South Dakota travels to Oral Roberts for tip-off at 7 p.m. Friday inside the Mabee Center in Tulsa, Okla.
The Game
The Coyotes embark on one of the toughest stretches of Summit League play with a three-game road swing spanning 1,800 miles over the course of the next week. Oral Roberts returns home hungry after a loss at South Dakota State inside Frost Arena.
The Coyotes
South Dakota (15-3, 3-1 Summit) compiled the program's best nonconference since the transition to NCAA Division I with a a pair of AP Top 25 victories. The Coyotes have received votes in the Associated Press poll for seven-straight weeks and the USA Today Coaches poll for six of the last seven weeks. The Coyotes are led by a pair of 1,000-point scorers in junior guard
Ciara Duffy (14.6 ppg) and senior guard
Allison Arens (10.4 ppg). Sophomore center
Hannah Sjerven, who's been a key contributor off the bench with 10.6 points per game, earned her first career start last weekend. She scored 21 points on 8-of-11 shooting against Purdue Fort Wayne for her second-straight 20-point contest. South Dakota boasts a balanced attack with seven different leading scorers throughout the season.
The Golden Eagles
Oral Roberts (10-8, 3-2 Summit) graduated its two starting posts, Faith Ihim and Maria Martianez, from a year ago. In their absence, the Golden Eagles have stretched the floor more this season and attempted 10 more threes a game on average than a year ago. In fact, Oral Roberts has drained the fifth-most threes in the nation this year. The Summit League is filled with sharp shooters though and ORU's 166 triples ranks second in the league. Lakota Beatty leads the team with 53 of those, ranking third in the league and 15th nationally. Defensively, Oral Roberts leads the Summit in field-goal percentage defense by holding foes to 38.8 percent from the field and 27.4 percent from outside the arc.
The Series
South Dakota has won seven straight to lead the all-time series 9-3. Two of ORU's three wins in the series came inside the Mabee Center, with the Golden Eagles boasting a 21-12 record against Summit foes since they rejoined the league in 2014-15.
One Last Thing
Keep an eye out for senior guard
Allison Arens embarking on another milestone. She needs three assists to become the sixth player in program history to surpass 1,000 points and 300 assists in a career.
