Month: October 2019

A biased Summit League preseason ranking preview: 5th place

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North Dakota

Projected Conference Wins: 4 to 10

Projected Regular Season Finish: 4th to 7th

Key returning players: Billy Brown (Sr), Aenen Moody (So), Filip Rebraca (So), Marlon Stewart (Sr), Kienan Walter (Sr)

If so much of this stuff is based on what these teams have coming back versus what they have coming in and how they performed last season, why did the Fighting Hawks land themselves at 8th in the preseason rankings?

To be fair, I have a pretty big range for North Dakota between 4 and 10 wins, maybe because part of me felt so threatened by them in the first round of the Summit League tournament, and the guys who left the program weren’t even really factors in that game.

I actually don’t feel so good about this ranking.

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The biggest question for North Dakota is probably the fact that their coaching staff is brand new. Paul Sather takes over a team who finished 7th in the conference last season. He came from division 2 Northern State, where he was the NSIC Coach of the Year for the last 2 seasons, and was 85-19 over the last 2 seasons. If North Dakota were to finish 4th in the conference this season, I think Sather as Summit League Coach of the Year would be a safe bet.

Sather did mention how impressed he was by the team’s chemistry, something that the previous coaching staff was apparently trying to build. Sather also mentioned that his style of play won’t be much different from what North Dakota played last season, so there won’t be a huge adjustment on the court for players.

There was an awkward moment at the Summit League Media Day when he was asked if there was anyone on the roster he was impressed by when first meeting the team, and it took him a few seconds to come up with his answer: not really…

Sather did eventually mention he was impressed by redshirt freshman De’Sean Allen-Eikens, and thought he was a future star in the conference.  Allen-Eikens is a 6’6″ 212lb guard, who had over 20 division one scholarship offers before committing to North Dakota.

Man, I really don’t know how I got so high on this team. Oh well, none of this matters anyway.

So what’s good?

There isn’t a ton of experience on the roster, but they are returning 69% (4th in the Summit League) of their scoring and 68% (4th) of their rebounding. Also, the team made 139 threes in the conference last season, and they’re returning 130 of those threes.  The Fighting Hawks do have the 4th highest amount of division one games played on their roster, but the 7th most division one starts on their roster.

Senior guard Marlon Stewart will be leading this team on the offensive end. He did have more assists last season in the Summit League, out of all returning players.  Stewart was also playing through injuries last season, and is the healthiest he has ever been, according to Sather.

Sather noted that the offense will be based on three point shots, and all I can remember right now is guard Aenen Moody hitting clutch threes on Omaha in Sioux Falls, and I get scared. Seriously, every time I thought the Mavericks had control of the game, Moody hit a damn three to upset me. Moody had the 3rd most threes made in the Summit League last season as a freshman. Billy Brown had the 5th highest three point field goal percentage in the conference last season.

In addition to Stewart, Moody, and Brown, the Fighting Hawks will round out their starting lineup with 6’9″ senior forward Kienan Walter and 6’9″ sophomore forward Filip Rebraca, who combined for 11 rebounds per game in the Summit League last season.

If you watched the Summit League media day, I highly doubt you did, every coach mentioned how important the three is in the conference. It might surprise you, but North Dakota was best at defending the three point line in the conference. However, they had the worst overall defensive field goal percentage in the league.  So that’s weird.

If they can actually improve their defense, they could potentially be a threat to anyone.

Actually, I after typing all of this out, I no longer feel good about North Dakota at 5th. Mentally, you should drop them down to 7th. That Summit League tournament game just warped my mind a bit.

My trivial preseason Summit League rankings

5th North Dakota

6th Western Illinois

7th Fort Wayne

8th South Dakota State

9th Denver

A not very confident Summit League preseason ranking preview: 6th place

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Western Illinois

Projected Conference Wins: 5 to 8

Projected Regular Season Finish: 5th to 7th

Key returning players: CJ Duff (Sr), Ben Pyle (So), Kobe Webster (Jr)

“I kind of like this Western Illinois team” is something I have never said or heard another human being say, but I kind of like this Western Illinois team.

