South Dakota State takes a break from Summit League play this week with a pair of road games, starting tonight in Bakersfield, CA, when the Jacks finish their home-and-home match-up with Cal State-Bakersfield.

These two teams are led by talented senior guards: Nate Wolters (21 points per game) for the Jackrabbits (21-7), Stephon Carter (16 points per game) leads the Roadrunners (10-16). He has nine 20 or-better point games this season. He's also shooting a career-high 48% from the field.

Things will be quite different from the conditions that surrounded the first meeting with the Jackrabbits and Roadrunners back in Brookings, December 9th.  That afternoon, a raging blizzard delayed the start of the game 30 minutes as the two teams battled in front of the smallest home crowd at Frost Arena (886) in a dozen years.  Today's high in Bakersfield will be 51 degrees.

Despite icy cold conditions outside in December, both teams were red hot shooting the ball in the first half, SDSU 52 percent, CSUB 58 percent to grab a 39-38 halftime lead after leading by as many as six in the first 20 minutes.

In the second half, Wolters got on track, playing in his first game after missing a pair with an ankle injury.  The senior scored 12 of his team high 18 points in the second 20 minutes.  He also finished with seven rebounds and six assists, as SDSU won 69-63.

Tony Fiegen added 16 points, Brayden Carlson 12, and Jordan Dykstra 11.   Freshman Britton Williams had 18 for Bakersfield. The Road runner were without one of their top three-point shooters as guard Tyrone White missed the trip due to illness.

This game was back and forth almost the entire way with 15 lead changes and eight ties.  But the real difference was free throw shooting, with the Jacks (20-of-26) outscoring the Roadrunners (3-of-3) by 17 at the line.

Tipoff is 9:00pm Central tonight.  SDSU plays a BracketBuster game at Murray State Saturday night at 7 on ESPN2.

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