Men’s basketball: South Dakota gets hot late to nip EWU; CCS wins tournament

Shy McClelland scored 18 points and South Dakota made its last seven shots to defeat Eastern Washington 77-71 on Sunday at the Sacramento State Basketball Invitational in California.

Dan Jech added 14 points and Eric Robertson 12 for the Coyotes (4-3), who took the lead for good on a 3-pointer by Casey Kasperbauer that made it 70-67 with 2:55 to play.

Venky Jois made two free throws to pull the Eagles (3-3) within 72-71 at the 1:38 mark, but McClelland answered with a layup and the Coyotes closed it by making 3 of 4 free throws while Eastern missed its last four shots.

South Dakota shot 71 percent in the second half (17 of 24) and finished at 58 percent for the game.

Bogdan Bliznyuk led Eastern Washington with 16 points and Cody Benzel made 4 of 7 behind the arc for 12. Austin McBroom added 11 points. The Eagles were 9 of 17 on 3s in the first half but finished just 12 of 31.

Jois, the preseason Big Sky MVP, was held to three shots. He had eight points but collected a career-high seven assists.

The Eagles led by nine points with 17:02 left in the game.

EWU is at San Francisco on Tuesday.