SDSU Summit League Tournament History (The Nagy Era)
In preparation for the 2022 Summit League Basketball Tournament, I’m going to be taking a look back on SDSU’s Summit League Tournament history. First up, the Scott Nagy era.
While researching for this post, I found this thread on SDSUFans.com:
Objectively hilarious looking back. Side note, it’s really too bad that SDSUFans has gone by the way side. I never posted but it was always a great place to lurk for rumors/recruiting/mental breakdowns following games. Onwards…
2009:
1st Round: Win vs. Oral Roberts (72-69)
Semifinals: Loss vs. Oakland (74-56)
In terms of big wins in program history, this win was absolutely one of the biggest wins in the early D-I years and, in my opinion, really spurned on some later success. The ‘08-’09 Jacks had some big wins, at Iowa St. on the road, and Oakland at home, but struggled with most of the Summit League. The expectation going into the tournament was “Well, maybe we can keep it close in the first half.”
From SDSUFans:
Flash-forward to the Summit League Tournament and the Jacks marched in as a 7 seed paired up with Oral Roberts, who they had lost twice to during the regular season. Last time out, in Tulsa, the Jacks lost by 5, so there was a fair bit of optimism leading into the tournament.
The Tulsa World’s recap:
“A transitional year in Oral Roberts basketball ended Saturday with a disappointing first-round loss to South Dakota State in the first round of the Summit League Tournament.
Garrett Callahan scored 30 points, pacing the seventh-seeded Jackrabbits to a 72-69 overtime win over the Golden Eagles before a rowdy, partisan near-capacity crowd in the Sioux Falls Arena.
ORU frittered away a nine-point lead in the final nine minutes of regulation and Callahan made the big plays in overtime, just as he did in the final minutes of regulation.
The Golden Eagles led 69-67 on two foul shots by Marcus Lewis with 1:25 left, but Callahan drove for a layup and got fouled by Andre Hardy at the other end.
Callahan's foul shot put SDSU in front to stay. ORU's Kyron Stokes missed a 3-pointer from the corner with 47 seconds left, and the Jackrabbits ran the shot clock as far as they could before Callahan's missed a 3-pointer.
Lewis rebounded with 13 seconds left, and the Eagles rushed the ball down the floor. But Robert Jarvis missed a floater from the lane and Callahan rebounded with 2.8 seconds left and was fouled.
Callahan's foul shots made it 72-69, but ORU had one more chance. Lewis caught Kevin Ford's long inbounds pass and tossed to Stokes, who missed a 3-pointer off the rim as time expired.”
From SDSUFans following the game:
Very little video (as in none at all) from this game exists on the internet from what I have been able to find.
The second round game vs. Oakland went about as expected. Oakland was a wagon with future NBA second round pick Keith Benson and Jonathon Jones - the Grizzlies went on a run mid-first half and it was never close after. NDSU, with Ben Woodside, went on to beat Oakland in the championship game.
2010:
1st Round: Loss vs. IPFW (71-66)
I have very strong memories of some Summit League Tournaments and absolutely no recollection of others. For example, I remember clearly listening to the ‘09 Oral Roberts game on the radio and Tyler Merriam’s “and the Jackrabbits are moving on!” to end the game. The 2010 tournament falls into the latter group - I don’t remember anything about this game or season really.
SDSU split the season series with IPFW and was a four seed heading into the tournament.
From SDSU’s recap:
“South Dakota State trailed by seven early in the first half of Sunday's Summit League Tournament opener against IPFW, led by seven early in the second half, but trailed by five when it mattered most in the 71-66 loss to the Mastodons….The Jacks battled back to force the first of three first half ties at the 8:28 mark on a Callahan layup that tied the game at 16-all. The final tie of the game came on the final basket of the first half, a Williams dunk that tied the game at 28-28.
SDSU came out hot in the second half and reached its largest lead of the game at 40-33 with an even 16 minutes left to play, but IPFW came back to force the first of five second half ties at 48-48 with 9:42 on the clock.
Six lead changes followed, the final one with 37 seconds left that put the 'Dons up for good, a pair of free throws by Daniels that put IPFW up 67-66.”
Oakland ended up beating IUPUI in the championship game and advanced to the NCAA Tournament.
2011:
1st Round: Win vs. IPFW (85-75)
Semifinals: Loss vs. Oakland (110-90)
The ‘10-’11 Jacks was the first year that Nagy really started developing a core group that could compete for Summit League titles. This was the sophomore season for Wolters and Fiegen, Brayden Carlson and Chad White’s redshirt freshman year, and Dykstra and Heemstra’s true freshman year. Obviously, hindsight tell us this was the core group that would lead the Jacks to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances but they competed well even during these early years.
