Black Hills State men's basketball had a season for the ages as the 2021-22 squad made it to a national semifinal game for the second time in school history, while breaking nearly every BHSU single-season team record in the program's Division II era.
After being picked to finish third in the RMAC in the preseason poll back in October, the Yellow Jackets went on to not only win the RMAC, but earn their first-ever berth into the NCAA Tournament where they became South Central Regional Champions before advancing to the Elite Eight and Final Four.
"Our guys, all year, have done whatever was asked of them and competed their tails off," said Head Coach
Ryan Thompson. "I could not be more proud of our student-athletes - what a heck of a run they went on."
BHSU finished the year with an overall record of 26-8 and 17-4 in the RMAC, both of which are bests since BHSU joined DII ahead of the 2012-13 season. Their 26 wins was the most for the program since the 2010-11 season when they won 28 games as members of the NAIA.
"Black Hills State has been a great basketball program for a lot of years," said Thompson. "We'd been an NAIA program until the last 10 years and there have been a lot of great coaches and players who have come through … Now as an NCAA Division II Program, I think this group put our program on the map. And hopefully this will be something we will build on and we can continue to be on this stage in the future."
It was a historic year for men's basketball full of program firsts, and broken records. This season, the BHSU MBB program saw it's first:
- NCAA Tournament
- NCAA Tournament Win
- NCAA Regional Tournament Championship
- NCAA Elite Eight Appearance
- Win over a No. 1 ranked team
- NCAA Final Four Appearance
- RMAC Tournament Championship
- Top-25 National Poll Appearance
- Finished season at No. 22 in nation
- Top-25 National Poll Votes
- NCAA defensive rebounding leader
- Joel Scott ranked 1st in DII with 8.92 defensive rebounds per game this season
Scott was a big piece of the team's success, breaking several school records over the course of the season.
Scott became the BHSU single-season record holder for total points (787), total rebounds (362) and field goals made (291).
He also broke the school record for points scored in a game, scoring 50 against Western Colorado this season.
Scott currently sits at 1,652 career points, 529 points away from breaking the BHSU all-time scoring record of 2,180 held by Kim Templeton (1972-76).
Sindou Cisse,
Sava Dukic and
Adam Moussa also reached career milestones during the year, as each surpassed the 500 career points mark and recorded career-high point totals.
Cisse scored 455 points this season and shot 59.1 percent from the field. He scored a career-best 29 points against New Mexico Highlands and grabbed a career-best nine rebounds on three separate occasions.
Dukic recorded 282 points and a 40.1 percent shooting rate during the year with a career-high 27-point performance at Western Colorado.
Moussa finished the year with 458 points and an RMAC-leading 156 assists. He made 77 3-pointers on the season and had a team-high 84.0 free throw percentage. Moussa scored a career-high 32 points at Western Colorado.
Tommy Donovan and
PJ Hayes also each finished the season with career-high scoring. Donovan totaled 185 points while boasting a 50 percent shooting percentage from beyond the arc, and scored a career-best 20 points at Colorado Mines.
Hayes scored 219 on the year and totaled a career-best 26 points against South Dakota Mines, making eight 3-pointers in the game which ranks him second all-time at BHSU for threes made in a game.
Depth played a big role in the success of the 2021-22 season, as anyone could have a big game on any given night. The team had six different players post 20+ points games, and four different players have 10+ rebounding games.
The team also finished with 26 double-double performances throughout the year, with 21 coming from Scott and five from Moussa.
All these performances led to recognition, as seven of our student-athletes collected accolades totaling 24 honors and awards among the team, while Coach Thompson also took home some hardware:
- Sindou Cisse
- NCAA Regional All-Tournament Team
- RMAC All-Tournament Team
- All-RMAC Second Team
- Adam Moussa
- RMAC All-Tournament Team
- CoSIDA Academic All-District
- All-RMAC Second Team
- RMAC All-Academic First Team
- Joel Scott
- NABC All-American (Program's 1st-ever NCAA All-American)
- NABC All-Region
- D2CCA First Team All-Region
- 2022 Bevo Francis Award Watch List
- NCAA Elite Eight All-Tournament Team
- NCAA Regional All-Tournament Team
- NCAA Regional Tournament MVP
- RMAC All-Tournament Team
- RMAC Tournament MVP
- RMAC Player of the Year
- All-RMAC First Team
- 7x RMAC Player of the Week
Along with all these accolades, the 2021-22 Yellow Jackets set 18 school single-season records as a team (BHSU DII Era):
- Total Points (2,683)Â
- Scoring Average (78.9)Â
- Field Goals Made (975)Â
- Field Goal Attempts (1,956)Â
- 3-point Field Goals Made (299)Â
- 3-point Field Goal Attempts (819)Â
- Free Throws Made (434)Â
- Free Throw Attempts (619)Â
- Total Rebounds (1,201)Â
- Rebounds Per Game (35.3)Â
- Total Defensive Rebounds (975)Â
- Defensive Rebounds Per Game (28.7)Â
- Total Assists (450)Â
- Assists Per Game (13.2)Â
- Total Blocks (98)Â
- Total Steals (206)Â
- Total Games Played (34)Â
- Total Minutes Played (6,875)Â
Recapping the Season
The 2021-22 season began with five non-conference games as the Yellow Jackets quickly started 2-0 with wins over Arkansas Fort Smith and Oklahoma Christian.
