I have no business listing off potential softball coaching candidates

June 14, 2016 acroth86 College Softball, The Summit League Brittany Lange, Campbell Ditto, Chance Lindley, Cory Petermann, Creighton Bluejays, Dean Blais, Diane Miller, Georgia Bulldogs, Jamie Trachsel, Jason Mims, Jeanne Scarpello, Jimmy Kolaitis, Nebraska Cornhuskers, North Dakota State Bison, Omaha Mavericks, Oregon Ducks, Ranae Sinkler, Stacy Gemeinhardt-Cesler, Tony Baldwin, Trev Alberts, UNO Mavericks, UNO Softball, Western Illinois Leathernecks

I think the retirement of Jeanne Scarpello shocked a lot of Maverick faithful last week. It was pretty unexpected considering the Mavericks just got through transition and have a bright future in softball, but per the release is stepping away to spend more time with family and you have to respect that. Coaching softball takes up an incredible amount of my wife’s time and she is only coaching a few months of the year and not having to do all of the recruiting, off season work outs, and fall ball. Well high school softball in Nebraska is played in the fall, but you get the idea.

I am not sure if Cory Petermann (I just realized that I want to scream “HEY PETER-MAN (Office Space),” will be able to be promoted to head coach or not. I really hope that if a new coach is hired that they keep Petermann on the staff. He’s been with the Mavericks for so long and has done so much to make the softball program one of the most successful athletic programs (that is still competing).

I’m not sure about other Mav fans feel, but I am fully confident in the hiring abilities of Trev Alberts and staff. Dean Blais has taken Hockey to the Frozen Four. Jason Mims built a program from scratch, his team was ranked in the top 25 for a short while in just the program’s 5th year of existing, and his recruits seem to get better and better each and every single season…which is actually to be expected, but still, it could have ended up much worse. Chance Lindley was doing a stellar job with the women’s basketball team before unexpectedly in something that was just odd. Alberts dropped the interim tag off of Brittany Lange, who is really kind of quietly building that basketball program into a competitor and gets better and better every year. They’re going to be competing in the preseason WNIT in 2016 and they’re starting out at Colorado State, and that team could beat really Colorado State, who made the 2016 NCAA tournament, and possibly face off against Washington in the second round. Excuse me, I have to go make make sure all of my bills get paid by my SouthWest Airlines Chase card so I can secure enough points for a free flight to Seattle in November…

Anyway, the Mavericks are looking for a softball coach. I am sure that the process has already started, and we should hear who the newest head coach to Maverick athletics is in the coming weeks, but here are a list of random names that could be out there as potential candidates. Do I have any business throwing out any names or have any insider info for this? Certainly, no. But when a football program like USC (which sucks) is looking for a new coach, some idiot online lists off a bunch of names that where only half of the list is actually being considered by USC and another portion of the list may just want to hear what USC has to say. It’s just something kind of fun to talk about and contemplate as fans.

I’m content with being the idiot here. Whatever coach does take over softball at UNO is getting a program that will be returning four All Conference players, and a part of an improving athletic department that is in the middle of upgrading their facilities and has mentioned the potential of a new softball (and baseball) stadium.

Tony Baldwin – Georgia Assistant

I’ve listed Baldwin here for no real reason for other than that I may have been Georgia’s Good Luck Guy. It’s not a responsibility that I wanted, but it just happened. Whenever I caught a Georgia softball game on ESPN3, or actual television, they completely dominated their opponent. The Bulldogs were up 3-1 on Auburn when I was watching in the Women’s College World Series, and then I went for a walk and they ended up losing 3-4.

Baldwin is originally from the state of Indiana and played college baseball at Butler. He has spent 2 season as an assistant at Georgia, he was an assistant baseball coach at Michigan State before taking on the job at Georgia. He was mostly responsible for hitting and infielding for the Bulldogs, and in his first season at Georgia the team was 13th in the nation in batting average at .343, and they scored over 7 runs a game.

