The South Dakota men's basketball team hosts a midweek tilt with Bellevue Wednesday at 7 p.m. inside the Sanford Coyote Sports Center.
 
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The Game
The Coyotes host the Bruins for the first time since the 2002-03 season. South Dakota looks to bounce back after falling to UMKC on Saturday while Bellevue, of the NAIA, is playing the game as an exhibition.
 
The Bruins
Bellevue, the preseason favorite in the North Star Athletic Association, owns a 6-8 record behind leading scorer Sequan Walker at 13.9 points per game. He is joined in double-digit points by Josh Meier at 11.8 and Richard Reed 11.1 points per game. Most recently, the Bruins topped Nebraska Christian 74-67 on Monday night.
 
For the 10^th-consecutive season, the Bruins played in the NAIA National Tournament last year and are just two seasons removed from a trip to the Fab Four. Head coach Shane Paben has tallied a career record of 262-94 in his 11 seasons at the helm of the Bruins.
 
The Coyotes
South Dakota, 4-5 on the season, owns the Summit League's top defense giving up just 63.9 points per game. That mark ranks 38^th in the nation and is 4.3 points better than the next best team in the Summit League. Part of holding teams to a low scoring margin is the number of turnovers forced. The Coyotes top the league with 15.5 turnovers forced per game.
 
Senior Trey Burch-Manning leads the Coyotes at 14.4 points per game while junior Triston Simpson is just behind at 13.3 points. Junior Tyler Peterson makes it a trio of Coyotes in double-figure scoring at 11.6 points per game. Burch-Manning, who has surpassed 500-career rebounds at USD, leads the team at 7.1 rebounds per game. That ranks fifth in the Summit League.
 
South Dakota welcomed back junior Cody Kelley in the game against UMKC. He had missed the previous four games with a foot injury. Against UMKC, Kelley played 24 minutes and tallied his first 3-point basket of the season. For the year, he is averaging 28.8 minutes, 5.8 points and 3.2 assists per game.
 
The Series
The two squads have met eight times, all in Vermillion, with the Coyotes prevailing each meeting. The first meeting was in 1992-93, a 93-57 Coyote victory. The last meeting between to the two schools, which are 144 miles apart, was in 2002-03. South Dakota won that game 88-67.
 
One Last Thing
Wednesday's game features a pair of South Dakota graduates pacing the sidelines for each team. South Dakota head coach Todd Lee is a 1986 graduate from USD while Bellevue head coach Shane Paben garnered his master's degree from USD in 2007. In another connection to USD, Paben's brother, Derek, was a forward for the Coyotes from 2002-04.