South Dakota State Basketball: 2018-19 season preview for the Jackrabbits

In what will be the final season of Mike Daum’s legendary career, South Dakota State will be well-equipped to make a 4th straight appearance to the NCAA Tournament.

In 2017-2018, for the third straight season, the Jackrabbits garnered national attention as the kings of the Summit League. They utterly dominated their conference foes, going 13-1 (the one loss to in-state rival South Dakota) in the regular season and blistering through the Summit League Tournament. By the time the season was said and done, Mike Daum had won his second straight conference Player of the Year award and the 12-seed Jackrabbits had lost a tough game to 5-seed Ohio State in the NCAA Tournament.

This season, the Jackrabbits will be without a key player from last year’s squad in Reed Tellinghuisen, but between returning players like Skyler Flatten, Tevin King, and David Jenkins, head coach TJ Otzelberger will have more than enough talent outside of Daum to make it 4 straight trips to the Big Dance. Daum may already be the greatest Jackrabbit of all time, and he’ll be well-positioned to become just the 6th player since 1980 to score 3,000 points in his career (in all of college basketball).

Overall, here’s what you can expect from the Jackrabbits in 2018-2019 in terms of their strengths/weaknesses, key players, schedule, and how they’re likely to perform. Will this finally be the year that they get over the hump and make the second round of the NCAA Tournament?