Interior dominance paves the way for Jackrabbit women to return to Summit title game

SIOUX FALLS — “Honestly, they’re huge. The other team is just ginormous.”

In those simple, succinct words from North Dakota’s Kiera Pemberton summarizes what every other team in the Summit League is up against when the South Dakota State University women’s basketball team hits the court.

SDSU was bigger and better than the Fighting Hawks in every way on Saturday in the Summit League tournament semifinals, as SDSU pulled away for an 84-55 win at the Premier Center. The Jackrabbits advance to the Summit League title game at 3 p.m. Sunday against either No. 2 Oral Roberts or No. 6 Kansas City, playing for a third consecutive tournament title and fourth NCAA bid in the last five seasons.

The Jacks, now 28-3 on the season, dominated in the stats under the basket. SDSU had a 42-12 edge in points in the paint and a 22-4 margin in second-chance scoring. They outrebounded UND 54-26, including pulling down 18 offensive rebounds and for much of the game, they had as many offensive rebounds as UND had defensive rebounds, illustrating that it was a 50/50 proposition for who would grab a rebound every time the Jacks’ missed a shot.

And SDSU didn’t have too many issues on offense anyway. Brooklyn Meyer was a force at the forward spot with 22 points and 10 rebounds on 9-for-15 shooting, while Mesa Byom had 11 points and six rebounds. The Jacks also have 6-foot-1 Kallie Thiesen that they can get in the mix, and SDSU coach Aaron Johnston said they’ve started playing Meyer and Thiesen together more to go with the typical Byom and Meyer starting pair.

That attention Meyer gets frees up everyone else. Haleigh Timmer had 14 points and 10 rebounds from a guard spot and point guard Paige Meyer was terrific in her penultimate Summit League tournament game as a senior, scoring 17 points.

“I think that’s really important for us, and it’s a big part of our identity as a team, rebounding and being big down low,” Byom said. “I think that kind of gets us going, and then when we’re not getting shots from outside, that’s just our steady, and we did really good with that today.”

Counting Saturday, the trio of Byom, Thiesen and Brooklyn Meyer have played 368 games for the Jackrabbits in their career, with 13 seasons of combined experience. And Johnston pointed out they all play well off each other as a “really talented rotation.”

“Part of why they’re able to play the way they do is they can defend not only inside, but we switch a lot of screens,” Johnston said. “So they’re out on the perimeter chasing guards around and playing defense, you know, sideline to sideline, and that’s hard. A lot of coaches don’t do that, but that group is really talented.”

UND coach Mallory Bernhard said after the game that they had three different ways to play Brooklyn Meyer defensively, trying to front her in the post, play behind her on the block and also not guarding others to put more attention on the 6-foot-2 star Jacks’ center.

“The whole game plan was based around how we can give her different looks and what might be the trickle-down effect from that,” Bernhard said. “Because you just can’t give her one look all game. She’s too talented, and AJ is way too good of a coach.”

North Dakota got fine production from its 6-foot-1 sophomore forward Pemberton, who had 23 points through three quarters. But UND had only 22 points from everyone else and shot 29.3% from the field, including 2-for-10 on layups.

“At the end of the day, rebounds just absolutely killed us,” Bernhard said.

They’ve killed a lot of teams this season, with SDSU now 23-0 this season when they’ve outrebounded their opponents.

The Jackrabbits are now seeking their 12th Summit tournament title since 2009 and improved to 39-5 all-time in the conference tournament. Saturday’s win was the 11th time in tournament history the Jacks’ have scored 80 points or more and have won each time.

SDSU is in that familiar championship position again on Sunday as a large favorite in the conference title game.

“(We have) another opportunity to compete for a tournament title, which I know we’ll be excited about,” Johnston said.

Marcus Traxler is the assistant editor and sports editor for the Mitchell Republic. A past winner of the state’s Outstanding Young Journalist award and the 2023 South Dakota Sportswriter of the Year, he’s worked for the newspaper since 2014 and covers a wide variety of topics. A Minnesota native, Traxler can be reached at mtraxler@mitchellrepublic.com.