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Now, Western Illinois hasn’t finished better than 7th in the Summit League since 2013-2014. They finished 2nd in the league in 2012-2013.

The Leathernecks graduated Gilbeck, Summit League Defensive Player of the Year, but does that even really matter? They’re going to lose some rim protection without Gilbeck, but their offense should flow much better without Gilbeck.

Gilbeck slowed down the offense, and he had the 3rd most turnovers in the league.  He had the most for any forward/centers in the conference. How effective of an offense can you run if every time you throw the ball in down low you main post presence gives the ball to the other team?

The Leathernecks also lost Isaac Johnson, who transferred to Nicholls State. Johnson was the 3rd leading scorer for the Leathernecks last season, and their 2nd leading rebounder, behind Gilbeck.

Anyway, now that I’ve said a few hurtful things, I’ll try to explain why they’re 6th.

For starters, their schedule is somewhat easy. They’re one of three conference schools to never have three consecutive away games in the conference. They at one point have a entire week of rest in between home games against Oral Roberts and Omaha. Oral Roberts has lost 3 years in a row in Macomb, by the way. At another point they have a week of rest in between playing at Fort Wayne and then playing at South Dakota.  Even after that South Dakota game, they go home to face Omaha who will be coming off an away game at Fort Wayne and one less day of rest.  After playing Omaha, they get another week of rest to play at home against North Dakota, but North Dakota will also have a week of rest for that game.  So that’s neat. The toughest part of their schedule is when they’ll have to travel to Tulsa for a Thursday night game against Oral Roberts, and then fly to Denver for an away game on a Saturday…and that’s the last week of the regular season.

Summit League teams like to go on the road and play multiple big conference schools in the non-conference season. They say it tests them and they want to play the best competition to be the best, but they really just want money.

The Leathernecks will start the season at Indiana, but they won’t play another larger conference school the rest of the way. After Indiana, they’ll play 4 consecutive home games. Their non-conference schedule won’t test them like other conference teams’ schedules but they should be able to pick up confidence as the season goes, and hopefully not get beat up and be healthy when the conference season starts.

Even with the losses of Johnson and Gilbeck, the Leathernecks return 67% of their scoring from last season, which is the 5th most in the conference.

Losing their two leading rebounders, the Leathernecks appear to lack some size, but they do bring in some post players with a collection of interesting resumes. They don’t need an all conference center, but they do need post players to rebound and not turn the ball over on offense.  Billy Wright added 6’10” junior college transfer Kyle Addington, who played on the same NJCAA Championship team as South Dakota State’s Douglas Wilson.

We’re not really going to go too far into depth about what Western Illinois is returning, because, well, even if they’re returning a lot, they were still plain bad last year.

However, they were a young team last season, and they will be returning a Big 3 of their own in Kobe Webster, CJ Duff, and Ben Pyle. Webster and Duff make up for one of the better and most experienced starting back courts in league, and Pyle apparently added a good amount of muscle, according to Wright. This team is probably the deepest team we’ve seen the Leathernecks have under Wright, but that really isn’t saying a lot. The Leathernecks are 2 players deep at every position, which hasn’t really happened under Wright.

Even though its been bad experience for the Leathernecks, there are over 8000 division one minutes on the roster, which is the 4th most in the conference. This will be the third straight year for the Leathernecks having Duff and Webster as their starting back court. That is the most games started together by any Summit League back court at 118 games. The next closest is Omaha’s back court of JT Gibson and KJ Robinson starting 99 games together in the last 2 seasons.

At 6’7″, Pyle can play like a shooting guard playing at the 4. He stretches the floor, and honestly, looking back at it I literally cannot remember when Western Illinois had a weapon like that.

Pyle definitely showed potential last season as a true freshman and certainly is an x-factor for the Leathernecks. In conference wins last season, including the conference tournament, Pyle averaged 12.6 points per game, 6.4 rebounds, 3.2 assists, he shot 45% from the field and 37% on threes. In conference losses, he scored 6.7 points, 2.8 rebounds, 1.3 assists, shot 33% from the field, and 29% on threes.  In a 29 point win over Fort Wayne, Pyle was just short of a triple-double when he scored 9 points, grabbed 8 rebounds, and had 9 assists. If Pyle has put on more muscle like Wright stated (the Western Illinois website lists him as the same weight as last season) and he can be a more consistent player, the Leathernecks should be able to improve on their 4-12 season.

