The South Dakota men’s basketball team held off Denver 91-84 to earn its first conference win of the season.

The Coyotes held a six-point lead at halftime and outscored the Pioneers by one in the second half to extend their lead to seven.

USD built their lead in the first half with their aggression driving to the rim. The Coyotes were outshot from deep but their consistent penetration led to 23 first-half free throws. South Dakota converted 16 of those while the Pioneers made only three of 10. USD ended up plus-17 in the free throw battle.

The Coyotes only outrebounded Denver by one but managed to outscore the Pioneers in second-chance points by five. They also outscored Denver by six points in the paint. The Pioneers committed four more turnovers than South Dakota but the Coyotes took advantage of the turnovers they forced, outscoring Denver in points off turnovers by six.

The Coyotes were led by Isaac Bruns and Chase Forte who each scored over 20 points. Bruns finished with 21 points on 5-for-9 shooting and was 11-for-14 from the charity stripe. He also had two steals and five rebounds. Forte ended with a game-high 22 points on 8-for-15 shooting. The guard also corralled seven rebounds and had two steals.

The South Dakota men’s basketball team will travel to Minnesota to face St. Thomas on Saturday, Jan. 11.

The Iowa Hawkeyes have another addition for the 2025 season via the NCAA transfer portal.

Former South Dakota State defensive lineman Bryce Hawthorne announced his pledge to the Hawkeyes on Saturday afternoon with an Instagram post.

Hawthorne appeared in 14 games for the Jackrabbits during the 2024 FCS season, tallying 22 tackles, 5.5 tackles for loss and 4.5 sacks and a pair of quarterback hurries.

A native of Osseo, Minn., the 6-foot-3, 285 pound defensive tackle joins Iowa with three seasons of eligibility remaining. After appearing in just three games and redshirting during the 2023 campaign, Hawthorne burst onto the scene for the Jackrabbits this year.

Hawthorne was named to FCS Football Central’s freshman All-American team for his efforts at SDSU in 2024.

Hawthorne arrives as part of a defensive tackle rotation that features returnees Aaron Graves and Jeremiah Pittman. That duo combined for 49 tackles, 9.5 tackles for loss and six sacks during the 2024 regular season.

With Yahya Black exhausting his eligibility, Iowa wanted more interior defensive line help. The Hawkeyes have found it with the addition of Hawthorne and former Central Michigan defensive tackle Jonah Pace.

During the 2024 season with Central Michigan, Pace totaled 34 tackles, 11 tackles for loss, six quarterback hurries, four sacks, two pass breakups, one forced fumble and one blocked kick. According to Pro Football Focus, Pace had 20 total pressures a season ago.

Iowa is also set to bring back Will Hubert and Luke Gaffney in its defensive interior.

Hawthorne joins former Auburn quarterback Hank Brown and Pace among Iowa’s transfer portal additions thus far entering the 2025 college football season.

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Soon Gov. Kristi Noem could be installed as the next Secretary of Homeland Security. In one of her last official acts as governor, Noem managed to instill some uncertainty in South Dakota’s public education system.

During her budget speech, Noem claimed she wanted to continue to “prioritize education.” Notice that she didn’t say “prioritize public education.” In what was likely her final budget address to the Legislature, Noem proposed an ongoing $4 million expenditure to help families pay for private school tuition and other forms of alternative instruction.

Her largesse toward families seeking to pay for a private school education came during a budget address in which she:

• Offered a paltry 1.25% funding increase for the “big three” of health care, public education and state employee salaries.
• Unveiled $71.9 million in budget reductions and discretionary changes.
• Included in the budget cuts a $2 million reduction for the Board of Regents and a $3.6 million cut for South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

Noem proposed that the state would pay about $3,000 per student annually for private school tuition or alternative instruction. Private schools, homeschoolers and other forms of alternative instruction operate under a different set of rules. It’s a veritable wild west of schools that can be unaccredited or accredited by someone other than the state. In other words, good luck figuring out how your tax dollars are being spent.

It’s probably possible to figure out how much money the state of South Dakota has invested in public education since statehood. Instead of doing the math, let’s just assume it totals in the billions of dollars. It seems at cross purposes for the state to make that kind of long-term investment in public education only to turn around and start funding its competitors.

Instead of tackling the bigger issues in public education, Noem has revved up the Legislature for a fight over an idea that’s trendy in conservative circles. It’s also an idea that the state can’t afford. Any state budget that proposes tens of millions in cuts isn’t likely to have a spare $4 million. If there is $4 million extra in the state budget, it should be funneled into teacher salaries.

Through neglect and short-sightedness lawmakers and the governor have let teachers’s salaries sink back near the bottom of the barrel nationally. Noem’s proposed 1.25% increase in education funding certainly isn’t going to do much to get South Dakota’s national teacher salary ranking out of the basement.

With its low teacher salary ranking, South Dakota’s universities find themselves training the next generation of teachers for the surrounding states that make a greater attempt to pay teachers what they are worth. When qualified teachers become harder to attract because of South Dakota’s low salaries, school districts will be forced to cut their offerings, hamstringing the very education that Noem says she has gone to such great lengths to “prioritize.”

The last time South Dakota made any progress in this area was in 2016 when Gov. Dennis Daugaard led an effort to raise the state sales tax by half a percent with some of the funds dedicated to raising teachers’ salaries. Since then, lawmakers have cut the state sales tax and mandated a $45,000 minimum salary for public school teachers without offering any extra funding to help schools reach that goal.

Given the state of the budget Noem proposed, lawmakers would do well to put their efforts into protecting public education and finding a funding source that could ensure that the state’s teacher salaries are no longer a national embarrassment.