Quarterfinal with Fort Wayne

[Coyote Fan]

Tip off is 6PM Sunday. There should be plenty of seats available with most of the SDSU fans not being in attendance as this is their day off. Red should rule during the evening session. I think having the bigger arena is actually a big benefit for Coyote fans. Most USD fans are not very proactive when it comes to securing tickets early when they first go on sale but rather have a bigger walkup on game day or get their tickets not too much prior to game day. For the women there were several Coyote fans in the less desirable lower bowl sections and many in the upper section as well. Mostly it was Jacks fans sitting in the best seats on the first level. At least the Coyote fans were there and making noise which is nice.

The Coyotes have yet to win a first round game at the Summit Tourney but have a chance to change that this year. It hasn't helped that the matchups haven't been good due to not having a very high seed. This year the Yotes have a little bit better seed but being 9-7 in a 9 team league they are a bit unfortunate to only get a 5 seed and a matchup against a team that was very hot for most of the 2nd half of the season until the last 3 games. The Coyotes tend to not play well in home games with flat crowds. The two biggest home games they did play well in because the atmosphere was better. The Coyotes also played obviously very well on the road. I think those two things are coming full circle at the Summit Tourney. A good atmosphere with some passionate fans cheering them on but also kind of a road game at the same time. I think that is a good combination. The Coyotes aren't good enough to survive in this game if they come out with the same type of start the women had. It will be very hard to overcome that. On the otherhand if the Coyotes show the heart and passion that they had against SDSU I like their chances. If they really put the effort into the defensive end I think they will win the game. If the game turns into a run of the mill half court possession by possession game that relies alot on inside play I like Fort Wayne's chances. If the Yotes play off the energy from the crowd and are able to get some good runs of offense I like USD's chances a little more.

Monday would be quite the day and night if USD was able to pull off the win tomorrow. If a couple of games turn out like they could we would be looking at a repeat of last Saturday in Vermillion with the women playing first against Western Illinois and the men playing later against SDSU. Wouldn't it be nice to have that senario again and have the same two teams gets wins on Monday like they did in Vermillion on Saturday.

[usdguy99]

Great Coyote victory tonight! Now let's get another victory over the bunnies

[sdyotefan]

It wasn't easy but it is March madness!! GO YOTES!!!!!

[Coyote Fan]

What a great atmosphere at the Denny tonight. There were a good amount of Coyote fans and they were into it getting loudly. There is no doubt the crowd helped spur on the team. The Yotes played a near perfect 1st half. It was awsome watching them nail shot after shot and contain Forbes on the D end. The Coyotes put themselves in a position up 21 at half to make it very difficult on Fort Wayne to come all the way back to win and that is exactly what happened. That may have been the best half the Coyotes have played all season, if not it was way up there. Nice timing for the Yotes to be on top of their game. When this team shows up to play and plays with passion they can give anyone trouble. Eventhough Fort Wayne didn't win it was apparent why they are one of the hotter teams in the league and why they were pre season #1 in the Summit. They were a good team which is why the Coyote performance tonight was all that more impressive. Stopping Forbes was definately the easier task than stopping Bos, Larson and Kasperbauer. I have to give a ton of credit to James Hunter though. He did really well on Forbes on both ends of the court. Him playing even with Forbes allowed this to become a guard oriented game and when that happens USD always has a chance. The home crowd advantage played a big part in the game with the lead getting as large as it did. If the Yotes had only led by 10 at half they may not have held on but who knows and who cares because it's rivaly night tomorrow night. If the Coyotes play like they did tonight the Jacks will have to be on the top of their game to beat them.

[Yotes]

That was a great win for our men! Our lead certainly diminished from the 21 points at halftime, but I'm going to credit a lot of that to IPFW having their own stretch of shooting out of their minds.

As awesome as it was to watch Bos just go off in the first half (finishing with 29 points, a career high), how about the efforts by our big men? Holding Steve Forbes to 5 of 13 shooting was an incredible feat for our guys. That dude had shot 19-23 against us in the first two games. Not only that, James Hunter had an excellent effort on the offensive side to get himself a career high 16 points. We have proven before that we can shoot a very high percentage, especially beyond the arc, but our inside game had been uncertain. The biggest difference in this one was easily our big men.

IPFW is a good team and was definitely the one team I didn't want to play out of our potential first round matchups, I am very glad that we pulled out the win. Next we get to play State again in what is surely going to be an electric atmosphere. We have now won 6 of our last 7, and that includes a very convincing win over SDSU last weekend. If we can get an effort similar to our last two games I like our chances of moving onto the final.

Should be a fun one! Go Yotes!

[usdlaw]

Hunter was AWESOME tonight. Let's keep it rolling against the bunnies. Go Yotes!

[Iceman]

What a big win. Hunter was awesome tonight. That's the best he has played all year. He keeps improving so much every game. Bos also had an awesome night.

On a side note, I am sick of people always getting on here and saying, "oh if we aren't playing State, that we should always cheer for them since they are from South Dakota. They do the same for us." BS! You watch their whole crowd, during our games and they sit there about falling asleep when we are winning, then when the other teams start to make a run, they wake up and start cheering their heads off. No thanks, not ever cheering for them. Don't care.

[Coyote Fan]

You are right on Iceman. The SDSU people will never cheer for us to win. I never cheer for them either. They have enough of a crowd advantage that they don't need any more impartial fans cheering for them. USD fans should be cheering hard for Oral Roberts in the women's game because SDSU getting upset would give the Yotes a much better chance of winning the tourney. NDSU fans will cheer for the Coyotes men tomorrow because they don't want to face the Jacks in the final. I am affraid if the Coyotes make the final it wouldn't be much of an easier task for NDSU. If the Yotes beat the Jacks tomorrow I don't see anything stopping them on Tuesday night. I don't care if it's Oral Roberts or NDSU because IMO the best three teams in Sioux Falls considering how the teams are currenrly playing are all on USD's side of the bracket. USD just convincingly beat one of them and convincingly beat the other just a week ago. The Coyotes will get to the NCAA tourney if they win tomorrow.

[Deleted]

SDSU wont come out flat like in Vermillion. I guarantee that. It won't be a 40 point blowout either like the Jacks did on Saturday against WIU. It will be within single digits. Good luck tomorrow. It should be one of the most exciting games in state of South Dakota sports history. I'm looking forward to watching it in person.

[Deleted]

Yup it's going to be a great game. USD picked a great time to start shooting lights out. If they play like they did in the first half they could easily win the entire tourney. This should be really fun to watch!

[olifer]

For those folks that are new to the Summit League Tournament, I'm sure you've already gotten "the fever". The competition, the venue, and the fans...all of them, are a testament to the caliber of this league. I was quite pleased to see a lot of RED in the stands last night and look forward to seeing even more as we all embrace this culture. With that being said, we already need to plan for next years tournament to ensure that we have even more red fans in better seats. I encourage all of you to watch closely for when the tickets for the 2016 tournament go on sale and plan to purchase them on day one as that's when ALL of the good seats are gobbled up.

Go YOTES!

[golfingyote]

I've been to both USD games so far and I gotta say our fans (although not the numbers sdsu has) have been outstanding. Place was rocking last night in the first half. Hopefully our fans can eat up a bunch of the tickets available for tonights game. We will need every one of them! should be a good one.

[notkiotees]

I don't know which coach works with Hunter but hats off to them! That kid was fantastic last night!

A confident James Hunter could be the difference if the Yotes want to finish this thing!