Their conference tournament win over South Dakota State appears to giving the team a lot of confidence. They just look together as opposed to past seasons, they look like they actually give a shit in the team’s social media posts.

Expectations are never high for the Leathernecks, and 6th place would be considered an outstanding year for Western Illinois. They have a good and experienced core, and quality role players to go around them. They’ll probably never surprise us again as they did in the 2019 Summit League Tournament, but they are capable of giving everyone in the league a fight this season.

With the high team chemistry, confidence building schedule, and playing experience, the Leathernecks might finally finish better than 7th in the conference.

My trivial Preseason Summit League rankings

6th Western Illinois

7th Fort Wayne

8th South Dakota State

9th Denver

 

A biased Summit League preseason ranking preview: 7th place

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Fort Wayne

Projected Conference Wins: 4 to 8

Projected Regular Season Finish: 5th to 8th

Key returning players: Dylan Carl (Jr), Marcus DeBarry (Sr), Matt Holba (Sr),

Man, I legitimately don’t know how to feel about this Mastodon team.

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I know we’ve talked about how everyone in college basketball has production to make up, but Fort Wayne lost John effing Konchar. I’d argue with anyone that Konchar was better than Mike Daum. I’d get in a bar fight over it.

The Mastodons tied for 3rd in the conference last season and finished at 9-7. There is no way to convince me the ‘Dons would not have been 4-12 without John Konchar. The city of Fort Wayne has a John Konchar Day now he was so good.

With the loss of John Konchar, and other players, Fort Wayne will be returning 43% of their scoring, which is 8th in the conference, only in front of South Dakota State. The ‘Dons will also have 6810 division one minutes on their active roster, 7th in the Summit League.

Fort Wayne has never been a particularly deep, either, and they were extremely fortunate last season to not face any injury problems. They had 9 players play all 33 games. That luck can’t continue. Well, it could, but it’s not likely. Maybe we’re due for a Fort Wayne season where everything goes wrong for them. It seems like everyone has had that season in the last 5 years except for North Dakota State and Fort Wayne.

Senior forward Matt Holba was selected to the Preseason All Conference 2nd team, but if you look at the 11 guys on the 1st and 2nd team, he’s the most likely candidate to not actually be an all conference player at the end of the year. Junior forward Dylan Carl and Kansas State transfer Brian Patrick would be the more likely candidates to take up Konchar’s lost production.

Holba and Carl could make for one of the best front court combos in the league, behind Oral Roberts’ with Kevin Obanor and Emmanuel Nzekwesi, South Dakota’s Tyler Hagedorn and Stanley Umude, and Omaha with Matt Pile’s left arm and Matt Pile’s right arm.

Jon Coffman’s staff was able to pick up 2 junior college All Americans and two redshirt freshmen, and they’ll a decently talented 6 or 7 man rotation, but no one on the roster is a real proven star. There are also a lot of players, who seem like they are the exact same person, so this may be the least versatile roster in the Summit League, but we’ll have to wait and see how all of this comes together.

You just don’t know, there could be another John Konchar on the roster primed and ready to destroy the Summit League in Fort Wayne’s last season in the conference. If I was a Fort Wayne fan, I just wouldn’t be counting on that. I just seriously wouldn’t know what to expect out of the ‘Dons if I was a Fort Wayne fan. Probably a mediocre basketball team, that’s probably the safest thing to expect.

Fort Wayne fans have been telling me Carl has the potential to be The Next Mike Daum, so maybe Carl is ready for a break out season.

I’m also just mad at Fort Wayne for leaving. I totally get it why they’re leaving, but I can still be mad. It’s like when your girlfriend breaks up for you for all the right reasons, and you can’t really argue why you should even be together, but you still get bummed out by it. In reality, the Fort Wayne might actually have a slight edge over the likes of Omaha (as again, I did a bulk of this simulating thinking the Mavericks would have Strom and Barney).

