1. Fort Wayne

A road loss to Arkansas should not raise any concern to Fort Wayne fans.  I hope no one is getting too crazy about Fort Wayne beating Division 3 Kenyon 117-60.

The biggest issue with the ‘Dons last year was their lack of depth.  They were able to play 9 players at least 10 minutes in the loss, and 8 of those guys scored.

Sophomore guard John Konchar had 17 points, 12 rebounds, and 4 assists in Fayetteville.  This may be the guy better than Mike Daum.

2. North Dakota State

2-0 is a good start, duh, but the schedule may be the weakest out of all Summit League teams so far.  The lack of a post game could hurt the Bison down the road.  The Bison had 6 blocks against Arkansas State, who only had two players in their rotation that are taller than 6’6″.

3. South Dakota

It seemed like there were two ways for South Dakota.  Either somewhat okay, or really bad.  Starting off 2-0 is better than somewhat okay.  The Coyotes did beat a Missouri Valley team and  MAC team, but neither of them have been overly competitive in recent years…still, they won two games that could have been considered toss up games.

The newcomers on this team are improvements over what the Coyotes lost…which was just about everything.  If the Coyotes can get everyone on the same page, they may end up being far more competitive in the Summit than people thought.

Guy to watch:  Trey Burch-Manning.  He averages a 1 double-double per game right now.

4. Omaha

With a difficult schedule so far, the Mavericks could have just worn themselves out with 3 games in 4 days.  They should hopefully get some much needed rest before the fast paced Rice comes to Baxter Arena.

The improvement of Zach Jackson has been a nice lift for the Mavericks.  If Jackson can be a regular 10 point and 6 rebound guy, the Mavericks could compete with Fort Wayne this season.

5. South Dakota State

A tough schedule with two road games at Cal and UC Irvine shouldn’t have the faithful Jackrabbit fans mapping out the tallest buildings in Brookings.  The Jackrabbits shooting 29 percent over two games as a team should be a cause for concern, especially with their two biggest shot takers, Reed Tellinghuisen and Mike Daum, both shooting 32 percent from the field.

Another contributor who was expected to be an impact player went 0-for-10 in the Jacks’ two games.  There is still time to fix this, but the Jackrabbits have two more games on the road this weekend against Wyoming (2-0) and Idaho (1-0).

6. IUPUI

The Jaguars did have a tough schedule with two road games against Eastern Kentucky and Michigan, but Eastern Kentucky is a young team this season.  The Jaguars were competitive in the Summit League last year, partially, because of their scrappy defense, but they may not have that edge this season.

The Jaguars have showed little interest in caring about getting home games in the non-conference schedule, which makes sense when they can barely get 1,000 people to their home games.  The Jaguars have a home game against Howard on Friday, and then 6 straight road games.  They may only win three non-conference games.

7. Western Illinois

Some of their guys looked good against a NCCAA team.

8. Denver

The Pioneers are in the middle of changing their program’s culture.  Rodney Billups has some of the right pieces to transition into his new run-and-gun offense, but this team will have to learn to play a face paced defense.  They let Jacksonville score 92 points in Denver.

Billups did claim before the beginning of the year that Daniel Amigo could have a break out year this season, and he did have 15 points, 10 rebounds, and 4 assists against Jacksonville.

9. Oral Roberts

A 15 point loss to a Big 12 team and an 11 point win against a D2 team sounds weird.  Get ready for the most inconsistent team in the Summit League.