South Dakota State Jackrabbits (0-2, 0-0) @ Drake Bulldogs (1-1, 0-0)

Tomorrow's game is an important one. While it's against a lesser quality opponent -- it is important, nonetheless. Tomorrow tells us whether Drake can continue their offensive breakout from last Wednesday, or whether it was really just Josh Young putting us on his shoulders for 30 minutes. We have Vanderbilt just down the horizon. This tune-up game completely drives the perspective of our ability to knockoff the Commodores. If we struggle, well we're back to square one. If we hang an 80-spot -- I don't know about you, but I feel real good against Vandy.

Here's a quick scouting report on the South Dakota State Jackrabbits:

SD State is 0-2 on the season (I refuse to recognize their 92-61 win over NAIA Mayville State as a regular season game). Last year they were pretty rough, going 8-21 overall and 3-15 in the Summit League, to the tune of a 330 RPI. Overall they were pretty awful, but their season did feature a big win over MVC rival Northern Iowa. Plus, as I look through the numbers, they are young and their players look to be consistently improving.

I'll admit, I have never seen the Jackrabbits play, but here are the sentiments I have after thumbing through their statistics:

• Clint Sargent looks to be their most dynamic player. Sargent is a sophomore guard who appears to be an interesting scoring/rebounding combo threat (he had 20 points/10 boards against VCU). In additon, he looks to have a pretty solid stroke as he was 5/9 from behind the arc against VCU, and he can dish as he averaged 2.8 assists last year. On the season, Sargent is averaging 17.3 a game (counting their creampuff NAIA game) -- certainly strong numbers so far, certainly suggests he can score the rock.
• Their other interesting guard I noticed is junior guard Garrett Callahan. He had 21 against VCU and has seen his scoring go from 8.2 PPG his freshmen year to 12.3 PPG his sophomore year to now 16.3 PPG through the first three games of his junior year.

Both of these guys showed they can score against quality competition with good games against VCU -- so we definitely cannot lose them in the 3-2 zone or take them lightly at all. If they can put up strong games against VCU (which is a solid team) they can certainly create some problems for us. On top of that, they both appear to continually be developing as shooters, and if they are both on their game, they might see some opportunities to burn us from deep. I'd say the JackRabbits definitely need to lean on these guys if they want to force the upset.

• Junior Kai Williams is a 6-6 207lb forward that can score and hit the boards, averaging 14.0 PPG and 7.8 RPG as a sophomore. In addition to shooting 49% from the floor last year, he made 41 three pointers (shooting 37%). He has had a rough first few games as his rebounding is way down and he is 2/14 from behind the arc. I honestly don't know if he's just slumping or is playing through an injury, but the first few games suggest he is struggling.

Bottom line, these guys look to overall be improving from last years squad. While they were pretty poor last year, they have shown that they have the capability to knock off an MVC level team by upsetting UNI. Let's get real, this is not a MVC quality team by any means, but that doesn't mean they should be taken lightly. If we can defend them like VCU did -- keeping the entire team outside of Sargent/Callahan to 15 total points -- I'd feel confident we are going to knock these guys off tomorrow afternoon by a hefty margin.