OUR VIEW: Great to see SDSU, USD back on the court again

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• South Dakota State dominates USD

After eight long years, the wait was finally over Thursday night. South Dakota State University and the University of South Dakota finally squared off in a men’s basketball game after their respective moves up to Division I kept them apart all these intervening seasons.

As of this writing, we did not know the score of the game. Ultimately, the outcome doesn’t matter.

What’s important is that the students, alumni and friends of both schools have a great tradition back. Once again, they have something to mark on their calendar and look forward to every year.

In-state rivalry games add colorful strands to the cultural fabric of South Dakota. These past eight years, that fabric has been a little more drab than usual.

We recognize that the SDSU-USD rivalry can get out of hand. We hope nothing dangerous or criminal occurred Thursday night.

But we also hope the fans were frenzied and the game was competitive. For those in attendance, we hope it was a time to forget about the struggles of everyday life and get lost in fandom. That’s one of the great things about sports, and without a pro team to root for in South Dakota, it’s all the more important to have college teams that that can ignite the passion of the state’s sports fans.

Now that both schools are in Division I and fairly settled in conferences, we hope the rivalry expands to all sports and continues for decades to come. Next fall’s renewal of the football rivalry will be an especially exciting time.

A heated athletic rivalry is a good thing for SDSU, USD and the state. It gets people talking about both schools, and it gets students thinking about attending one school or the other. It brings more fans to games, which adds to the experience of the student athletes and pads the revenue of the respective athletic departments.

So we say go Jacks, and go ’Yotes. May the rivalry intensify with each game.

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