The Game
South Dakota will play its final non-conference game of the season Wednesday against a familiar opponent. It's rare college basketball has home-and-home's in the same year, let alone within a three-week span, but Coastal Carolina makes its first trip to Vermillion after these two teams met on Nov. 26 in Conway, South Carolina. Tip-off is scheduled for 6 p.m. inside the Sanford Coyote Sports Center. 
 
The game will be televised on Midco Sports where Jay Elsen and Brad Newitt have the call. That broadcast can also be found on ESPN+. Fans can tune into the game on the Coyote Sports Network with John Thayer on KVHT 106.3 FM in Yankton/Vermillion or by using The Varsity Network app.
 
The Series
Wednesday's game will be the second time these two programs have met. The Chanticleers won the first meeting by a final score of 66-59. Kruz Perrott-Hunt led the Coyotes in that game with a 17-point effort. All of his points came in the second half of that game.
 
The Coyotes
South Dakota lost its first home game since Feb. 05 of last season after a 71-83 defeat to UC Irvine. USD had won five straight at home previous to Saturday's game and dropped a non-conference home game for the first time since December of 2020. Sophomore guard Paul Bruns has taken over the team-lead in scoring at 11.7 points per game. Bruns dropped a season-high 20 points on 8-of-14 shooting against the Anteaters. It was his ninth double-digit performance of the season out of 11 games. Tasos Kamateros was second on the team in scoring in Saturday's game with 12 points. Kamateros went 4-of-11 from the field and 2-of-5 from three. He also hauled in a team-high nine rebounds. Kamateros is now tied for second on the team in double-digit scoring efforts this season. He and Perrott-Hunt are tied at five while Bruns leads the way with nine this year.
 
Assistant coach Patrick Eberhart took over the head-coaching duties on Saturday after Eric Peterson was injured in a fall last week. Eberhart remains in that role as of today and is set for his second game as head coach.
 
The Chanticleers
Coastal Carolina has gone 2-2 since the last meeting against the Coyotes and are recently coming off a 102-39 win over Regent at home. It was head coach Cliff Ellis' 900th career win in his 19th year of coaching and 16th year on the Chanticleer bench.
 
The last time these two teams met, USD was playing its third game in five days on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. After a 10-point deficit at the break, South Dakota went on a 14-1 run out of the locker room and turned the game around in favor of USD. The Coyotes were ahead by five with five minutes remaining in the game, but Coastal Carolina went on an 8-0 run to regain the lead. South Dakota tied the game with 42 seconds remaining, but the Chanticleers locked down defensively and ended up victorious in a seven-point game.
 
CCU's Jomaru Brown led three Chanticleers in double- figures with 17 points in the previous meeting. Brown averages a team-best 16.3 points per game. Essam Mostafa had a double-double (14 points, 12 rebounds) the last time he played the Coyotes. Mostafa averages a double-double at 12.9 points per game and ranks 11th in the nation at 10.4 rebounds per game.
 
One Last Thing
Senior guard Mason Archambault has been getting the job done on the defensive end this season. He recorded a steal Saturday against UC Irvine, marking the fourth-straight game he has recorded at least one steal. Of the 11 total games, he has poked away a steal in nine of them. He has three games of multiple steals including a season-high four against LIU in Fort Myers. Archambault ranks fourth in the Summit League at 1.4 steals per game and is only 0.4 away from first in the conference.