In the first round, IPFW was overmatched in about every way and had already been blown out twice during the regular season. This was the first “easy” Summit League Tournament win for the Jacks.
Let’s just make one thing clear: Scott Nagy owns Greg Kampe now. But, back in the 2011, it was the other way around. Oakland still had Benson and shooters surrounding him, which was just a bad matchup for the Jacks at the time. Not a ton of experienced height on this roster and Benson got whatever he wanted whenever he wanted.
I will say, looking back, 200 total points for a tournament game is incredibly high as well.
2012:
1st Round: Win vs. IUPUI (77-56)
Semifinals: Win vs. Southern Utah (63-47)
Finals: Win vs. Western Illinois (52-50)
The Jacks were the best team in the Summit League during the 2011-12 season but they also got very fortunate during the tournament. IUPUI was a walkover in the first round but rather than play Oakland, who at the time had owned SDSU, the Jacks drew Southern Utah, who upset Oakland in the first round. Another walkover. In the other semifinal, Western Illinois upset top seed Oral Roberts in a ugly, physical game.
During the season, SDSU beat WIU on the road, 67-66, and at home, 74-57. The general feeling was SDSU was far more talented but WIU just knew how to make things ugly. They had physical bigs who could muck the game up.
As expected, the game was incredibly ugly, with the Jacks shooting 35% from the field.
The Journal Star’s recap:
“Western Illinois fumbled its chance to make the Big Dance, falling 52-50 in overtime to South Dakota State in the title game of the Summit League tournament.
Griffan Callahan hit a 3-pointer with 1:30 left in OT and the Jackrabbits got stops the last two times the Leathernecks had the ball on Tuesday night at Sioux Falls Arena.
“I knew, because of the crowd, they would never let the game get away from them, and they didn’t,” WIU coach Jim Molinari said. “And I think we did everything we could. We just couldn’t score at the end there.
“I think you have to be 10 points better if you’re going to win here, and we weren’t 10 points better tonight.”
South Dakota State (27-7) earned the conference’s automatic NCAA tournament bid and will make its first NCAA appearance as a Division I team.
“I knew it was going in because I knew it was Griff,” Jackrabbits coach Scott Nagy said. “When we’ve made big shots this season, it’s been Griffan Callahan who’s made the shot. When he took that, just deep down I knew it was going in.”
The Leathernecks tried to win it on a last shot in regulation. With 15.3 seconds left, Ceola Clark dribbled the clock down under 5 seconds before he ducked under Nate Wolters at the left wing and put up a shot that glanced off the rim just ahead of the buzzer.
Western Illinois (18-14), playing in its first Summit final since 1997, led by as many as 12 points in the second half. But the Leathernecks made just one field goal in the last 7:40 of regulation, giving the Jackrabbits ample opportunity to come back.
There were nine lead changes and four ties early before the Leathernecks held the Jackrabbits scoreless for 6 1/2 minutes and rolled off 10 straight points to go up 33-24 after Tommie Tyler’s length-of-the-court drive and dunk early in the second half.
“I told them just to not give up and stay positive,” Griffan said. “Our shots weren’t falling, and some of the guys were down. We can’t have that in the locker room. I told them we’re going to win this.”
Wolters ended SDSU’s 10:06 stretch without a field goal when he banked in a runner, and he scored again a few minutes later to start a 9-2 spurt that pulled the Jackrabbits to 44-42 with 31/2 minutes left.
The Jackrabbits twice had chances to tie or take the lead before finally pulling even. Wolters was off the mark with a 3-point attempt and badly missed when he tried to take Jack Houpt to the hoop before Callahan’s two free throws made it 44-all with 15.3 seconds left.
“I think we showed a lot of people that we’re one of the best defensive teams out there,” Clark said. “Hopefully we can start gaining some respect.”
Wolters led the Jackrabbits with 14 points. Callahan, who made two free throws at the end of regulation to force overtime, added 10 points.
Terell Parks led Western Illinois with 19 points.
After Callahan’s shot gave the Jackrabbits the lead, Western Illinois turned it over when Ceola Clark lost control of the ball and committed a shot-clock violation.
The same thing happened to SDSU on the other end, with Wolters unable to get his shot from the baseline off before the clock ran out.