My trivial Preseason Summit League rankings

7th Fort Wayne

8th South Dakota State

9th Denver

A biased Summit League preseason ranking preview: 8th place (you might be shocked by this)

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South Dakota State

Projected Conference Wins: 2 to 6

Projected Regular Season Finish: 6th to 9th

Key returning players: To be determined

History and tradition may be on the side of the Jackrabbits, but 2019-2020 isn’t on their side.

Disclaimer:

You’re probably shocked by this ranking, or maybe you’re not. You might be mad by this, and if you are, you should probably grow up. These are trivial rankings from a blog, written by a guy with just a little too much time on his hands.

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The Summit League is pretty even and up for grabs this season. Really, it feels like there are 3 tiers of basketball teams.

Since we’re working our way up, we’re just going to talk about the bottom tiers. The bottom tier is Denver, and that’s it, just Denver. The middle tier are teams 4th to 8th. All teams in this tier have about the same amount of talent and experience, but what may make or break their seasons will be their overall health.

Injuries to both Oral Roberts and South Dakota broke their seasons last year. Both teams finished 7-9 to finish 5th and 6th in the standings. With better health, each of them could have finished above North Dakota State. They were in the 2nd tier.

Omaha was in the 2nd tier in 2017-2018. Probably could have picked up a few more wins with a healthier Mitch Hahn and Renard Suggs.

Every team loses players from year-to-year. Everyone has something to make up. All the teams are shuffling in new faces and trying to figure out their rotations.

The Jackrabbits lost their head coach. They graduated the Summit League’s all time scoring leader, in addition to graduating two other starters. David Jenkins, who was expected to be the focal point of their offense going forward, transferred to UNLV.

First year Head Coach Eric Henderson will be dealing with entirely new look Jackrabbit team. The roster returns 18% of their scoring from last season, which is the lowest in the Summit League. The team also has just 40 division one starts on the roster, also the lowest in the Summit League, and the lowest amount of division one minutes, 500 minutes behind Denver.

This is the first time in a long time South Dakota State will be coming into the season without a star. There was a long line of Mike Daum, Cody Larson, Deondre Parks, Jake Bittle, Jordan Dykstra, or Nate Wolters…this season, they don’t have a star coming into the season. No one knows who “The Guy” is for the Jackrabbits this year.

Henderson came off as the most excited Summit League coach at the Summit League Media Day, and he did claim everyone in the locker room is confident and ready to be The Next Guy.

I’m going to do a comparison to Omaha, because, well, you know why…

The two teams are similar in experience, both have just 2 seniors and 2 juniors, both lack size, both like to play at a higher pace. That’s some pretty vague exposition, but here we go.

This is the third year Omaha’s 4 upperclassmen will be playing together. One of South Dakota State’s upperclassman, Beau Brown is a seldom used walk on, and the other three have never played game a college basketball game together.

If Omaha was in a close game with anyone in the conference, they know who is taking over the game down the stretch. In contrast, South Dakota State doesn’t have that. The Jackrabbits may have plenty of talent on their roster, but they follow the typical archetype of a team missing leadership in late game situations.

And a side note: out of the players who are coming back – The Jackrabbits were seriously afraid of Matt Pile last year. When they played in Omaha, South Dakota State was up by 8 when they put Mike Daum on the bench, and the Mavericks came back in less than 2 minutes. They couldn’t afford to play without Daum last season, because they were not confident in the players behind him.

Their roster just follows the type of pattern of teams who struggle down the stretch of games and have poor communication defense. Basketball is played on a court and not on a spreadsheet in my computer, so it’s just up to the Jackrabbits to go out and play and tell me I’m wrong.

It’s up to Henderson and his staff to get his players to play as a team, and not just letting the players try to each selfishly be “The Guy.”

The rest of the Summit League is more experienced than the Jackrabbits, and are less likely to have those issues. There are more “toss up” games for South Dakota State, certainly more than there have been in the last 4 years.

I know I spent a paragraph shit talking about their returning players, but the Jackrabbits do have talent on the roster.

