RAPID CITY, S.D. --- The South Dakota School of Mines men's basketball team want to make it known that they can play with anybody at home. The Hardrockers were able to back that statement up Saturday night when they dropped the NCAA Div. II No. 18 ranked Colorado School of Mines Orediggers in convincing fashion.

SD Mines defeated Colorado Mines, 74-63, in a Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference matchup and remain undefeated at the King Center this season with a 5-0 home record.

"We are still undefeated at home and this is the biggest win in our program by far," said Hardrocker men's basketball head coach Jason Henry after the big victory.
It also marked the 150^th win for Coach Henry in his college head coaching career.

"I'm feeling pretty good after defeating a (NCAA) Top 20 team on our home floor," Henry said. "Our guys played extremely well again tonight. I can't say enough about the effort that they had in competition. Even at the end of the game --- we had to get a couple of offensive boards to kind of put it away after not getting the ball to go in the hole. Our guys delivered. We really wanted that win."

The Hardrockers played exceptional defense in the first half and converted buckets at the other end to lead by 12 at the half, 40-28. SD Mines did more of the same over the final 20 minutes, putting in 34 markers while the Orediggers managed 35 points.

 "We guarded and did some really great things on the defensive side," Henry said of his team in the first half. "When we are at home we play so much better on defense. But then we went down and scored the ball at the other end. We put up 40 points in a half and then almost scored another 40 in the second half. We knew we were going to have to get to that 75- or 80-point mark to have a chance to win this game -- and we did that."

 The Hardrockers shot 47 percent from the field Saturday night hitting 20-43 attempts, including six three pointers and made good on 28-38 from the free throw line. SD Mines grabbed 29 rebounds, had 12 assists, four steals and two blocks.

"It was a great team effort this whole weekend," Henry said. "A number of different guys did some great things tonight."

Colorado Mines converted 20-48 from the field for 44 percent and was 20-25 from the foul line. The Orediggers added 22 rebounds, 14 assists and seven steals.

Individually for SD Mines the seniors led the way again Saturday. Konor Kulas had 18 points, seven rebounds, two steals, one assist and one block. Marco Pascolo had another double-double with 16 points and 11 rebounds and added two assists and a block. Jamall Taylor contributed with 11 points and seven assists.

The win gives SD Mines a 6-4 overall record and improve to 2-2 in RMAC competition. The Hardrockers will continue to defend their undefeated home record this coming weekend with RMAC games against Chadron State (Friday) and Regis University (Saturday).