Jimmy Kolaitis – Oregon Assistant

Seriously, I have no business compiling this list.

Omaha is probably a far stretch for a guy that is an an assistant softball coach in the PAC 12, but going from a big name program to head coaching at a smaller program all to get a job as a head coach at a big name program again seems to be a likely road for many coaches.

Kolaitis was an assistant coach at South Alabama before taking the job at Oregon. While at Oregon he has been in charge of coaching hitting, and the Ducks have one of the better offenses in college softball. My wife is a huge Oregon Duck fan (seriously, this list is so biased) so I had to watch a number of Oregon softball games over the last 2 years, and their hitting is…dare I say it…”sick.” Last season they had 8 of the 9 players in their lineup hitting above .300, which is “sick.”

Diane Miller – Nebraska Assistant

Miller has been an assistant for the Huskers since 2008, after coaching at Colorado State and has been primarily in charge of coaching hitting and the catchers. With slight uncertainty where the Mavericks are going at the Catcher position after 4 years of Campbell Ditto behind the plate, it would be beneficial having Miller coach up catchers, especially in the beginning.

Miller has coached the Huskers to break more than 30 offensive records since becoming an assistant at Nebraska. In her time in Lincoln, the Huskers have hit at an average of .295, which is right around where the Mavericks were this last season. The chance to become a head coach, coach up a team that already has strong hitting, and develop a young team at an already successful program could be a huge attraction to Miller.

Ranae Sinkler – Creighton Assistant

Maybe this would help the relations between the Creighton and UNO program, who have still yet to face off since the Mavericks made the transition. Sinkler is a Lincoln-native and currently works with hitters and infielders at Creighton, and while she was a player for the Bluejays she won the Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year award in two separate seasons.

She graduated from Creighton in 2011 and has only been coaching for a few years, so she does not have a ton of experience. She could continue to help the Mavericks recruit some of the better players out of the state of Nebraska. This year Creighton had a fielding percentage of .961 and the Mavericks were at .956.

Still, UNO might be a difficult sell to anyone who has been involved with the one program, let alone Creighton, since their freshman year in college.

Jamie Trachsel – North Dakota State Co-Head Coach (Already took job at Iowa State)

So I was going to list Trachsel as a far fetch, but seriously why does North Dakota State need two coaches? Trachsel took the job at Iowa State last week, and she was in charge of defense, recruiting, and scouting while with the Bison. The Bison were first in the Summit in fielding percentage this season, and North Dakota’s roster is filled with players from the hot recruiting bed of softball we know as the state of California. Maybe the Bison’s defense and recruiting will take a slight drop and open up the gates for Omaha and the rest of the Summit League to compete for conference championships again.

If you’re wondering about Iowa State softball: they finished the season at 20-35 and lost to UNO, Creighton, Northern Iowa, and Drake to name a few.

Stacy Gemeinhardt-Cesler – former Iowa State head coach

Iowa State didn’t renew her contract after going 20-35 in 2016 and had an overall losing record with the Cyclones in her 11 seasons in Ames. She really helped the team improve their hitting in the beginning, and I really cannot imagine how hard it is to recruit softball players to play in Ames against the Big 12 competition. Her players did well in the classroom with over 70 players make All Big 12 Academic teams in 11 seasons, and I know that is something that UNO Athletics would love. Gemeinhardt-Cesler, which looks difficult to pronounce, was 153-76 in four seasons at the Division 2 level as a head coach, so maybe The Summit League is a more appropriate level for her than the Big 12.

