The North Dakota State Bison advanced to their second consecutive NCAA Tournament after a thrilling 57-56 victory over South Dakota State on Tuesday night. Senior guard Lawrence Alexander had a monster game for the Bison scoring 25 points while playing every minute of the game. Freshman guard A.J. Jacobson added 12 points and eight rebounds.

Senior forward Cody Larson countered with 19 points of his own for South Dakota while Deondre Parks added 13 points. The rest of the Jackrabbits players combined for 24 points on 8-of-29 shooting for a combined shooting percentage of 27.5%.

One of the keys mentioned in the write up of our Live coverage tonight was the three-point shooting of South Dakota State. If they were successful from beyond the arc, their likelihood of winning increased. Well, they were not successful shooting 26.3% (5-of-19) from three point range including the final shot missed by Deondre Parks with one second remaining.

The biggest story in this game was the presence of scoring droughts for both teams especially in the first half. Both schools had spells of at least six minutes where they did not make a shot from the floor, those spells actually intersected for about 4:15 of the half. North Dakota State actually had three instances where they went four-plus minutes without a field goal.

It would be a big 17-4 run between the under-12 and under-8 media timeouts in the second half that would put the Bison in position to win. Lawrence Alexander scored eight points during that stretch which saw a 38-34 deficit turn into a 51-42 lead.

Things were looking good for North Dakota State with 2:53 remaining and the Bison holding an eight point lead but South Dakota State was not through yet. They came up some big defensive stops and hit shots to cut the lead to 57-56 with 42 seconds remaining.

North Dakota State had two chances to pull away but Kory Brown and Lawrence Alexander each missed the front end of a one-and-one giving the Jackrabbits some life. George Marshall missed a lay-up with nine seconds remaining before Deondre Park's three-pointer at the buzzer was wide left.

The Bison will likely be a 15 seed when the next VAVEL Bracketology comes out on Wednesday morning. Look for them for to be in that spot on the brackets come Selection Sunday. South Dakota State will participate in the NIT having won the Summit League Regular Season Championship.