Senior point guard Brandon Key decided to use a redshirt last season. As a junior, Key led the Jackrabbits in assists and was 5th in the conference in assists per game. He was also 8th in the conference in assist to turnover ratio. Key also came off the bench when the Jackrabbits played Maryland in the 2018 NCAA Tournament, and he scored 16 points in 29 minutes. North Dakota State’s Vinnie Shahid is the only Summit League player to have more points and minutes in the NCAA Tournament (not counting NDSU’S “First Four” game). Key’s ability to be a floor general and experience will be an x-factor in the ceiling of how good the Jackrabbits can be this season.

Junior college transfer forward Douglas Wilson was the NJCAA Player of the Year last season and was the leader of a National Championship team. The 6’7″ forward will be an immediate impact for the team down low, but he doesn’t have much of a perimeter game and won’t help with stretching out the floor, like Jackrabbit offenses have been accustomed to in the past. Oddly, as the NJCAA Player of the Year, he didn’t make Jucorecruiting.com’s top 100 junior college prospects.

Fellow junior college transfer Tray Buchanan did make the website’s honorable mention list. The 6’4″ guard started his college career at North Dakota before transferring to Des Moines Area Community College. Buchanan scored over 19 points per game at DMACC and made 2.5 threes per game. Henderson expects him to be a key player on the team with Wilson and returner Alex Arians.

Again, the Jackrabbits have a talented roster, and it will be up to the coaching staff to lead everyone to figure out their roles in order for the team to finish in the top half of the league.

With the Denver’s roster, I made a comparison to the movie world, and I’d like to do that with South Dakota State.

This Jackrabbit roster is just like the casting of Major League 3.  There was no Tom Berenger, no Charlie Sheen, no Wesley Snipes/Omar Epps, just role players like the All State guy, the idiot catcher, and Corbin Bernsen as a grown up came back. The movie did bring us Walter Goggins, and you don’t know that because you didn’t waste your time on that movie, and I respect that. This team is looking for their Walter Goggins.

Now, you know I’d never accuse the Summit League of picking favorites and showing favoritism toward anyone. They’d never help out one of their favorites in scheduling.

The Jackrabbits, are one of the three teams to never have three consecutive conference road games, though. They do have a pretty difficult week in January where they travel to Denver for a Wednesday night match up, and then travel all the way to Fort Wayne for a Saturday afternoon contest. They are fortunate enough to have that journey over winter break. Their other two game road trip is after week of rest, too.

They’ll also have 4 of their last 6 games leading into the conference tournament at home.

The Jackrabbits have talent, but they will have chemistry issues and growing pains in comparison to the rest of the league. Life after Daum (and Jenkins) might just be a little rough, but they’ll be fine, eventually.

I think it’s just fine to expect them to not be at the top, or even the top half of the league, this one year.

Okay, there is a possibility I might just want South Dakota State to be bad for once, but I think there is a strong case for them not having high expectations this season.

My trivial Summit League preseason rankings

8th South Dakota State

9th Denver

A biased Summit League preseason ranking preview: 9th place

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Every season, I go through the Summit League schedule and “simulate” the games a number of times based on different factors.

By “simulate” I mean I go through the schedule and assign wins and losses based on whatever I’m feeling and then repeat based on whatever I’m feeling the next week. Some weeks, I base it on overall talent, the next week might be experience, and yadda yadda yadda. I end up adding all the wins and losses and come up with standings. It’s not a perfect science, but nothing really is as preseason rankings are generally pretty stupid.

Today, we’re going to look at who came in 9th in those rankings.

Denver

Projected Conference Wins: 1 to 4

Projected Regular Season Finish: 7th to 9th

Returning Key Players: Ade Murkey (Sr), David Nzekwesi (So), Jace Townsend (So)

Last year was supposed to be The Year for the the Pioneers. With seniors Joe Rosga, Ronnie Harrell, and Tory Stewart-Miller the Pioneers appeared to have the best senior trio in the league, but nothing ever really came together for the talented Denver squad.

