The Game

South Dakota returns to the Sanford Coyote Sports Center to host Northern Arizona at 3:30 p.m. Saturday inside the Sanford Coyote Sports Center. It is the first game in a season-long, four-game home stand that wraps up non-conference play and starts the Summit slate. South Dakota and Northern Arizona are meeting for the fourth time in five seasons.
 
A free stream of the game is provided on GoYotes.com. Fans can tune into the game on the Coyote Sports Network with John Thayer on the call, with the radio broadcast carried on KVHT 106.3 FM in Yankton/Vermillion and KQSF 95.7 in Sioux Falls, or by using The Varsity Network app.
 

The Coyotes

South Dakota (5-4) is 4-0 at home and 0-4 on the road. The Coyotes continue to play solid team defense while trying to find their identify offensively. Slow starts have stood out in recent road trips to San Jose State and Northern Colorado. The Coyotes dug themselves a halftime deficit in both those games, played tight defense that allowed a run in the second half, but couldn't finish it off after playing catchup.

Guards Kruz Perrott-Hunt and Mason Archambault continue to lead the team in scoring. Big man Hunter Goodrick is averaging close to a double-double in the four home games. Xavier Fuller had 13 points last time, his fourth time scoring in double digits in eight games.
 

The Lumberjacks

Northern Arizona (4-5, 1-1 Big Sky) is picked to finish ninth in the 11-team Big Sky Conference. The Lumberjacks started the season with tough tests at nationally-ranked Arizona and at Washington. They split their first two games of conference play recently, losing at Weber State 67-44 and beating Idaho State on the road 73-70. Jalen Cone, a transfer from Virginia Tech and the team's leading scorer, made five 3-pointers and scored a game-high 24 points in the victory. NAU is coming off a 6-16 campaign and lost leading scorer and first-team all-Big Sky guard Cam Shelton to Loyola Marymount.
 

The Series

South Dakota leads the all-time series 3-2. The two programs first met back in 1959. This is the fourth meeting in the last five seasons with last year's COVID-19 season the lone disruption. The Coyotes scored 90 points in winning those first two games by double figures and were on their way to another win in Flagstaff in game three in 2019. But Northern Arizona scored 14 of the game's final 16 points to pull out a 76-72 victory. This is the first meeting since that game.
 

One Last Thing

If you couldn't make the women's game Friday night and missed the halftime show, don't fret! Champions Forever, a spin-tacular Basketball group featured on America's Got Talent, will perform again Saturday at halftime of this one.