3-seed Black Hills State  vs. 6-seed Minnesota Duluth   TUESDAY, MARCH 21 // 11 A.M. MT (12 P.M. CT) // EVANSVILLE, IND. // FORD CENTER Live Stream / Live Stats / Radio / Game Notes / Tickets / Bracket

Black Hills State men's basketball advances to the Elite Eight in the NCAA DII tournament to take on No. 6 seed Minnesota Duluth Tuesday, March 21 at 12 p.m. CT (11 a.m. MT)
 
The Yellow Jackets are currently 28-5 overall after their 68-67 win over No. 1 West Texas A&M to win the South Central Regional Championship on Tuesday, March 14. BHSU's 28 wins is the most in a season since joining DII, and has now won the regional tournament and appeared in the Elite Eight two straight seasons.
 
TUESDAY vs. NO. 6 MINNESOTA DULUTH
The Bulldogs are 26-9 this season after making it to the NSIC championship game where they fell to MSU Moorhead 79-69. They then earned a 6-seed in the Central Region where they defeated No. 3 Central Oklahoma in the first round, No. 7 Emporia State 84-79 in the second round, and No. 5 Southern Nazarene, 62-52, in the Central Regional Championship game to earn the program's first ever Elite Eight berth.
 
UMD finished the season with the top offense in the NSIC, averaging 79.8 points per game, and finished third in the conference with a scoring margin of +8.0.
 
Nationally, the Bulldogs are 22nd in field goal percentage, shooting at a 48.7 clip as a team. They are also 23rd in defensive rebounds per game (27.7) and 20th in turnovers per game (10.8).
 
UMD is led by the fourth-leading scorer in the NSIC, Drew Blair, who is averaging 20.1 points per game, ranking 34th in the nation. He is also fifth in the nation with 257 3-point attempts and shoots .350 from deep.
 
This will be the first-ever meeting in men's basketball between Black Hills State and Minnesota Duluth.
 
YELLOW JACKETS' LAST TIME OUT
Black Hills State men's basketball won a battle with No. 1 West Texas A&M Tuesday night, 68-67, to advance to the NCAA DII Elite Eight for the second straight year.
 
The Yellow Jackets (28-5, 18-4 RMAC) came out victorious in a back-and-forth game that saw 14 ties and 14 lead changes.
 
Joel Scott tallied his 15th double-double of the season with 25 points and 14 rebounds.
 
PJ Hayes was also in double-figures with 13 points, going 4-of-6 from deep while grabbing five boards.
 
Sindou Cisse led with three assists while also tacking on seven points and a blocked shot.
 
Caelin Hearne, Matthew Ragsdale and Ryker Cisarik each added six points while Jaeton Hackley scored four.
 
Layups from Scott and Cisse followed by a Hayes three put the Yellow Jackets ahead early 7-0, two minutes into the game, but WT roared back with 12 unanswered to take a 12-7 lead at 14:36 in the first.
 
BHSU evened the game once more 12-12 before a Scott 3-point play and a pair of Cisarik dunks put the Yellow Jackets ahead 21-18 with 8:58 to go before half.
 
A 6-0 WT spurt put the Buffs back on top 24-21 before Hayes' third trey of the game evened things back up at 24-all as time ticked under five.
 
Back-and-forth play continued in the final minutes of the first, tied at 31-31 with 1:38 seconds to go before the buzzer sent teams to the locker rooms locked at 32-32.
 
Teams continued to trade blows out of the break until the Yellow Jackets scored eight straight with the help of a Scott dunk and Cisse layup to take a 42-37 lead with 16 to play.
 
A Hayes triple and layups from Cisarik and Scott kept BHSU out front 52-47, but the Buffs continued to hang around, drawing back to within one, 54-53 midway through the second.
 
Both teams went scoreless over the next few possessions, but WT would pull back even for the 10th tie of the game, 56-56 with 7:23 remaining.
 
The Buffs moved ahead 58-56 at 6:53, their first lead since 19:06, and would add on to take a 60-57 lead with a pair of free throws seconds later. BHSU answered with a Cisse layup and a pair of Ragsdale freebies for the 12th lead change of the game, moving up 61-60.
 
From there, five straight WT gave them their largest lead of the second half, 65-61 with 3:15 to play. The Yellow Jackets would come back and  even things up once more 65-65 with under two remaining.
 
The 14th tie of the game came on a Scott layup with 57 seconds left, 67-67. The Yellow Jackets would get one more possession in regulation, which saw Scott get fouled and put BHSU up 68-67 with 3.9 seconds on the clock.
 
The Buffs would get one more chance, putting up a shot at the buzzer that found net, but was just after time expired and was called off to send the Yellow Jackets to the Elite Eight.
 
