RAPID CITY, S.D. – The South Dakota Mines men's basketball team looks to get in the win column on Tuesday as they take on Fort Hays State.
Despite starting the season winless, the Hardrockers played well against two very tough opponents in Augustana and MSU Moorhead and look to get in the win column.
GAME INFORMATION
Fort Hays State
Date/Time: Nov. 19 / 6:00 p.m. MT
Site: Hays, Kansas
Arena: Gross Memorial Coliseum
Series Overall: Fort Hays State leads 3-0.
Streak: Fort Hays State Won 3
Last Meeting: Fort Hays State won in Hays, Kansas, 91-62 (1/22/15).
Watch Live: MIAA Network (Pay-Per-View)
GETTING THEIR FEET WET
South Dakota Mines is young and got experience with long, athletic teams and experienced, quality teams over their first two weekends and saw significant improvement.
Augustana and MSU Moorhead are quality teams that could easily advance to the national tournament this season and MSU Moorhead was ranked fourth nationally. Despite that, much progress was shown by the Hardrockers in two tough battles, despite the defeats.
CAPABLE ABLE
Abel Hutchinson had a strong weekend and was named to the All-Tournament team in Spearfish last weekend, after scoring 18 points on 8-11 shooting against #4 MSU Moorhead. With Cam Cohn having been limited thus far, the Hardrockers need some scorers to step up and Abel did just that.
1-2 PUNCH
Against Augustana, it was a different pair of players as freshman point guard
Tre Dowdell and combo guard
Guillem Garcia led the team, scoring 15 points each.
SCOUTING FORT HAYS STATE
Fort Hays State is a traditionally strong program that has won 20-plus games three years in a row and has been ranked in the top 25 already this season.
Despite that, their season started slow with losses to Southwest Minnesota State and Concordia-St. Paul.
They have four players currently averaging double figures in Kalem Hammeke (13.0 ppg), Traejon Davis (11.5 ppg), Shaun Riley (11.0 ppg) and Kyle Grill (10.0 ppg).
Riley is their leading rebounder as well, averaging 7.5 rebounds per game.
LOOKING AHEAD
Following the game tonight, the Hardrockers are back at it on Saturday, taking on MSU Billings at 6:00 p.m.
Fans can find the latest on South Dakota Mines men's basketball all year long on X and Instagram (@hardrockermbb), while also following on Facebook at Hardrocker Men's Basketball. The latest on South Dakota Mines athletics can be found by following us on X at @GoHardrockers, hardrockerathletics on Instagram and Hardrocker Athletics on Facebook.
About South Dakota Mines
The South Dakota School of Mines & Technology is a member of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC) and NCAA Division II offering 13 men's and women's varsity intercollegiate athletic programs. The Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference is a premier NCAA Division II conference with 15 members, as well as four associate members, located in the states of California, Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Utah.
