KEARNEY — South Dakota has a long history of sending great players and teams to the Mr. Basketball Invitation.
  Now, one of those teams will go home as the champion.

The South Dakota Storm rallied from a six-point second half deficit and outscored the Minneapolis Icemen 5-2 in overtime win the Mr. Basketball Invitational title game 59-55.

The win made the Storm the first South Dakota team to win the Mr. Basketball title in the tournament’s 15-year history.

Tournament MVP Mike Pajor scored all five of South Dakota’s points in overtime and finished with a game-high 22.

“It’s special because we’re the first team from South Dakota to win this tournament,” Pajor said. “There have been a lot of good teams from South Dakota that didn’t win here.”

South Dakota had an early seven-point lead before Minnesota battled back to take a 32-30 lead into halftime. Minnesota led for most of the second half until South Dakota tied the game on a Derrick DeZeeuw bucket with 6:32 left.

South Dakota would open up a five-point lead before Minneapolis’ Akeem Cubie hit a 3-pointer to tie the game with 1:41 left. In the two-minute overtime, Pajor got a layup with 1:19 left and hit 3-of-4 free throws in the final 30 seconds to hold Minneapolis off.

Christopher Schwartz and Jacob Sittig each had 10 points for South Dakota while DeZeeuw had eight points and eight rebounds.

DeAnthony Taylor led Minneapolis with 16 points while Carlius Hodge had 14 and Akeem Cubie had nine. Cubie also had eight rebounds.

S.D. STORM 59, MINNEAPOLIS ICEMEN 55

SOUTH DAKOTA STORM

Matt Malloy 1-1 1-2 3, Steve Bloch 2-7 0-1 4, Christopher Schwartz 4-14 0-0 10, Derrick DeZeeuw 3-8 1-2 8, Mike Pajor 6-14 8-10 22, Skyler Bloch 1-2 0-0 2, Jacob Sittig 4-7 0-0 10. Totals 21-53 10-15 59.

MINNEAPOLIS ICEMEN

Carlius Hodges 5-14 4-6 14, DeAnthony Taylor 6-12 2-5 16, Kazeem Adelekan 2-4 0-0 4, Robert Terrell 1-4 0-0 2, Jared Gray 0-5 1-2 1, Jamaal Beavers 2-2 0-0 5, Akeem Cubie 4-8 0-0 9, Grant Cobb 2-6 0-0 4. Totals 22-55 7-13 55.

Halftime — Minneapolis 32, South Dakota 30

Three-point goals — South Dakota 7-22 (Pajor 2-9, Schwartz 2-7, Sittig 2-4, DeZeeuw 1-2), Minneapolis 4-13 (Taylor 2-5, Cubie 1-2, Beavers 1-1, Hodges 0-3, Gray 0-1, Cobb 0-1). Rebounds — South Dakota 33 (Steve Bloch 11, DeZeeuw 8), Minneapolis 34 (Cubie 8, Terrell 7). Total fouls — South Dakota 11, Minneapolis 17. Fouled out — Taylor. Turnovers — South Dakota 7, Minneapolis 7.