Jackrabbit Illustrated

Each Summit League team brings a different strength, the Jacks will get a chance to play against two different opponents in terms of style of play this week.  Oral Roberts Oral Roberts, who has stuck around the top of the standings, hasn’t lost at home this season. The Bison couldn’t even take them down at the Mabee Center.  Last time these two teams met was Jan. 2. The Jacks scored 96 points, which was their best offensive showing this season. SDSU maintained control for most of the game and held off a few serious ORU runs to earn the victory.  Emmanuel Nzekwesi has been on a tear as of late. In fact, the big man has scored more than 10 points in every game he's played in this season. Nzekwesi dropped 30 points at Purdue Fort Wayne Jan 18 and 27 points at USD. The redshirt senior is nearly averaging a double-double, but my guess is that he will get there by the end of the season.  Another player USD couldn't stop is Max Abmas, who scored 24 points aga

It is a great time to be a Jackrabbit!  Men’s basketball has won four-straight games women’s basketball is on a six-game win streak wrestling just won its fifth-consecutive match.  As far as men’s basketball goes, the Jacks are on top of the Summit League standings thanks to a 4-1 start to conference play. Wins against Oral Roberts, Western Illinois, Denver and Purdue Fort Wayne has shown the Jacks should be contending for a league title come March.  This week features a home game against North Dakota on January 15 and the first look at rival South Dakota this weekend in Vermillion. Here are my thoughts on what to expect from both teams. North Dakota The Fighting Hawks sit tied for fourth place along with four other teams as of Jan. 12 at 8-10 overall and 2-2 in the Summit League. UND defeated Denver and Purdue Fort Wayne but then fell to Omaha and Oral Roberts in former Northern State Head Coach Paul Sather’s first Summit League action.  Marlon Stewart is th

Yes, we are well into the new year/decade but our debate has been fierce in creating an All-Decade Jackrabbit football team.  The challenges of creating this team were what to do with the players at the beginning and the end of the decade who may only have a year or two of stats to go on or what do we do with those players who only splashed for one year?  Further complicating matters was the consistent improvement of the Jackrabbit team as a whole and the level of competition they are facing week in and week out.  So with all of those factors, the Splitting Hares Podcast team of Ben Pierson, Brendan Luedtke, Kyle Sheehan, and Dallas Clarksean created our list of who the team should be.  All are welcome to their opinions!  Special thanks to Mitchell McLain who keeps an unbelievable database of Jackrabbit football statistics and information.  Offense Quarterback Taryn Christion (2015-2018) 44 games started, 59.70% completion rate, 11,535 yards passing, 104 TD, 2,197 rus

Little bit of a recap : Transitioning from having two of the most prolific scorers in Jackrabbit women's basketball history (Macy Miller and Madison Guebert), you can imagine there are some kinks that need to be worked out to start the 2019-2020 season. The team coming off of a memorable season reaching the Sweet 16 for the first time in program history, pressure was on as they entered into this year. The chemistry among the team was still there in non-conference play, as the Jackrabbits returned three starters from a year ago and three players who played valuable minutes throughout last season.  The Jackrabbit women finished up non-conference play with an 8-6 record, with key wins against the University of South Florida (ranked 21 at the time) and Notre Dame. On the other hand, they dropped two straight at home against Central Michigan and Marquette. The last time the Jackrabbit women had back-to-back home losses was December of 2010. The non-conference showed signs of inexpe