Tommie Tyler had a chance for a final shot after the Leathernecks got the ball back with 10 seconds left, but he couldn’t get his short shot to fall. Parks rebounded but had the ball stripped by SDSU’s Brayden Carlson, who held it a moment before the buzzer sounded and SDSU’s students rushed the court.
“It didn’t work out,” Tyler said, “but we played our hearts out. They’re a great team.”
Western Illinois, picked to finish ninth in the preseason, came to Sioux Falls as the No. 4 seed and upset No. 1 Oral Roberts in the semifinals.
The Leathernecks were the lowest seed since 2006 to make it this far. Before this year, the Leathernecks hadn’t won a Summit tournament game since 1999.
All but a handful of the 6,526 at Sioux Falls arena — 50 miles from SDSU’s campus in Brookings — were wearing the school colors. Most of them were standing the last 10 minutes of regulation and through overtime.
Summit tournament MVP Nate Wolters said no one deserves the NCAA bid more than Nagy, who coached the Jackrabbits during their Division II days.
“He’s been through it all,” Wolters said. “It’s unbelievable, being in Division II and making the transition. To have this kind of year and this finish — well, we’re not finished yet. I’m still soaking it in and probably will enjoy it for a couple days. It should be fun, a first in school history.”
Wolters, who scored 31 points against Southern Utah on 10-of-17 shooting, was just 5-of-22 from the floor.
Each team endured long rough patches offensively. South Dakota State’s slump bridged the first and second halves and allowed the Leathernecks to build a 12-point lead. Western Illinois struggled late and let the Jackrabbits come back to force overtime.
The Jackrabbits won despite shooting 35 percent, while Western Illinois shot 40 percent.”
Something funny that I remember hearing about this game was the Summit League/ESPN paying Augustana students to wear WIU stuff and attend the game. It’s not surprising that WIU students didn’t make the 7.5 hour drive to Sioux Falls from Macomb, it was just hilarious a bunch of Augie students (who SDSU people recognized) were putting on a fan-acting clinic behind the basket.
2013:
1st Round: Win vs. IUPUI (66-49)
Semifinals: Win vs. IPFW (72-56)
Finals: Win vs. NDSU (73-67)
Off a Summit League title where a significant amount of the core group was back, the goal was simple: Repeat. The Jacks had a great non-conference season, upsetting ranked New Mexico at the Pit. SDSU then rolled through the Summit League schedule, posting a 13-3 record that was good enough to win the regular season title (Western Illinois also went 13-3 but lost the head-to-head vs. SDSU).
Considering this was Wolter’s senior year, there was a fair bit of pressure on the Jacks to make the tournament. No longer an “unknown,” Wolters was receiving a fair bit of national attention, and for good reason. He set the single game scoring record at IPFW and was eventually named an AP All-American.
SDSU steamrolled through the first two rounds of the Summit League Tournament, dismantling an IPFW team who had given them fits the past couple of years. In the championship game, they met with an NDSU team who they had split the season series with, winning comfortably at home but losing 65-62 in Fargo. The Jacks never trailed in the championship but never really pulled away either, eventually winning 73-67 over NDSU.
SDSU’s recap of the game:
“Top-seeded South Dakota State won its second straight Summit League Championships crown on Tuesday with a 73-67 win over No. 3 seed North Dakota State in front of a raucous crowd of 6,544 mostly SDSU fans at the Sioux Falls Arena.
With the win, the Jackrabbits punch their ticket to the NCAA Tournament for the second time in as many years and improve to 25-9 on the season.
"I thought being in the championship game last year was helpful to our players. Last year it felt a little overwhelming and we were very tense and tight in the game, even though we were expected to win it," head coach Scott Nagy said. "NDSU is a tremendous basketball team, particularly with (Taylor) Braun back. They are great defensively, we struggled to get good shots them, and with him back, they're much better offensively. We knew we would have to play tough, we knew we would have to play great defense, and I thought, defensively this was as good as I've seen our guys in a long time."
The Bison, who fall to 24-9 on the season, scored first and after a couple of quick lead changes, opened an early 7-3 lead. The Jacks responded with a 10-0 run to go up 13-7 with 12 minutes and 10 seconds left in the first half, and never trailed again in the game.
Despite not ever trailing again, the Jackrabbits never really pulled away either, as the Bison kept the lead in single digits for the entire half before the Jacks took a 29-25 lead into the locker room.
The SDSU lead reached double figures for the first time at the 16:35 minute mark of the second half on a Brayden Carlson 3-pointer from the left side that put SDSU up 11 points at 36-25. SDSU would push that lead to as many as 12 on a Jordan Dykstra layup and-1 with 11:45 to play.
