The University of Sioux Falls men's basketball notched a big Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference win on Friday, beating visiting Upper Iowa, 84-78 in the Stewart Center.

USF improves to 7-8 overall and 4-7 in the NSIC while the Peacocks fall to 7-10 on the season and 5-6 in league play.

Junior center Bryan Kielpinski was huge for Sioux Falls, posting a career-high 19 points on 8-for-10 shooting. Jordan Stotts recorded the first double-double of his Cougar career, finishing with 10 points and 13 rebounds and dished out two helpers.  

Kielpinski led the charge down low while Mahlon Jones also gave USF strength inside. Jones dropped in 17 points on several acrobatic drives, blocked a game-high three shots and handed out eight assists. Derek Brown registered 15 points by going 3-for-6 from deep and hitting all six of his free throw attempts to once again lead the league in free throw percentage (33-for-34, 97.1-percent).

Upper Iowa was led by Josh Weeber, who tied Kielpinski for game-high honors with 19 points, including six three-pointers.

Upper Iowa led 6-0 with two Weeber threes and were up 13-5 at the 13:25 mark before the Cougars battled back and Kielpinski dunked through traffic to give USF their first lead of the game at 17-16. After the squads exchanged leads for the next six minutes, the Peacocks closed out the half on a 9-3 run to take a 37-33 lead into the half. 

Trailing by four points at the half, USF opened the second half with two Mack Johnson triples sandwiched around another Kielpinski paint bucket to turn the tables and move in front 41-37 with 17:24 to go. Upper Iowa matched the Cougars' with an 8-0 run highlighted by another Weeber trey to regain the four-point advantage at 45-41. The Cougars tied it with jumpers from Jones and Kielpinski and the score was knotted at 51 and 53-all before the Peacocks took nine of the next 10 points, all on triples, to take their largest lead of the half at 62-54 with under 10 minutes to play.

The Cougars kept chipping away and after being held scoreless in the first half, Stotts caught fire and went on a personal 8-0 scoring spree and two of his five made free throws pushed USF up by three at 73-70 at the 1:59 mark. The margin was five with Mack Johnson's falling down jumper and the Cougars closed it out from the line, going a perfect 8-for-8 in the final two minutes to secure the come-from-behind victory and improve to 6-2 when scoring at least 80 points.

USF shot 27-for-59 in the contest (45.8%) to move to 7-2 overall when shooting 45% or better from the floor. The Cougars went 21-for-27 from the line and outrebounded the Peacocks, 45-41. USF committed 15 turnovers and outblocked the visitors, 8-3.

The Cougars will host No. 16 Winona State on Saturday at 6 p.m.