GRAND FORKS — UND men’s basketball forward Mambourou Mara threw down back-to-back dunks to open the second half, building on the Fighting Hawks’ lead in Thursday night’s game against South Dakota at the Betty Engelstad Sioux Center.

The Hawks, who led the Coyotes 51-49 at halftime, held onto a lead over South Dakota for over 27 minutes of game time – until the 8 minute, 44 second mark.

South Dakota, which led for one minute in the first half, connected on 6 of 10 field goals and went 12-for-14 from the free-throw line to lead for the final eight minutes down the stretch to beat UND 102-93.

“They got downhill on us a lot,” UND coach Paul Sather said. “I thought against a pretty athletic, similar team in Kansas City — as far as having attacking guards that go downhill a lot — we did a better job. Tonight, (Chase) Forte got loose a little bit, and (Kaleb) Stewart got loose as well. Then, some of those threes started raining down a little bit, too.”

UND shot 33.3% in the final eight minutes. The Hawks were on pace for their best shooting percentage of the season (56.6%) before the late implosion.

“Just be grown men at the end of the day,” UND guard Treysen Eaglestaff said. “Just not make so many mistakes. For example, today, I played into their hands at the end of the game, took a couple of tough shots. That’s just my maturity. I should shoot better than that. I have to be a grown man. I can’t let that happen, and that’s just part of the game. We just have to be ready to grow up and take that next step. I think it’s coming, for sure.”

The Hawks’ 51 first-half points matched their highest output in the opening half this season, which came in their first Summit League win at Denver. UND shot 51.6% at Denver in the win.

On Thursday night, UND shot 50.7% against South Dakota and lost.

The Coyotes, behind double digit scoring nights from six of their nine players, shot 58.5%.

“You can’t give up 58% and think you’re going to win,” Sather said. “It’s good to know exactly what it is, but the effort, the willingness, the eagerness to really put everything into (defense) is what we have to do. That’s got to be where our mind is. Our concerns are at other places. … If we can solve this in time, I like what we could become. But the defensive part of it’s frustrating right now. I’m sure our players are frustrated, but it’s something we have to really pay a lot more attention to and continue to grind on it. We’re not connected and engaged at times, and we just give up easy stuff.”

UND has allowed over 100 points to two opponents this season: South Dakota State and South Dakota.

The Hawks travel to Fargo to play North Dakota State and its top-3 offense, led by Summit League leading scorer Jacksen Moni, at 4 p.m. Saturday.

“My thing is just grow up,” Eaglestaff said. “We have to stop playing soft like that. That can’t happen. It’s just an on and off thing and it has to be consistent. I think consistency is a big part of basketball, so I think we just have to grow up and go play as hard as we can.”