The South Dakota men's basketball team closes the Bimini Jam Monday night against UMBC. Tipoff for the contest is slated for 7:30 p.m. (CST) at Gateway Christian Academy in Bimini Bahamas.
 
The Game
South Dakota looks to close the Bimini Jam with a victory as UMBC has a chance to go 3-0 at the tournament. UMBC has wrapped up the Bimini Jam Championship via tiebreakers of victories over Air Force and High Point. The game is also the final contest of the inaugural Bimini Jam and Junkanoo Jam, the first men's tournaments to take place on the island of Bimini.  
 
The Retrievers
UMBC, known for its victory over No. 1 Virginia as a 16-seed in the 2018 NCAA Tournament, is 4-1 on the season. UMBC has won four-straight games after dropping its opening game of the season at Marquette. Two of the four victories have come at the Bimini Jam, a double-overtime victory over Air Force and a nine-point win over High Point.
 
Joe Sherburne paces the UMBC offense with 14 points per game while Brandon Horvath tallies 11.8 points and seven rebounds per contest. Five total Retrievers reach double digits with K.J. Jackson scoring 11.2 points, Max Curran at 10.4 and Arkel Lamar totaling 10.2 points per game.
 
The Coyotes
South Dakota is 2-2 on the season after dropping a pair of contests at the Bimini Jam. The Coyotes overcame a 14-point deficit with just under 14 minutes to play against Air Force on Sunday, but could not take the lead after knotting the game at 57 with six minutes on the clock. Senior Trey Burch-Manning tallied his third 20-point game of the season with 22 points against the Falcons. Junior Triston Simpson added 15 points and junior Brandon Armstrong had 13 points.
 
Simpson leads the way for the Coyotes at 18.3 points per game while Burch-Manning totals 17 points and six rebounds per game. Peterson and Armstrong round out the double-digit scoring at 12.3 and 11.3 points per game. Burch-Manning has a made a career-best nine 3-point field goals this season, just four games into the 2018-19 campaign, and he is scoring them at a 69.2 percent clip.
 
The Series
Monday is the first meeting between the two schools. In fact, South Dakota has faced just one school currently in the America East. That was an 89-77 victory over Binghamton at the Drake Invitational in the 2009-10 season.
 
One Last Thing
The island of Bimini, part of the Bahamas, is known as Ernest Hemingway's favorite escape. The island was the inspiration of several of Hemingway's books including Pulitzer Prize winner Islands in the Stream. Bimini is also where Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote notes for his Noble Peace Prize speech in 1964.