South Dakota vs North Dakota Women's Basketball Game Preview and Matchup Analysis

2024-01-31 22:10:41

The Game

South Dakota women’s basketball travels to face North Dakota at 7 p.m. Thursday inside Betty Engelstad Arena in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
The game will be televised on Midco Sports Two with play-by-play from Brian Shawn and analysis by Val Sussex. A live stream of the game will also be available on the Summit League Network via the Midco Sports Plus app. A radio broadcast from the Coyote Sports Network with Jerry Palleschi will be available on KVTK 101.5.

The Coyotes

South Dakota (15-7, 4-3 Summit) is 4-3 on the road this season with all four wins coming down to making plays in the final seconds – three of the Coyotes’ road wins went to overtime.
The Coyotes enter the week after a pair of home wins over Denver and Kansas City. Thursday night it was junior guard Kendall Holmes that lit it up with a season-high 22 points, five assists and no turnovers. Sophomore center Natalie Mazurek added in 16 points, two shy of her own career high. Then Saturday it was junior guard Grace Larkins that took over the game, finishing 8-of-10 from the floor for 21 points. It marked her seventh 20-point game of the season.

The Fighting Hawks

The final league team for the Coyotes to play this season is a North Dakota (7-13, 3-4 Summit) squad that was picked fourth in the Summit League preseason poll headlined by the Summit’s preseason play of the year Kacie Borowicz.
Borowicz is leading the league in scoring for the second-straight season, averaging 19.8 points per game. She leads the league in free-throw makes and shoots at a 90.8 percent clip from the line (ranks 12th in the nation). Borowicz is also the only Summit play to record a triple-double so far this season.

The Series

These two programs were NCC foes that made the transition to NCAA Division I together, joined the Great West together and are now in the Summit League together. North Dakota leads the series 50-36. The two squads split last season with the Fighting Hawks winning 83-66 in Grand Forks.