A look at who the Summit League is losing

May 31, 2016May 31, 2016 acroth86 College Basketball, The Summit League Andrew Poulter, Baxter Arena, Billy Wright, Brandon Conley, Brian Ishola, Carlton Hurst, Casey Kasperbauer, Chris Kading, Connor Devine, Cory Jacobsen, Dan Jech, DaQuan Jeffries, Dejon Davis, Deondre Parks, Devin Newsome, Devin Patterson, Duol Mayot, Eric Robertson, George Marshall, Indiana Pacers, IPFW Mastodons, IUPUI Jaguars, Jake Bittle, Jake White, Jalen Chapman, Jamie Batish, JC Fuller, Joe Reed, Jon Coffman, Kory Brown, Kyler Erickson, Logan Doyle, Marcellus Barksdale, Mason Archie, Matt Mooney, Max Landis, Michael Calder, Mo Evans, North Dakota State Bison, Obi Emegano, Omaha Mavericks, Randy Reed, Shy McClelland, South Dakota Coyotes, South Dakota State Jackrabbits, Tate Stensgaard, Tim Smallwood, Tre Burnette, Tre Vance, Trey Miller, Trey Norris, Tyler Hagedorn, UNO Mavericks, Western Illinois Leathernecks, Zach Dickerson

College sports graduates teams every year, players transfer, and teams are affected by that from year to year…duh. Some top teams get worse because of what they are losing, and other teams get better with what they have coming back.

Here is who Summit League men’s basketball is losing this year, and the list is in order of what teams will be affected most by their losses.

South Dakota

It feels uncommon to see the team that finished 8th in a conference to be losing so many players. Seems like these teams are typically youthful and at least have a lot to look forward to in the future as they develop their team. South Dakota will graduate 4 players on scholarship and one walk on player; as well as lose three players to transfer.

The Yotes will have a new look with three transfers coming aboard, and could potentially have the deepest core of post players as most of their post players this season were freshmen and sophomores.

From 2014-2015 to 2015-2016, the Coyotes were losing the most scoring off their team at 57% and they fell from 4th in the conference to 8th. Going into next season, they will again be the team that loses the most scoring at nearly 80 freaking percent of their scoring.

Graduates

Tre Burnette, 6’5″ guard/forward

Played in 32 games and started 23 in 2015-2016. Averaged 13.2 points; 6.6 rebounds (4th in the Summit League), shot 44% from the field; 51% from the free throw line; and, 32% on threes. Finished his senior season with 8 double-doubles.

Burnette played the 2, 3, and 4 for the Coyotes at different times. His production and hustle will be missed by the Coyotes, but he could be being replaced by more efficient players.

Casey Kasperbauer, 6’1″ guard

Started in all 32 games for the Yotes in his senior season. Averaged 12.1 points; 2.5 rebounds; 2.1 assists; and 1 steal per game. Shot 41% from the field; 95% (led the Summit) from the free throw line; and 41% on threes.

Craig Smith once called Kasperbauer the best shooter that he had ever coached, and that will be missed by the Coyotes. The transfer guards coming in for South Dakota appear to be slightly more versatile than Kasperbauer and be more productive over the 34 minutes a game that Kasperbauer was playing.

Trey Norris, 6’0″ guard

Played in all 32 games for the Yotes, and was moved into the starting rotation after Shy McClelland left the team, which was weird because Norris seemed to be the better point guard on the court for the team. Ended the year averaging 7.5 points and 4.3 assists per game, but was averaging 12 points 5.4 assists in February and March.

Eric Robertson, 6’8″ forward/center

Started in all 32 games for South Dakota as a senior. Not much of a rebounder for a big man averaging 3.2 per game. Robertson scored 8.3 points per game on 47% from the floor.

I thought that Tyler Hagedorn or Dan Jech should have been playing more time than Robertson, and I may be more bias for Hagedorn being that he is from Nebraska, but both true freshmen seemed that they could have been more productive over Robertson.

Duol Mayot, 6’5″ guard/foward

Played in 17 games in his senior season as a walk on.

