Big tests await SDSU basketball in Brookings this week

BROOKINGS – It will be a busy week at First Bank & Trust Arena as there are two basketball games and two volleyball matches taking place.

The basketball games should be a lot of fun with Valparaiso visiting on the men’s side on Wednesday and the Oklahoma State women coming to Brookings on Sunday.

The Cowgirls moved up to No. 19 in the new AP Top 25 Poll and have one of the top players in the country on their team this season in Audi Crooks.

Crooks spent her first three seasons at Iowa State and transferred to Oklahoma State in the offseason. She’s a three-time AP All-American and was the second-leading scorer in the country last season at 25.8 points per game. She was the only player in the country last year to have multiple games where she scored 40 points or more. On Monday, Crooks scored in double digits in her 100th consecutive game.

Jackrabbit fans are familiar with the Cowgirls as SDSU faced Oklahoma State in the NCAA Tournament just two seasons ago and they are led by Jaycie Hoyt, who was the head coach at Kansas City from 2017-2022. Although her teams at KC did not have a lot of success, she’s had a lot of success in Stillwater.

Oklahoma State has finished in the top five in the Big 12 in three of her four seasons and the Cowgirls have made the NCAA Tournament three times. Last year, OSU won an NCAA Tournament game for the first time since 2021, beating Princeton in the first round before falling to eventual National Champion UCLA.

When the Jacks and Cowgirls met in the 2025 NCAA Tournament, SDSU won 74-68 and then the Jacks lost to eventual National Champion UConn. After the season was over, South Dakota native Haleigh Timmer decided to transfer from SDSU to Oklahoma State and played her final year of college basketball for the Cowgirls.

Having ranked teams come to Brookings isn’t a new thing for the SDSU women as Oklahoma State will be the 20th ranked team that will visit the Jackrabbits since they moved up to Division I. SDSU is 9-10 against ranked teams in Brookings and last season No. 2 ranked Texas came to town and handed the Jacks a 70-51 loss. That was the highest ranked team to ever visit Brookings.

SDSU will have a rematch against Texas before its matchup against Oklahoma State as the Jacks take on the No. 6 ranked Longhorns on Wednesday. Aaron Johnston said after a 76-54 win over Northern Iowa on Friday that playing these kinds of teams is now a tradition for the Jackrabbits.

“We’re excited to have Oklahoma State come to First Bank & Trust Arena. That’s going to be a great game with some of the best players in the country playing in it. [We] never turn down these opportunities. They’re all just too good for our program. We’ve kind of built ourselves in playing these kinds of teams. Our goal is to continue to be a better team, and for us to get to places we haven’t been before, we have to be able to beat some of those teams at some point,” Johnston said.

On the men’s side, the Jacks are coming off a week where they beat their first power conference opponent since 2021. SDSU beat Kansas State 68-66 in its season opener and on Wednesday, the Jacks will welcome Valparaiso to Brookings.

At the beginning of the season, Valpo looked like just another opponent on the schedule, but that changed on Friday night when the Beacons beat Purdue with a buzzer-beating three in double overtime.

Valpo sits at 120th in the kenpom rankings, which is the second-highest of SDSU’s non-conference opponents. Only Nevada is higher at 60.

The Beacons were picked to finish fifth in the Missouri Valley. Last year they finished in seventh with an 18-15 overall record and an 11-9 record in conference play.

Rakim Chaney is a sophomore returner for Valpo who scored 35 points in the win over Purdue. Justus McNair is a junior returner for the Beacons and he hit the game-winning three and scored 17 points in the victory. JT Pettigrew finished as the runner-up for the Missouri Valley Conference Freshman of the Year Award last season and he scored 11 points.

SDSU head coach Bryan Petersen said it’s a great opportunity for his team because it’s two teams that just beat power conference teams.

“They’re a heck of a team,” Petersen said. “You know, they have a lot of really good players coming back. They’re off to a really good start. That’s a big time win in a heck of an atmosphere over Purdue. … It’ll be an awesome opportunity for our team. You know, hopefully our fans come out to the game on Wednesday. It should be a great mid-major basketball game with two programs that are off to pretty good starts to the year and we’re looking forward to the opportunity.”

Basketball can kind of get lost in the shuffle at this time of the year because of football. I would suggest that you come to First Bank & Trust Arena this week for a pair of exciting basketball games. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed in what you see, whether the Jacks win or lose each game.