March 12, 2005
Coyotes End Men's Basketball's Season
Levinson Has Team-High 21 in Final Game
Kearney, Neb. – North Central Conference Player of the Year Turner Trofholz scored a career-high 42 points, and senior Josh Mueller added 24, to lead the South Dakota Coyotes to a 94-84 win over Nebraska-Kearney in a first round NCAA Tournament game in Denver Saturday afternoon.
The third seed in the North Central Regional, USD has won 10 in a row to set a school-record for wins in a year (26-6). They will play 7th-seed Winona State of Minnesota tomorrow in the second round.
WSU upset 2nd-seeded UNO, 64-58, in today's second regional game.
The 6th-seeded Lopers see their season end with a 23-7 record.
UNK led for the first 12 minutes of the game, including a 25-19 edge at the 8:54 mark. However, USD went on a 23-8 run to lead by nine late in the first half.
The Lopers trailed the entire second half but got the deficit down to one point several times in the first few minutes of the final set.
USD built its lead back up to 10 points by the 11 minute mark but the Lopers had one final run in them. A three by Bellevue senior Marty Levinson made the score 74-70 USD with 5:29 to play.
The Coyotes scored the game's next four points at the line and then Mueller drained a three from the top of the key to put USD back up by ten, 81-71, at the 4:11 mark.
UNK wouldn't get closer then seven points the rest of the day.
Trofholz, from Schuyler, not only had the monster game offensively but the Lopers three post players who guarded him -- junior Chris Dean (LaVerne, Calif.) and sophomores Dusty Jura (Columbus) and Chad Burger (Colorado Springs) -- either fouled our or had four fouls.
Trofholz (6-8, 230 lbs.) was 16 of 20 from the floor and 10 of 16 at the line, to go along with eight rebounds in 39 minutes. He scored 28 of his points in the second half, going 10 of 12 from the field.
He was seven points shy of the USD school record for points, set by Jack Theeler in 1967 vs. Northern Iowa.
Mueller also had a big second half, scoring 16 points. He was only 5 of 12 from the field but did go 4 of 9 from the three point line and was 10 for 10 at the line.
UNK out rebounded USD by six, 40-34, and had one less turnover but were out shot, 56 to 44 percent. USD also made eight more free throws.
In his final game as a Loper, Levinson scored a team-high 21 points on 7 of 15 shooting, including a 5 of 8 effort from downtown. He added four assists and three boards in playing all 40 minutes.
Jura, who fouled out, had 15 of his 20 points in the first half. He also grabbed 10 rebounds, giving him four straight double doubles in NCAA play.
The three other Loper starters were in double digits as well. Colorado Springs sophomore guard James Lane had 10 second half points to finish with 12 while Dean and Utah senior Will Taukiuvea each tallied 11.
Lane added a season-high seven assists with Taukiuvea pulling a season-best nine rebounds.
USD also got 10 rebounds and eight points from Eric Hall and 11 assists, six points and five boards from Luke Tibbetts.
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Contact:
Peter Yazvac
yazvacpa@unk.edu |