Head Coach Rodney Billups admitted he had been doing some things as a coach that created a bad locker room, and he has changed all of that for the better of the team (it might be possible Billups is in over his head).

Adding Harrell and Stewart-Miller to the roster last season was like adding two solid actors to a sequel to an okay, but not great, movie, but then it just turns into a heaping pile of crap because of bad production and directing. There is probably an example for this, but I try to erase bad movies out of my mind. Like “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” instead of erasing past relationships, I erase bad movies. I’m sure if there was a sequel to that movie, they would add talented actors, and it would be terrible. If there is a low budget sequel on Netflix or something, I have not seen it, and I am sorry for wasting your time with this non sequential rant.

Last season was going to be the Pioneers moment, and now their team appears to be worse than that roster (on paper).

Aside from losing their seniors, Denver had the following players transfer…

  • Would be junior forward Donoven Carlisle (4.8 ppg, 5.0 rpg, 50.5 fg%) to Texas-Permin Basin (Division 2)
  • Would be junior forward Jake Krafka (only played 3 games in 2018-2019 due to injury) to St. Edwards (Division 2)
  • Would be junior guard Elvin Rodriguez (3.8 ppg, 1.3 rpg, 41.4 fg%) to Texas-Permin Basin (Division 2)

It’s unlikely any of those guys were going to be stars, but that is still a loss of experienced role players.  Denver’s roster will have a total of 185 division one games played between the players, which is the least in the Summit League. So they aren’t experienced, and the experience they do have is failure, so it depends on what you consider experience. This was a long stretch of a reference to Thanos and Loki’s conversation in “Avengers: Infinity War.”

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Denver does return 45% of their scoring offense from Summit League play last season, that ranks 7th in the conference.

Their Big 3 is likely to be the already mentioned Murkey, Nzekwesi, and Townsend.

Murkey is the only senior on the roster.

Nzekwesi is a 6’9″ 245lbs sophomore, who efficiently scored 10 points per game as a freshman in the conference last season shooting 60% from the field in 17 minutes per game. Denver should be excited about Nzekwesi, he could be an all conference player in the future.

Townsend is a 6’3″ sophomore guard, who averaged 7.3 points per game against the Summit League last season, and coach Rodney Billups has stated that Townsend had a great Summer and will likely be the Pioneers’ first option on offense.

Billups also lost his 3 assistant coaches, and will have an entirely new coaching staff in 2019-2020. Assistant Coach Dwight Thorne had been the Director of Basketball Operations the last 3 seasons for Denver, but will now be in his first year in his role as an Assistant Coach.

Teams made up of mostly newcomers and little experience have seen success before, but it seems unlikely for this team. This team has the least amount of chemistry with their coaching staff and their players.

If I were a Denver fan, I wouldn’t put a lot of confidence in Billups making something out an inexperienced roster.

There is always hope to have some guy like South Dakota’s Standley Umude to go from averaging 1 point per game and going up to 14.4 points per game as a sophomore and landing on the All Conference team, but there really isn’t a likely candidate on the roster for that type of guy.  During the Summit League media day, Billups didn’t mention anyone who he expected to step up like that. He only really mentioned Townsend potentially becoming their leading scorer.

One thing that was surprising to hear Billups claim was freshman center Robert Jones has an extremely hard work ethic and has potential to be an elite defender in the league…and he wished David Nzekwesi had that work ethic because it would make Nzekwesi the best player in the league.

This Pioneers have gotten worse and worse under Rodney Billups, and they could be even worse this season.

Denver does get to host Air Force, New Mexico State, and Wyoming at home this year, and that’s pretty cool for them to have a fun home schedule.

Billups at one point claimed his players didn’t really like him after last season, and it’s hard to imagine they’ll be fond of him when they’re losing to New Mexico State and Wyoming at home by 40.

The Pioneers will be one of three Summit League teams to never have three consecutive road conference games, and that can help keep the young team fresh. Unlike the other two teams (South Dakota State and Western Illinois) with that advantage, the Pioneers also never have three consecutive home games.

The Denver’s 3 wins last season were all off of the team having a schedule advantage.

