Only Cinderella stands between the South Dakota State women and a Summit title

SIOUX FALLS — The South Dakota State women’s basketball team has been favorites in the Summit League tournament championship before.

That won’t be new on Tuesday afternoon.

But they’ve never been bigger favorites than when they take on sixth-seeded Omaha for a conference title and an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

Based on the rankings at season’s end, SDSU has never played a team that is 200 or below in either the RPI or NET metrics that the NCAA has used for a Summit title, with the previous low mark being when USD was making their climb and the Jacks beat them in 2013, with the Coyotes holding an RPI of 169. This year, the Jacks are ranked 37th in the NET, while Omaha is at 260.

Dave Eggen / Inertia

SDSU (27-5) will play for a 10th conference tournament title and 12th NCAA tournament berth in the last 15 seasons, something Jackrabbit coach Aaron Johnston said “doesn’t just happen” in college basketball. And for all of the accomplishments in SDSU women’s basketball history, the Jacks broke new ground with their 20th consecutive win, the longest ever.

An already open path to a conference title was widened by the events of the tournament over the first three days, with the main contenders wiped out by upsets in the quarterfinal round and No. 2 North Dakota State, No. 3 North Dakota and No. 4 South Dakota all defeated. It leaves an opportunity for the Mavericks taking on the conference’s Goliath.

Paige Meyer said the team has noted the upsets but will continue to take the “one game at a time” mantra to the court on Tuesday for a chance to be conference champions, not worrying about the caliber of their opponent.

Longshots don’t win the Summit League women’s title. Even the one non-SDSU/USD champion — Western Illinois in 2017 — was the No. 1 seed the year they won it. Oakland in 2006 is the longest shot in Summit women’s history to win the conference title, doing it as the No. 6 seed, three years before SDSU became eligible to win it, which SDSU promptly did for five years in a row from 2009 to 2013.

Omaha (15-16), however, gets its second crack at a conference title in three seasons. In 2021 — the pandemic-limited tournament at the Pentagon — the Mavericks upended an injury-riddled Jacks team in the opening round and then reached the championship game before falling to South Dakota in a blowout. This time, they will get the fuller experience — with up to 8,000 blue-tinged Jackrabbit fans rooting against the Mavericks’ first NCAA tournament appearance and the upset of all upsets in Summit tournament history.

"Looking back, I'm just now realizing how close we were to winning the championship," Omaha center Elena Pilakouta said. "Now we have a chance to do that again and obviously, it's going to be packed in here against South Dakota State."

Omaha kept its battle with SDSU to a 68-61 final margin on Jan. 19 at Baxter Arena. The Mavericks led 36-33 at halftime before SDSU went on a 24-8 run in the third quarter to take the lead for good, while SDSU hung on despite a tough shooting final quarter.

Omaha was average in every key offensive category during the season but summoned enough offense in an 84-81 win over North Dakota and then pounded the paint with their 6-foot-3 center Elena Pilakouta to advance on Monday with a 69-60 victory over Kansas City. Omaha coach Carrie Banks said she's urged her team to keep fighting throughout this tournament and it's all coming together at the right time. She said her team will have to avoid mistakes to win the game.

"We have to take care of the basketball, we have to control the tempo of the game and defensively, we have to be solid every possession," Banks said. "Sometimes teams try to get up and down with them and it doesn't work out too well."