One word summed up Chloe Lamb over long stretches of South Dakota’s win over North Dakota State last week: automatic. The senior guard put up 27 points against the Bison, simply not seeming to miss when she got to her spot. 
 
Similarly, the Summit has now reached a sweet spot in the schedule that itself rarely seems to miss. 
 
Lamb and the Coyotes (11-4, 4-0) welcome South Dakota State (8-7, 4-0)  to Vermillion on Saturday for the first of this season’s marquee clashes between the rivals. The league’s last two remaining undefeated teams meet for the first time since the Jacks swept a pair of games in Brookings last February. As always, there are intriguing storylines poking out from every direction.
 
“South Dakota just kind of pulls together around women’s basketball, and you can feel that,” Lamb said in the postgame press conference after the NDSU win.
 
For their part, the Coyotes have smothered the opposition this year. They’ve yet to allow more than 59 points in any of their four league games, and have held teams to 21.3 percent from three and forced nearly 19 turnovers a game, both the top marks in the league. That included keeping a talented Kansas City team in check for long stretches of the second half in a road win right before Christmas, as well as, most recently, stifling NDSU to the tune of just 38 points, a season low for the Bison.
 
That potent defense has been anchored by Hannah Sjerven, who has yet again been a force in the paint. The senior has made life miserable for teams trying to attack through the paint, and advanced metrics agree with the eye test when watching the Coyotes with Sjervern on the floor. According to HerHoopStats.com, she’s leading the Summit in defensive rating through the first four games, and that is unlikely to change. Sjerven has led the league in that metric each of the last two seasons. 
 
Lamb, meanwhile, has led the charge offensively during a career season. The Onida, S.D. native comes into Saturday’s matchup averaging 16.3 points per game, and has shown the potential to explode with three 25-plus point games this year. 
 
“Chloe has established herself as a player that comes in and plays with a great deal of confidence and composure, and shares that even keel ability with her teammates,” Dawn Plitzuweit said after the NDSU game. “She’s not only a great basketball player but a great leader for us that just kind of defines how you want your program to do things.” 
 
One of the big questions will be how USD’s vise-grip defense deals with a high-flying SDSU offense. The Jacks have ridden a balanced attack to lead the league in both field goal shooting (49.8%) and three-point shooting (41.3%) while winning their first four contests by nearly 16 points per game. 
 
All five of the Jacks starters have averaged double figure scoring in league play, while freshman point guard Paige Meyer (14.0 ppg, 4.8 apg) has continued her breakout campaign. Perhaps quietly, Kellie Theisen has also been a weapon off the bench (7.3 ppg, 7.3 rpg) over the opening quartet of games.
 
That offensive start has come despite Myah Selland still working her way back from injury and yet to play, at least from a counting stats perspective, up to the high standards she had set in previous years. That hasn’t necessarily been needed to this point with the emergence of Meyer as a central option, and fellow freshman Haleigh Timmer as a contributor in the post. But the safe bet would seem to be on the preseason Player of the Year continuing to improve as the year goes on, adding yet another element to the SDSU attack. 
 
Though early, the ramifications on the regular season title race are clear. The Coyotes, however, likely have a bit more riding on this game, and especially the fingers-crossed-all-games-happen follow up in Brookings scheduled for Feb. 5. With a NET of 40 going into Friday, and two Quad 1 wins, USD’s at-large credentials are not completely out of the question. 
 
To be sure, the 7-1 Quad 2 record that SDSU racked up last season en route to an at-large bid will be impossible to replicate at this point, with the Coyotes sitting at 2-2 in Quad 2 and Saturday’s game potentially their last opportunity to add to that until the Summit League Tournament. In any event, any potential at-large case, even if it’s pie-in-the-sky, likely rests on the team sweeping SDSU in the regular season, something that the ultimately at-large bound Jacks did to the Coyotes a year ago. 
 
NCAA Tournament prospects, however, are hardly needed to generate excitement for Saturday’s game.
 
“Going back to last year, and even this year still not really knowing what can happen, you go into every game and don’t want to take it for granted,” Lamb said after the NDSU win. “You want to be in the present moment, and just really enjoy it. That’s what I’ve tried to do.” 
 
That perspective is especially powerful when it comes to one of the most enjoyable rivalries in women’s college basketball.