The Pioneers beat North Dakota State by 15 on a Wednesday night, the first week of the Winter semester, and the Bison had to get back on a plane to get back to Fargo to play their instate rival North Dakota that weekend. The Bison shot 40% in that game and 27% on threes.

They followed that up beating Oral Roberts on a Sunday of the same week by 16, who had no Emmanuel Nzekwesi in the game. The Pioneers did not win again until February 28th, playing Western Illinois on a Thursday night.  The only weeknight home games during the school year will be against South Dakota and Oral Roberts, two of the best teams in the league.

Denver is going to need a lot of things to go right for them. In 2017-2018, we saw an Omaha team with a number of newcomers, and with a fast paced offense like Denver, one of the problems with the lack of chemistry on the team was players taking selfish shots. Expect something similar with the Pioneers this season.

Expect a bad season for the Pioneers

Some things to think about with basketball teams around the Summit League

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College basketball is back in two weeks, so I’ll be coming out with some of my own Summit League preaseason rankings and obviously biased team previews over the next couple weeks.

How about we start you off with a little something to think about around the Summit League.

DENVER

The Pioneers had a disaster of a season in 2018-2019. Rodney Billups’ staff  had picked up two graduate transfers, Ronnie Harrell from Creighton and Tory Stewart-Miller from Colorado, to go along with a veteran team, and the preseason expectations were high. Some even thought the Pioneers were going to be able to compete with Mike Daum and South Dakota State for a conference championship.

Unfortunately, the team had injuries up and down the roster, and Pioneers season seemed to get worse and worse as time went on. There were only 3 players on the roster who played in every game for the Pioneers last season.

The injuries allowed for more playing time and development for freshmen David Nzekwesi and Jace Townsend, who are expected to be young leaders in 2019-2020.

As the least experienced team in the Summit League, most are expecting the Pioneers to miss the conference tournament again this season. In combination with being the youngest team in the conference, the coaching staff will also have 3 assistant coaches in their first year in their roles.

One thing helping the Pioneers is that they are one of three teams in the conference to never have 3 consecutive conference road games this season. Also, with only 6 returning players, it could be difficult to scout Denver.

NORTH DAKOTA

Did you know the Fighting Hawks had the best defensive three point field goal percentage in the Summit League last season, but the worst overall defensive field goal percentage?

Another weird stat: they were 3-0 playing at home on Saturdays, and 0-4 playing on the road on Saturdays in the Summit League.

North Dakota will be returning 68% of their scoring, and that’s the 4th most in the conference. One of their best players last season, Marlon Stewart, was slowed down with injuries last season, but is apparently the healthiest he has been in a while.

It’s hard to get a feel for North Dakota with a brand new coaching staff.

Head Coach Paul Sather appears to be quite excited about redshirt freshman De’Sean Allen-Eikens, and thinks he’s a future star in the league.

NORTH DAKOTA STATE

The Bison were picked as the preseason favorite in the Summit League, with good reason.

They won the conference tournament last season, and they only lost Deng Geu who transferred to North Texas, so they do lose some height and energy off the bench. Dave Richman has a steady track record of finding replacements, so it’s not really something to worry about.

It’s hard not to like the Bison. One thing to think about is that Cameron Hunter was playing with an injury last season. Hunter averaged 9 points a game as a freshman and saw a drop in production his sophomore year, and he’s just going to be another weapon for the Bison if he comes back at 100%.

OMAHA

Everyone in Omaha is talking about the losses of Mitch Hahn and Zach Jackson, and yeah it’s a lot to lose.

Something no one in Omaha seems to be discussing is the losses of 6’9″ Brett Barney, 6’8″ Logan Strom, and 6’11” Evan Tricker. With just 4 upperclassmen on the roster, the Mavericks will be younger, but they’re also going to lack some serious size, even with Matt Pile on the roster.

We’re going to discuss Omaha more at a later time. I think that’s obvious.

One thing to consider…The Mavericks and the Creighton Bluejays never have a home game on the same day this season. With some energy and attention brought on with a successful 2018-2019 season, the Mavericks home games could start seeing some larger crowds.

Also, did you know that last season was the first season the Mavericks have had a winning road record since joining division one?