BULLDOGS' LAST TIME OUT
One day removed from the women's program sealing a spot in the Elite Eight back in Romano, the University of the Minnesota Duluth men's basketball team followed suit in Missouri. The Bulldogs defeated No. 5 Southern Nazarene 62-52 in the Central Regional Final on Tuesday, March 14 to lock down an inaugural Elite Eight berth of their own. It's the very first time this has happened for an NSIC program, just the 13th time it's occurred across the DII field at-large.
 
Defense makes history.
 
Tuesday's contest was far from an offensive shootout- but really, such a thing shouldn't have been expected to begin with. The Storm have been a defensive unit all season, boasting an overall scoring defense heading into this game that had held clubs to an average of just 57.6 points. That was the third-lowest mark in the entire country. In the case of the Bulldogs, their defense seemed to be getting hot at just the right time. Across two games in the tournament, UMD was seventh across the postseason field in opposing field goal percentage (37%) and 12th in opposing three-point percentage (28.6%).
 
It became clear pretty quickly what a collision course between these two forces was going to look like. At the 10:57 mark, just 23 total points had been scored between the two teams. It was a formula that was to this point favoring the Bulldogs, as they led by what was then a game-high of five at 14-9. That was UMD's way of countering what had been a 7-2 start for SNU. But a sudden Storm surge would put an end to this. Just under three minutes later, a Manny Dixon layup was sealing the deal on a 5-0 SNU stretch that allowed it to reclaim the lead at 15-14.
 
With exactly 6:55 left in the first frame, Charlie Katona sank a three-ball to reclaim an advantage for UMD at 17-15. Nothing out of the ordinary- just a slim lead. It'd bulk up to as high as six at 24-18 leading up to the break before shrinking back down to as low as one at 24-23. Three free throws across two trips from Austin Andrews and Lincoln Meister pushed the lead up to two possessions at 27-23 by the end of the half.
 
The stats through 20 minute certainly reflect a tight ballgame. No player across either team found themselves in double figures for scoring yet. Blair was closest with eight points. Joshua Brown had five, but he also had four rebounds and two assists. Meister, on the other hand, continued to be a monster, already sitting with more two blocks through 20 minutes. On the other end, two Storm players closed the half with seven points, those being Javon Jackson and Nick Davis. Jackson also had four rebounds.
 
In a game like this, a four-point lead can simultaneously be the greatest safe haven in the world and the most unstable structure one could ever imagine. That's the game you play when points are so hard to come by on either side. In a strange bit of deviation from the themes of the contest, the Bulldogs had actually shot lights-out from deep through 20 minutes, going 5-9. But would such a thing be sustainable? Could something similar happen for the Storm down the stretch? After-all, this was a team that came into Tuesday with the 2nd best three-point shooting clip in the entire country at 41.1%. Regardless of how good UMD had grown to be at guarding the arc in March, it seemed unlikely that the Storm would go just 2-9 from that arena again. In short, there were lots of basketball left to be played, so many different ways that things could shake out.
 
Well.. remember that innocuous 17-15 lead Katona helped the Bulldogs take back in the first? Past that point, UMD wouldn't trail the rest of the night.
 
And it wasn't just that the Bulldogs were able to cling tight to marginal leads through 20+ minutes- UMD got to work at building up some real distance instead. It was a gradual process (one built by many two+ possession advantages) but at the 10:55 mark, it really bore fruit. That's when Blair potted a jumper to bolster UMD's advantage all the way into double figures for the first time all game at 44-33.
 
Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tick
 
It just seems like the minutes, the seconds, can't move any faster. It's not even that the game hit some kind of stalemate- UMD was still building upon its lead. With 5:28 to play, Blair potted a huge three to strengthen the Bulldog control to 15 at 50-35.
 
Tick, tock, ti-
 
Uh oh. In the span of just over two minutes, the Storm managed to trim the deficit down to just a single digit. Score: 50-41 UMD. Time left: 3:23.
 
Tiiiiiiick tock, tiiiiick tock
 
Suddenly, you pull your hands away from your eyes. Peak at the clock first- just 1:47 to play. But what could the score be? 52-43. The lead was still nine. Almost two less minutes to work with to cut into it any more.
 
Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick
 
Rinse and repeat the process from before. Now, there's only 32 seconds left. Far past the point of fun and games, of loosely saying "there's still time" or, in our case, wishing there was none left at all. Whatever the margin is now is the real deal, and there's not much of a chance that it'll change very dramatically the rest of the way. The verdict? 57-48 UMD.
 
Brave enough to watch the rest of the way now? You would've seen two teams playing the foul game. It was a game the Bulldogs won handily this time around, closing the last 32 seconds with a 5-6 mark from the stripe. That didn't just prove to be enough to withstand the Storm's scoring in that time, it actually kicked UMD's lead up a point to ten. And there it would stay until the final buzzer: Bulldogs 62, Storm 52.
 
