SIOUX FALLS, S.D. –   The Augustana men's basketball team advanced to the round of 32 of the NCAA Basketball Tournament with an 83-64 win over Southwestern Oklahoma State Saturday inside the Sanford Pentagon. The Vikings, the region's top seed, play Sunday at 7:30 p.m. in the region semifinals in the Sanford Pentagon. Tickets can be purchased at GoAugie.com/D2MBBCentral.
 
The Vikings dug themselves into a 12-point deficit in the first half but saw them outscore SWOSU 65-34 over the final 27 minutes of the game. Included with that are runs of 16-4 and 16-3 in two different spurts during a 43-point second half.
 
Augustana's defense, the best in the NSIC, held the GAC Tournament Champions to just 20 percent shooting in the second half on 7-of-35 shot attempts. In contrast, the Vikings shot 13-of-24 for 54.2 percent in the second stanza including six-made 3-point baskets.
 
Augustana trimmed the 12-point deficit to just a single digit when the horn sounded to end the first half. The visiting Bulldogs struck first in the second half but Bennett Otto drained a 3-point basket to knot the game at 43-all.
 
Southwestern Oklahoma State got a dunk to fall, then it was off to the races for AU. The Vikings scored 12 straight points with buckets from Tyler Riemersma, Adam Dykman, Jameson Bryan, Dylan Lebrun and Akoi Akoi gave Augustana a 55-45 lead. A SWOSU timeout did very little as Augustana controlled the pace and the game.
 
The lead ballooned to 19 points on an Isaac Fink 3-point basket with 4:55 on the clock and eventually stretched to 21 on another Fink trey with 3:19 remaining.
 
Head coach Tom Billeter gave the Vikings core a standing ovation from the home crowd as he made whole-sale subs with just over two minutes on the clock to seal AU's win and advance to Sunday.
 
Riemersma led the way with 28 points, 20 of which came in the opening half to keep Augustana in the contest. He was 10-of-15 from the field and perfect from the charity stripe, sinking all eight attempts. He also secured a double-double in his first-career NCAA Tournament game with 10 rebounds.
 
Fink tallied 20 points with six made 3-point field goals and forced the Bulldogs head coach to quip post game that "21 is still making baskets" long after the game ended.
 
Augustana faces the winner of No. 4 seed Upper Iowa and No. 5 seed Central Oklahoma Sunday at 7:30 p.m.
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