The South Dakota men's basketball team returns home to the Sanford Coyote Sports Center Saturday hosting CSU Bakersfield. The contest, the second game of a doubleheader as the women's squad hosts Green Bay, is slated for 3:30 p.m.
 
The Game
The Coyotes and the Roadrunners meet as part of the Summit League vs. WAC Challenge. The challenge, announced in October, features head-to-head competition between each league's nine teams. Coming into Saturday's game, the WAC holds a 2-1 lead. There are three contests within the challenge taking place Saturday.
 
The Roadrunners
CSU Bakersfield holds a 3-3 record on the season. An even distribution on offense has five Roadrunners scoring in double-figure scoring led by Damiyne Durham with 13.4 points. James Suber tops the team with 4.6 rebounds per game, but much like the scoring, the Roadrunners are balanced in that area. CSU Bakersfield played in the Bahamas the same time USD was but in the opposite bracket, the Junkanoo Jam, tallying a 2-1 record. Most recently, the Roadrunners fell 90-75 at Southern California on Nov. 25. Durham totaled a game-high 22 points in the contest, in part to six made 3-point baskets.
 
The Roadrunners were picked to finish fifth in the Western Athletic Conference in both the coaches and media preseason polls.
 
The Coyotes
South Dakota returns to the friendly confines of the Sanford Coyote Sports Center for the first time since Nov. 12 sporting a 3-3 record. The Coyotes are led by Trey Burch-Manning with 17.5 points and 7.2 rebounds per contest. He is among the nation's leaders in 3-point field-goal percentage at 68.4 percent and is highly efficient on offense, in general, making 58 percent of all shot attempts. The senior forward recently became the 31^st member of the 500-rebound club at South Dakota and enters Saturday's game with 503 in his career.
 
South Dakota is coming off a 63-57 setback at Baylor. The Coyotes led for over 30 minutes in the game before faltering late to the Big 12 squad. Burch-Manning tallied a double-double of 17 points and 14 rebounds while junior Tyler Peterson totaled 10 points.

The Series
The two squads have met just twice, a home-and-home series in 2014-15 and 2015-16. The road team won in each instance, first the Coyotes 68-66 on Nov. 30, 2014. CSU Bakersfield claimed a 77-67 victory in Vermillion on Dec. 12, 2015.
 
One Last Thing
Coyotes' head coach Todd Lee spent three seasons as an assistant coach at CSU Bakersfield and won the 1997 NCAA Division II National Championship. The Roadrunners advanced to the NCAA Tournament all three seasons with Lee on staff.