Departures

Dejon Davis, 6’4″ sophomore – Transferred to Indianapolis (D2)

Considered to be one of the most improved players in the Summit League after seeing his scoring go from 1.9 points per game in his freshman season to 9.3 as a sophomore. Davis’ playing time was increased as well going from a seldom used guard his freshman season at 9.3 minutes per game to starting in 31 of 32 games in his sophomore season and averaging nearly 30 minutes per game. He was 6th in the Summit League in field goal percentage shooting 55.1% from the field. He was likely to see a reduction in minutes with Matt Mooney and Carlton Hurst becoming eligible, but Davis still would have been a contributor to the team.

Shy McClelland, 6’0″ junior – Left team in early February

McClelland averaged 11.5 points on 49% from the field in his time with South Dakota, but he shot 51% from the free throw line attempting over 4 free throws a game. He was pretty inconsistent in his time on the team, but could have been a contributor to the Coyotes in 2016-2017.

Zach Dickerson, 6’4″ sophomore – Left team in early February

A transfer from Eastern Illinois that was not seeing much playing time for South Dakota, and probably was not going to see much of an increase in minutes in 2016-2017.

South Dakota State

The Jackrabbits are losing nearly half of their scoring, and they will working with a new head coach in 2016-2017. Teams in the Summit League may not have the same fear that they’ve had going up against the Jackrabbits that they have had over the last few years.

Graduates

George Marshall, 6’0″ guard

Marshall ended the year struggling when it mattered most. The Jacks had to survive through his 15% shooting in the conference tournament to move on to face Maryland in the big dance. Marshall ended the regular season as a 1st Team All Summit League player with his 14.9 points per game, which was 10th in the league.

Marshall has potential to play basketball overseas or in the new NBLA.

Deondre Parks, 6’1″ guard

Parks played in 33 of the team’s 34 games and also averaged 14.9 points per game, and he was a good rebounder at his size with 4.6 per game. He was shockingly pushed down to the Honorable Mention Team for the Summit after being named to the preseason 1st team.

Like his back court teammate, Parks also has potential to play basketball overseas or in the new NBLA.

Jake Bittle, 6’4″ guard

Bittle did not receive any post season awards after being named to the preseason 1st Team for the Summit League. He was forced out and also played through some injuries, which may have led to some slightly inconsistent play for himself and the Jackrabbits. Bittle led the Jackrabbits with 25 points in their win at Minnesota.

Losing Bittle as the guy to actually run the Jackrabbits offense is what could hurt the team the most.

Cory Jacobsen, 6’1″ guard

Never really saw much playing time as a walk on for the Coyotes. Scored 2 points his senior season.

Departures

Connor Devine, 6’10” junior – Transferred to Alaska-Anchorage (D2)

Never truly broke into the rotation at South Dakota State playing behind a number of quality post players in three years. Devine did average 2.6 points and 1.6 rebounds as a junior, and shot 64% from the field in 8 minutes per game. Could have been potentially a starter or the 1st post player off the bench in 2016-2017 with the Jacks currently with a lack of big men.

Logan Doyle, 6’8″ sophomore – Transferred to Northern State (D2)

Basically the exact same situation as Devine. Only played in 7 games as a sophomore, but could have been one of the first guys off the bench in 2016-2017.

Omaha

Graduating four contributors is really hard to make up in college basketball, but the Mavericks will get to reload some of their roster with transfers and players returning from injuries. The Mavericks will also literally be blessed with a 6th year of eligibility to Kyler Erickson.

Graduates

Devin Patterson, 5’11” guard

Patterson was the fastest player in the league, and that speed is what kept the Mavericks in a few games and gave the team a few victories. Making up 18 points per game (3rd in the Summit) will be difficult, making up for his speed and his ability to get to the free throw line with be more difficult to overcome.

Patterson has potential to play basketball overseas or in the NBLA.

