South Dakota hosts Purdue Fort Wayne at noon Saturday inside the Sanford Coyote Sports Center in Vermillion, S.D.
The Game
South Dakota is coming off a thrilling double-overtime victory against in-state rival South Dakota State in front of a sold-out Sanford Coyote Sports Center last Sunday. The Coyotes get to stay at home this weekend, but a three-game road trip spanning nearly 2,000 miles lies ahead. This weekend's game with Purdue Fort Wayne is the Coyotes' second of three home games in January with the next coming at the end of the month.
#BeatType1 Game
The Summit League and Sanford Health are teaming up to bring awareness to Type 1 diabetes. Currently, 1.25 million Americans are battling Type 1 diabetes. While the condition occurs at every age and in every race, most of those diagnosed are children. There are 70,000 children under the age of 14 newly diagnosed with this life-changing condition each year. Visit
thesummitleague.org/beattype1 for more information.
The Coyotes
South Dakota (14-3, 2-1 Summit) boasts two 1,000-point scorers on its current roster with junior guard
Ciara Duffy joining senior guard
Allison Arens on Sunday. Duffy scored a career-best 28 points in the double-overtime win over SDSU, surpassing 1,000 points on a 3-point basket in the middle of the fourth quarter. Sophomore center
Hannah Sjerven tallied a double-double with a career high 23 points and 10 rebounds on Sunday, while Arens added 20 points to mark the first time in program history three players have scored 20 points in a single game. South Dakota boasts a balanced attack with seven different leading scorers throughout the season.
The Mastodons
Purdue Fort Wayne (4-12, 0-4 Summit) opens conference play with the four Dakota schools in its first five games. De'Jour Young is the team's lone senior and the Mastodons' top scorer and rebounder with averages of 12 and six, respectively. The Dons have a balanced scoring team overall with four players averaging between eight and nine points a contest. Purdue Fort Wayne also ranks third in the Summit in blocked shots per game with Jaelencia Williams and Sh'Toya Sanders both blocking at least one shot per game.
The Series
South Dakota leads the all-time series 13-3 with the Coyotes winning the last 11 in a row.
One Last Thing
Sunday was just the second multiple-overtime game for USD in the last 28 years. The Coyotes went to double-overtime in Fargo back in 2016, but prior to that it was a 1991 SDSU game. The Coyotes showed their resiliency by making free-throws down the stretch of regulation, answering a seven-point run in the first overtime and hanging on for a full 50 minutes.
