 89-76 to Briar Cliff.
 
Daniel Lindgren leads the team in scoring with 23.3 points per game while Taylor Delaughter averages 10.0 rebounds per game.
 
The Coyotes
South Dakota enters the season looking for its second-straight Summit League championship. It will look for contribution from first team all-Summit League selection Matt Mooney, the leagues Transfer of the Year last season, along with preseason second team all-Summit League selection Trey Burch-Manning. Mooney averaged 18.6 points per game last season while Burch-Manning tallied 9.2 points and 6.6 rebounds per game. The Coyotes also look for senior leadership from Carlton Hurst, who joined Mooney and Burch-Manning in starting all 34 games a season ago.
 
The Series
The Series has been all Coyotes with a 6-0 record against the Comets. The first meeting came in the 1979-80 season when South Dakota won 99-74.  The last meeting in the series was Nov. 20, 2009, a 99-67 USD victory.
 
One Last Thing
South Dakota went 13-1 last season at home, the first inside the Sanford Coyote Sports Center. South Dakota was just one of 33 programs in the NCAA to lose just one, or zero, games at home in 2016-17 while the .929 winning percentage over the 14 games ranked 23^rd in the nation.