NDSU came right back with a Braun 3-pointer on the other end, and kept the lead under 10 points for all but a 17 second span between a Nate Wolters jumper at 9:26 that put SDSU up 52-42 and a Mike Felt 3-pointer at the 9:09 mark that cut the lead to 52-45, which started a 10-2 NDSU run that cut the lead to two points 52-52 with 7:24 left in the game.
The Jacks came right back with a quick 8-2 burst to push the lead back to eight points at 62-54 on a pair of Tony Fiegen free throws with 3:39 on the clock. From there, the Jacks went 9-of-10 from the free throw line down the stretch to secure the win.
Wolters led all players with 27 points in the win, adding six each in rebounds and assists in earning tournament MVP honors for the second straight year. A now two-time all-tournament team selection, Dykstra finished with 18 points and seven rebounds, while first-time all-tournament team selection Fiegen finished with 12 points.”
2014:
1st Round: Win vs. Western Illinois (71-50)
Semifinals: Loss vs. IPFW (64-60)
Summit League Tournaments fall into one of four categories for Jacks’ fans: memorable, forgetful, painful, or “ones I wish I could forget.” The 2014 tournament falls squarely into the latter. To set the scene, Wolters and Fiegen from last year’s core is gone, but the rest of the group remains, with the addition of Florida transfer Cody Larson.
The Jacks had a good not great conference season, going 10-4 but had lost twice to NDSU, who won the regular season conference title. After two straight trips to the Big Dance, maybe expectations were high, but if memory serves me correctly, the general feeling was this team was a guy or two short from having a real chance at the tournament. Anyways, the hope was still that they could get on a run in the Summit League Tournament and possibly upset NDSU in the final. After breezing through a bad Western Illinois squad, the Jacks matched with IPFW, who they had split the season series with.
Don’t need much of a recap here as the Jacks played terrible and should have been beaten handily.
From SDSUFans:
NDSU narrowly beat IPFW in the final, 60-57.
2015:
1st Round: Win vs. Western Illinois (87-50)
Semifinals: Win vs. USD (78-65)
Finals: Loss vs. NDSU (57-56)
The ‘15 edition of the Summit League Tournament had a new home: The Denny Sanford Premiere Center, a 12,000 seat arena built right next to Sioux Falls Arena.
Talk about a year I would rather just forget. SDSU was the #2 seed, had a fairly deep team, and in my opinion, had a roster built for tournament success. Honestly, I don’t remember a ton about the quarterfinal and semifinal games (other than just beating up on the Yotes), but I remember the championship game very well.
Frankly, I’m not even sure if its worth recapping and reliving the pain of those final few minutes of the championship game. If you want to watch the video above, find a quiet, safe, empty room with nothing breakable anywhere in sight. Or read ESPN’s play by play below.
For some reason when I rewatched the game, I still thought Parks’ shot at the end had a chance at going in.
2016:
1st Round: Win vs. Oral Roberts (73-70 )
Semifinals: Win vs. Denver (54-53)
Finals: Win vs. NDSU (67-59)
The year of the cardiac Jacks. After the previous year’s heartbreak, SDSU fans got all they wanted out of the ‘16 edition: a Summit League Title and bison heartbreak.
The decisive moment of this tournament wasn’t the championship - it was the semifinal vs. Denver - which had one of the wildest finishes that I can remember. Let’s set the scene: The Jacks get off to a good start and are up as much as 12 in the first half. Then they go cold - ice cold. The Jacks don’t score in the second half until under 14 minutes remain in the game - suddenly down 10 to Denver. The Pioneers kept growing the lead, up to 13 at one point, until the Jacks went on a late run. Now for the video:
Jake Bittle gets fouled and goes to the line. 1 of 2. Jacks up 1. Then quite possibly the worst call in human history is made. But what happens next is the dictionary definition of “BALL DON’T LIE.” If you listen close enough, you can hear Rasheed Wallace yelling it from his Portland mansion.
The gentleman who missed for Denver, Joe Rosga, was a 87% free throw shooter at the time. Ballgame.
The championship was significantly less stressful and thank goodness - I’m not sure if the Jackrabbit faithful could have handled a re-run of the semifinal madness.
In a rematch of the previous year’s final, the Jacks and bison played each other tight for the first 25 minutes but the team who was substantially better, more talented and better coached pulled away over the last half of the game to clinch the title and an NCAA Tournament bid.
After losing to Maryland in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, Scott Nagy was announced as the new head coach of Wright State University, thus ending the “Nagy era” at SDSU.