The Game
It's senior day in the Sanford Coyote Sports Center and the Coyotes will honor three seniors in forward
Kelsey Biltoft, center
Abigail Fogg and forward
Bridget Arens. Biltoft,a four-year starter for Coyote volleyball, joined the women's basketball team at semester and has since seen action in several games. Fogg is coming off a pair of 20-point games with a career high 27 Wednesday and her first double-double last week. Arens, the lone holdover from the 2014 NCAA Tournament team, is on pace to play in more games than any other Coyote in program history. Arens tied her career high of 17 points on Wednesday. Be sure to get there early, as senior recognition will happen at 12:40 p.m.
Outside of senior day, both teams are competing for seeds at the Summit League Tournament in two weeks at the Denny Sanford Premier Center in Sioux Falls. More on that is below.
Scouting the Coyotes
South Dakota's offense has balanced out in the last five games. While opponents have keyed in on leading scorer
Allison Arens, her teammates have stepped up to help win games. Fogg and freshman guard
Ciara Duffy have reached double figures in four consecutive games to lead the Coyotes in scoring. Seven players are averaging above five points in the last five games. One statistic that continues to bode well for the Coyotes is their shooting percentage. South Dakota ranks ninth nationally at 47.2 percent from the floor and tops the Summit in all three shooting percentage categories. The Coyotes had their fifth league game above 50 percent against Oral Roberts, coming off last week's season-high 62.5 percent at Fort Wayne. If the shots are falling, the scale should tilt in the Coyotes' favor.
Scouting the Mavericks
Omaha is led by two-time all-Summit honoree Mikaela Shaw. Shaw is the Summit League's fourth-leading scorer at 16.9 points per game, although she leads the Summit in field goals made. She's also the Summit's second-leading rebounder at 7.8 and ranks third in assists with 3.8 per contest. Teammate Remy Davenport has the Summit's second-best assist-to-turnover ratio at 2.0 with 88 assists. As a team, Omaha ranks second to USD in field-goal percentage at 44.4 percent. Courtney Vaccher leads both the Mavericks and the Summit at 60.8 percent overall and 66.7 in Summit action.
Race to the Summit
Four teams remain in contention for a regular season Summit League title. The Coyotes have guaranteed themselves a top-4 seed at the Summit League Tournament. If the Coyotes win their remaining three games, they earn the No. 1 seed and 3-peat for the regular season crown. Should the Coyotes win two of three, they are guaranteed at least a No. 2 seed in the tournament. Omaha needs two wins in its last three to hold off Oral Roberts for the No. 5 seed in the tournament.
