Photo by Zachary Mortland/SMSU Athletic Communications
Southwest Minnesota State guard Cliff Cofield (2) attempts a layup between a pair of Minnesota State defenders during the Northern Sun Intercolleigate Conference mens basketball semifinals at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, S.D. on Saturday.
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SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — After trailing by as many as 16 points in the second half, the fifth-seeded Southwest Minnesota State mens basketball team rallied back to take the lead against the No. 1 Minnesota State Mavericks in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference semifinals on Monday at the Sanford Pentagon. Yet, a last-minute shot by Justin Eagins allowed the Mavericks to advance to the finals with a 68-67 win.
Trailing late in the game, SMSU came up with five consecutive defensive stops to get in position to make a run at the win. Kyle Luedtke used a head fake to get by Malik Willingham and knocked down a pull-up jumper to tie the game at 65-65. Yet, Justin Eagins responded with a 3-pointer to give the Mavericks the lead. It’s the second time this season Eagins has hit a last-minute game-winner against the Mustangs after he hit a go-ahead 3-pointer with 25 seconds left to give Minnesota State a 93-89 win over SMSU back in December.
Still, the Mustangs weren’t done yet. Head coach Brad Bigler called a timeout with 39 seconds left and, after the huddle, Dunwa Omot drove to the rim to convert a layup with 34.4 seconds left.
Trailing by just a point with a 4.4-second game clock-shot clock differential, SMSU opted to play defense instead of going for the foul. The gamble paid off; senior big man Jake Phipps came up with the steal to get SMSU the ball back with five seconds remaining. He got the ball to Mekhi Shaw, who sprinted down the court in a last-ditch effort to get the Mustangs the win, but Dylan Peters and Willingham converged on him to come up with a steal and seal the game.
“It’s a situation where we weren’t able to get a shot off but what I was proud of after that moment is I saw our guys go pick [Shaw] up and ultimately we know if we ever get another chance at those guys, we can beat those guys,” Bigler said. “As we go into the NCAA tournament here in a week and a half, we’ve beaten Northwest [Missouri], we’ve beaten [Minnesota] Duluth, we went down to the wire with Mankato, took Moorhead into overtimes, we need to have confidence going into that tournament because there is no reason why we shouldn’t feel like we have the ability to win that tournament.”
Minnesota State led 65-53 with under five minutes to play when Aeron Stevens started the SMSU comeback effort with a pair of free throws. Luedtke followed up with a pair of free throws, courtesy of an assist from Cofield, and the Mustangs got the ball back again after forcing a turnover. Cofield took advantage, hitting a Minnesota State defender with the Shamgod and splitting the defense for the layup to make it a 5-point game all of a sudden with three minutes remaining.
After Elijah Hazekamp and Peters missed the front end of a 1-and-1 on consecutive trips down the floor, a Cofield and-1 in traffic made it a 65-63 ballgame with 1:51 remaining.
After missing time with an ankle injury, Cofield looked back to his prime self in his second game back on the court. His 10 points tied him with Omot and Stevens for second on the team behind Luedtke’s 13 and his three assists tied him with Omot for a team-high. Kyreese Willingham and Eagins led the Mavericks with 18 points each while Eagins also dished out four assists.
“Cliff is obviously one of the better players to ever put on the Mustang uniform. He’s a guy that’s been in a lot of big games, he’s made a lot of big plays, and as we go down the stretch, the ball will be in his hand a lot,” Bigler said. “As he has those opportunities, we’ll need him to be the best that he can be because obviously he’s one of the best defenders in the league, he’s now bigger and faster and stronger than all of the point guards he goes up against, so his ability to just create dominos and make plays is big.”
Kyreese and NSIC Offensive Player of the Year Malik Willingham started the Mavericks out strong with 3-pointers on each of the game’s first two possessions. Luedtke responded with a turnaround jumper to get SMSU on the board but Eagins’ stepback jumper and pullup 3-pointer gave the Mavericks a quick 15-5 lead through the first 5 minutes of play.
Early on in the game, the Mustangs’ offense struggled to move the ball. The offense stagnated with the Mustangs not moving off-ball as much as they typically do. Bigler attributed the difficulty to the team trying to force the ball to Phipps.
“It didn’t naturally happen, we were trying to force it to happen and it ended up turning into shot clock situations where we have one guy dribbling and four guys watching,” Bigler said. “The difficult thing about playing in a tournament is now you have the ability to go up against defenses in a practice setting where you get reps and both St. Cloud and Minot [State] had similar defensive principles where Minnesota State was on a completely different level of what they do. That just really kind of threw us off and we didn’t respond fast enough to their switching and with their jumping and their being aggressive on ball screens.”
SMSU adjusted in the second half, shooting 38% after the break as opposed to a 27% first-half clip, but the adjustment came too little, too late.
After trailing 34-21 at the end of the first half, SMSU rallied in the second. Both the Mavericks and Mustangs were hot early, combining for 19 points with just two missed shots in the first three minutes after the break. After Minnesota State led by as many as 16 points at 42-26, Improved Ball movement led to a Luedtke 3-pointer and a Mason Lund Block set up a 3 for Omot to cut it to 42-38. From there, Jakob Braaten converted an old-fashioned 3-pointer to make the score 46-43 before the Mavericks re-extended their lead to double figures.
Minnesota State has been a team that’s dominated the boards this year but SMSU was effective in limiting the Mavericks’ second-chance points. The Mustangs outrebounded Minnesota State 39-30, including a 16-9 advantage on the offensive glass, and finished the night with a 17-9 advantage in second-chance points.
Phipps led SMSU with nine rebounds, including five on the offensive glass, while Stevens grabbed another six.
SMSU, now 19-12 on the season, has its largest win total since the 2017-18 season. They’ll look to add more to that number as they hope for an NCAA tournament bid. The Mustangs were ranked No. 7 in the most recent central region rankings, so No. 4 Minnesota Duluth’s win over No. 8 Winona State increases the Mustangs’ chance of a bid. Bigler said he believes the Mustangs will likely be matched up against Northwest Mo. State or Minnesota Duluth. After taking a day off to recover, SMSU will take some time to look back at its film from its previous matchups against those teams to prepare for the tournament.
“You know you have the ability to beat them, but it’s one thing to say it and it’s another thing to do it,” Bigler said, specifically referencing Minnesota State as well. “Before this year, we went on a bit of a winning streak against [Minnesota State]… Maybe go back and watch that video to make sure that our spacing away from the ball is appropriate to what they’re doing so we can create as many easy shots as we can because we really had to work for it.”