Drew Blair, man. He's something special. What an absolutely phenomenal performance it was from the redshirt-senior guard down the stretch of this one. Chances are that if you peeked in-between your fingers at the screen every so often, you probably saw Blair make a shot once or twice. He drained six of them in the final 20 minutes on nine attempts to close the half with, well, 20 points. Chuck in four rebounds to the mix, too. Elsewhere on the stat sheet, Joshua Brown was equally as big. The junior guard snagged a half-high seven rebounds down the stretch.
 
Even with all of that in mind, perhaps the most impressive (and important) feat of the night was UMD's ability to calm the Storm from three-point land. SNU again shot sub 30% from deep in the second half, going just 4-18.
 
All-told, it was Blair that led the Bulldogs' offensive barrage into the Elite Eight with 29 points on 9-16 shooting. Brown was within an inch of a double-double, pairing nine points with 11 rebounds. And Katona had a strong night of utility, pairing seven points with six boards. These three ended up representing UMD on the All-Central Region Team, with Blair taking home Most Outstanding Player honors.
 
YELLOW JACKETS RANKED
The Yellow Jackets are ranked T20th in the D2SIDA National Media Poll and 21st in the NABC Coaches Poll.
 
Statistically, BHSU is top-10 in the nation in four different categories, including third in defensive rebounds per game (30.9), fifth in three-point percentage defense (29.5), and 10th in field goal percentage (50.1) and scoring margin (13.4).
 
As a team, BHSU leads the RMAC in seven key statistical categories, and is also top-five in 16 categories.
 
A BHSU WIN WOULD...
Earn the team their second consecutive Final Four appearance to face the winner between No. 2 West Liberty and No. 7 New Haven on Thursday, March 23 at 1 p.m. CT.
 
A BHSU LOSS WOULD...
Eliminate them from the NCAA Tournament, bringing an end to the 2022-23 season for the Yellow Jackets.
 
RECORDS/MILESTONES
Joel Scott became the BHSU all-time leading scorer in program history this season, surpassing previous record holder Kim Templeton (2,180, 1972-76) and now sits at 2,404 career points heading into the NCAA Tournament.
 
Scott is also currently at 978 career rebounds heading into the NCAA Tournament, 22 shy of 1,000 for his career.
 
Scott's season points total is 752, 35 shy of the BHSU single-season scoring record of 787 he set last season.
 
Scott was named 2022-23 D2CCA Ron Lenz National Player of the Year, and was also RMAC Player of the Year for the second straight season.
 
Head Coach Ryan Thompson won his 100th game as head coach this season, becoming just the 4th head coach in program history to reach 100 victories, and is the quickest to do so.

With a career coaching record of 103-40, his .720 winning percentage is the highest in school history among coaches who have managed at least 50 games.
 
PJ Hayes has been incredible behind the arc this season, and has ranked as high as fifth in the nation in 3-point percentage. He is currently averaging .449 from deep ranking him 14th nationally.
 
At 28-5, BHSU has reached its highest win total since moving DII, and has tied for the second-highest win total in program history. The program went 28-7 in the 2010-11 season (their final year as a member of the NAIA) and a program-best 30-5 in 2008-09.
 
BHSU men's basketball matched their program record with 24 regular season wins, and reached as high as No. 2 on the NABC Coaches Poll on Feb. 14, the highest the program has ever been ranked nationally.
 
COACHES
Head coach Ryan Thompson is in his fifth season leading the Yellow Jackets, having taken the program to its first NCAA tournament in the 2021-22 season, and the RMAC tournament each of the last five years.
 
Bulldogs Head Coach, Jordan Wieck, is also in his fifth season as head coach, having now lead UMD to its first Elite Eight berth in program history. Last season, UMD went a program-best 16-0 to start the year.
 
DYNAMIC DUO
The Yellow Jackets added transfer Matthew Ragsdale ahead of the 2022-23 season, who had previously spent all three seasons of his career at Western Colorado where he totaled 1,309 points over 73 games and 2,185 minutes played. In the 2021-22 season, Ragsdale finished second in the RMAC in scoring with 601 total points and 21.5 per game, behind only current teammate Joel Scott.
 
Ragsdale rejoined former high school teammate, Scott, after they played together at Lewis-Palmer High School in Colorado where in their senior season they went an undefeated 28-0 to win the Colorado 4A State Championship.
 
This year, they are both in their senior year of eligibility and have combined for the most total points in a season by a pair of NCAA teammates who also played on the same high school team. Previously, the highest combined total was 1,047 points, accumulated by Dick (535 points) and Tom Van Arsdale (512) in the 1963-64 season at Indiana. The twins played high school basketball together at Emmerich Manual High School in Indianapolis, Ind.
 
Current 2022-23 Ragsdale/Scott Point Total:
1,190