ORAL ROBERTS

The Golden Eagles started the conference season in 2019 with three straight wins, and they eventually faced injury situations with Emmanuel Nzekwesi and struggled with consistency.

Though, they are the biggest team in the conference, the Golden Eagles struggle with taking care of the basketball. They had the most turnovers in the Summit League last season, and teams were able to outrun them.

The Golden Eagles were picked 3rd in the preseason poll, but they are intimidating on paper.

In addition to returning 83% of their scoring from last season, the Golden Eagles are adding experience to their roster. Paul Mills’ staff added two graduate transfers and will also have point guard R.J. Fuqua coming back to the roster, who redshirted his sophomore season.

Paul Mills has also stated that Nzekwesi is 100% healthy, and had the best summer that he has ever seen in all of his years of coaching.

If Oral Roberts can cut down on the turnovers and Nzekwesi is healthy, the Golden Eagles can beat anyone in the league.  Maybe even any team in the state of Nebraska.

Purdue Fort Wayne

I initially wasn’t feeling impressed with the Mastodons. John Konchar was one of the best players ever to play in the Summit League, and I’d argue that he was a better overall player than Mike Daum. Making up that loss seems like it’s too much.

I don’t think they’ll be better than the likes of North Dakota State or South Dakota, but they’ll be competitive, and they will frustrate anyone in the league.

The ‘Dons will be adding Brian Patrick, a 6’5″ transfer from Kansas State, who didn’t see the floor much for the Wildcats, but he does have experience in 4 NCAA Tournament games. In addition to losing Konchar, the ‘Dons also lost guard Matt Weir to transfer, and I thought Fort Wayne would be light at the point guard sport. Jon Coffman landed junior college transfer point guard DeMieere Black, who was made the Honorable Mention List on JUCOrecruiting.com’s Top 100 recruits list. The website also listed him at 6’3″ and Fort Wayne’s website lists him at 6’0″, so maybe just no one knows what they’re talking about.  Fellow incoming junior college transfer Jalin Wimberly also made the list. Wimberly scored 15 points on 73% from the field as a freshman. Yikes!

Fort Wayne might be the most sneaky good team in the conference, but maybe the Summit League will sabotage the Mastodons’ last Summit League season?

The Mastodons have never been particularly deep, at least since I started paying attention to them after Omaha joined the Summit League, and last year the Mastodons had 9 players play in all 33 games on the season. Can they be that lucky with health again?

That may sound like a threat of some kind after mentioning the Summit League might be out to sabotage their season, but it’s not. Welp, this is awkward.

South Dakota

With 5 seniors and 2 juniors, the Coyotes will be the most experienced team in the Summit League.

The roster has 11,455 division one minutes played on the active roster. That’s over 1000 more minutes over the North Dakota State with the second most.

According to Jeff Goodman, Nebraska transfer Brady Heiman was granted a waiver to be immediately eligible to play this season for South Dakota. It is unclear if Heiman will still use his redshirt, but the 11,455 minutes does not include Heiman.

The Coyotes are another team we’re going to discuss more later.

South Dakota State

Who gave the Jackrabbits first place votes in the preseason poll? Seriously, who? Two people apparently did this.

I’d love to meet the two maniacs who went camping on the hottest day of the year, saw who could chug a bottle of Fireball the fastest, then had a candy corn eating contest, bumped each other in the head, and then rolled down a hill into a bee’s nest…then apparently came to and said: “Yeah, South Dakota State is definitely better than North Dakota State, South Dakota, and Oral Roberts.”

The Preseason Summit League Notes in the press release for the preseason rankings said something nice about all the teams in the conference except the Jackrabbits. They couldn’t even think of a positive note about this team, but two people thought they’d be the best team in the conference.

The Jackrabbits lost the Dauminator, their top 4 scorers, and their head coach.

Western Illinois

Riding the confidence of upsetting South Dakota State, and almost beating North Dakota State in the Summit League Tournament, this Leatherneck team could be the most talented and well rounded team Billy Wright has had at Western Illinois. I understand that isn’t saying much, but it’s true.