CROOKSTON, MINN. – Freshman guard Jack Thompson scored a career-high 23 points and led five players in double-digits as the league-leading University of Sioux Falls Men’s Basketball Team (17-5, 13-3 NSIC) rolled to a 77-62 road cross division Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference victory over Minnesota Crookston (9-13, 5-11 NSIC) on Saturday (Feb. 1).For USF, the victory means a 13-3 record and a tie for first overall in the NSIC with Northern State. USF also owns a two-game lead over Upper Iowa (11-5) in the NSIC South. In recording a third straight win, USF engineered quite a turnaround from an earlier game with UMC. After falling to UMC, 94-69, in nonconference play in late November at the Stewart Center, USF overcame a slow start to record a double-digit win over the Golden Eagles and improve to 9-3 overall in the all-time series between the two schools. In addition, USF has improved to 8-1 on the road this season. Also of note, USF swept the weekend road games for the fourth time this year. USF is now 4-0 when five players score in double-digits. But tonight was one of those rare occasions when the Cougars had another unique statistical achievement. The junior forward tandem of Teathloach Pal and Austin Slater registered double-doubles in the same game for the first time in their careers. For Pal, his 10 points and 13 boards was his second double-double in three games and the 11th of his career. For Slater, he had his second double-double of the season and with 10 points and a game-high 14 rebounds had his fourth of his career.USF Head Coach Chris Johnson saw a lot of good things from his team tonight and of particular notice was the focus and work ethic that never diminished all weekend.”Sometimes it takes us some time to get into the rhythm of some games. But once we figure it out, we can get going,” said Johnson, who now has 228 career wins and 212 at USF. “We need to figure that out and get going earlier but we will take this. I felt we played really well on both sides of the ball. We outshot them and we did a great job on (Harrison) Cleary. Overall, we were able to get back to who were are,” said Johnson, whose squad will face Northern State (18-5, 13-3 NSIC) at home next Friday in a first-place showdown between the North (NSU) and South (USF) leaders.”One thing, I wanted to say is how well Troy Houghton played tonight,” said Johnson of his sophomore guard who held Cleary to two points in the first half and 22 for the game. “I have never seen him play better or harder,” added Johnson. On the night, Houghton had eight points, including 6-of-6 from the foul line, with four rebounds, four assists, a steal and a block.As for Thompson, he hit 10-of-16 from the field, which included making both of his three-pointers. He added four rebounds and two steals as he scored 20 points or more for the fourth time in his young career at USF. He now has 10 double-digit scoring games for USF. USF also had 13 points from sophomore guard Chase Grinde, who added three rebounds and two assists. He reached double-digits in points for the seventh straight game and 14th time this season. Senior captain Devin Green had 12 points for a second straight night with his third straight game of double-digit scoring. For the second straight night he hit 5-of-7 field goals. He was 2-of-2 from 3-point land and has made five of his last six threes. In addition, Green has made 16 of his last 24 shots for 66.7 percent.Johnson also was impressed with the double-double tandem of Pal and Slater. “I thought we got back to dominating on the offensive boards. It was great to see,” added Johnson, whose team had a 40-to-22 edge on the boards. “I am really proud of our guys and how they took care of business tonight,” he said. USF reached 40 rebounds in a game for the seventh time this year and the margin of 18 was the third-best differential of the season.As noted by Johnson, USF had a solid game on offense by hitting 28-of-54 field goals for 51.9 percent, which included making 6-of-11 from 3-point range and 15-of-20 from the foul line. The Cougars, which held a 35-27 halftime lead, was sizzling in the second half as they hit 15-of-22 field goals for 68.1 percent and that included 3-of-4 from distance. As a result, USF outscored UMC, 42-35, to pick up the 15-point-win.Key to USF’s success this year and particularly tonight was the domination inside the paint. The Cougars had a 38-to-24 edge in paint points against the Golden Eagles. And, they also had a 14-to-5 margin in second chance points.UMC, which had 22 points from the NSIC’s all-time leading scorer, Harrison Cleary, also received 12 points from Malcolm Cohen. However, USF limited UMC to 24-of-59 shooting for 40.7 percent and just 7-of-26 for 26.9 percent from three-point range at their home gym.
(Dan Genzler contributed to this report)