The next week, BHSU battled but fell to an Augustana team who was then ranked No. 20, but finished the season at No. 6 in the nation. The men would go on to enter RMAC play at 2-3 while riding a 3-game skid.
But BHSU quickly turned things around in their next game in a historic 85-80 victory over Western Colorado in which junior
Joel Scott showed everyone what kind of season he was about to have.
Scott had a game for the record books, breaking the school record for points in a game as he finished with 50 on the night, surpassing the previous record of 46 points set by Jeff Stevens in 1996.
Coincidentally enough, Scott's record-tying 46th point of the night also put him past the 1,000-point threshold for his career.
That win kickstarted what would be a 7-game winning streak to open conference play with wins over Fort Lewis, Colorado Mesa, Westminster, New Mexico Highlands, UCCS and Colorado Mines.
The team rattled off six more wins after a loss to a tough CMU team, to lock themselves in a tie with Regis for first place in the RMAC as they held a 13-1 conference record on Feb. 4.
Coming off their second conference loss of the season, BHSU would then go up against No. 13/15 Regis on Feb. 7 in a battle for sole possession of first place. The Yellow Jackets trailed at halftime, but then used a big 48-point second half to roll past the Rangers, 85-75, and give themselves an edge in the RMAC standings at 14-2.
After dropping their next two, the Yellow Jackets still held onto first place with a trip to rival South Dakota Mines next up on the schedule. The team went into Rapid City on Feb. 19, and returned to Spearfish with a win and some regained momentum entering the final two games of the regular season.
An overtime victory over Colorado Christian on Feb. 25 kept BHSU rolling as they would sit one win away from clinching a first-place finish in the RMAC (16-4) entering the final game of the regular season.
They would get that win one day later on Feb. 26, topping Metro State 80-75 to earn their second RMAC regular season championship in three years, also finishing first in the RMAC in the 2019-20 season, tied with Dixie State.
Earning the 1-seed with a 17-4 RMAC record, the RMAC Tournament ran through Spearfish, and the Yellow Jackets ran the table, beating NMHU 102-76 in the first round and then moving past UCCS 86-77 in the semifinals.
That setup a championship game between BHSU and Regis, the two teams who were one and two in the conference most of the season. The title game was close all 40 minutes, but the Yellow Jackets went on to win their sixth straight, win the RMAC Tournament, and advance to their first NCAA Tournament in Lubbock, Texas.
BHSU would enter the big dance as a No. 3 seed in the South Central Region with a First-Round matchup against 6-seed Dallas Baptist.
After being down by as many as 13 points in the first half of the game, the Yellow Jackets stormed back to outshoot the Patriots in the second half, and outscore them 49-39 to win 76-68 and advance to the round of 32 against 2-seed West Texas A&M.
The red hot Yellow Jackets couldn't be stopped in the second round as they had three scorers with 20-point performances while shooting a collective 61.0 percent from the field and making 50 points in the paint to knock off WT, 91-77.
Next up for BHSU was a grudge match with 4-seed Colorado Mesa for the South Central Regional Championship in the Sweet Sixteen. Despite falling to the Mavericks in their last meeting, the Yellow Jackets never trailed in this one, and led by as many as 12 to win the regional title and advance to the Elite Eight in Evansville, Ind.
BHSU was given the 8-seed as teams were re-seeded ahead of the Elite Eight, which meant they had to go up against the No. 1 team in the country, the undefeated 31-0 Nova Southeastern Sharks who averaged 96 points per game.
However, the Yellow Jackets were unintimidated on the court as they went on to pull off one of the largest upsets in DII men's Elite Eight history, holding NSU to a season-low 67 points and winning 77-67 to advance to the Final Four.
This would be the first Final Four for the Yellow Jackets in DII, but it would be the second in program postseason history.
The only other time BHSU played in the Final Four was in the 2008-09 season as members of the NAIA. That year, BHSU would face Oklahoma Wesleyan in its Final Four game, but fall to the eventual champion by 13 points (85-72).
This time around, the Yellow Jackets would have their hands full with defending national champion Northwest Missouri State, who had won three of the last four NCAA tournaments entering play.
Though BHSU played tough, their run would end in the Final Four as they once again fell to the eventual champion by 13 points (70-57).
"One word would be 'historic'," Thompson said, describing the 2021-22 season. "This will go down as the group that made it to the Final Four, and if we continue to hopefully stay on this trend and be back here in the future, these guys will be the group that deserves the credit for elevating our program to one that can compete at the national level."
-BHSUAthletics.com-
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