Jake White, 6’8″ forward

Even though White seemed to constantly be in foul trouble, he finished his senior season 5th in scoring in the conference with 17.3 points per game; as well as 6th in the Summit in rebounding at 6.2 rebounds per game. It is hard to find a big man like White that can score from anywhere on the court as well draw as many fouls as he did. As much as White did commit fouls, he was also able to tie for 3rd in the Summit for free throws attempted per game behind Obi Emegano and Devin Patterson. White also shot 81% from the free throw line as a senior, which was 2nd in the league among forwards.

White has potential to play basketball overseas or in the NBLA.

Randy Reed, 6’6″ forward

Reed may have only averaged 6 points and 3 rebounds per game in his senior season, but the energy and hustle that he brought off the bench for the Mavericks was priceless and will be incredibly difficult to replace. His 21 points and 5 rebounds off the bench on senior night was one of the most fun performances by a Mav to watch in person since the Mavericks made the transition to division one.

Tim Smallwood, 6’2″ guard

Smallwood was a little inconsistent, but he was able to improve on his shooting from his junior season to his senior season. As a junior he shot 26% on threes, and he ended up shooting 37% on threes in his senior season. I personally thought Smallwood was an underrated one-on-one defender.

Departure

Devin Newsome, 5’9″ sophomore

This appears to be unofficial at the moment. Per the Omaha World Herald, Newsome is looking for a school to transfer to, but there has not been an official statement from anyone. Newsome was rarely used in his freshman and sophomore seasons, and was unlikely to see an increase in minutes with the guards expected to be on the 2016-2017 roster.

IPFW

Graduates

Max Landis, 6’2″ guard

The ‘Dons are losing the Summit League player of the year that averaged 10 points a game on just three point field goals. This is not something that is just easy to make up, but it can be done with a few players taking over the load of scoring and shooting. After Mo Evans was forced off the team in the second semester, Landis stepped up as a passer and averaged over 4 assists without Evans on the roster. IPFW has Purdue transfer, Bryson Scott to help take over the scoring load but he shot 29% in his two years on threes at Purdue while Landis just shot 45.6% on threes as a senior, which was 30th in division one.

Landis has recently had workouts with the Indiana Pacers and has potential to play in the NBDL.

Joe Reed, 6’8″ forward

The ‘Dons may end up missing Joe Reed more than they think. He averaged 10.5 points and nearly 5 rebounds a game, but he was always ready to take a clutch shot. The ‘Dons loved their small ball style in 2015-2016, and Reed was perfect to play at the 5 for that style. Their core of post players in 2016-2017 may not be the best players for that type of system the coaching staff seemed to fall in love with.

Michael Calder, 6’2″ guard

Calder was fantastic making up for the loss of Mo Evans in the second half of the season. He was a bit of a one dimensional guard in his junior season when he averaged 4.7 points, and he was able to step that up to 10 points per game overall as a senior. Calder averaged 14.4 points in Summit League games after Evans was forced out for the 2nd half of the season.

Departure

Andrew Poulter, 6’11” junior

When Poulter signed with the ‘Dons, I was under the impression that Jon Coffman was going to start and play Poulter at the 5. Poulter was overweight, shot terribly in junior college, was quite slow, and the ‘Dons wanted to go to a new small ball style. I thought we were going to have to get Coffman checked into some sort of rehab, but instead Poulter hardly got any playing time at IPFW and decided to leave. Just didn’t seem like the right fit from the beginning.

Oral Roberts

Graduates

Obi Emegano, 6’3″ guard

So I read somewhere that NBA scouts thought that Emegano was a junior and they were not taking his stock into the draft very seriously. This seems like a really bitter end for the conference scoring champion after a bulk of his teammates leaving Oral Roberts over the last few years, a shoulder injury in the summer, a mid-season concussion, and being surrounded by an incredibly inconsistent youthful squad with zero chemistry. Though a year from now we could be talking about how the 2016-2017 Summit League scoring champion, Garret Covington, was only a part of 40 wins in his entire collegiate basketball career.

Emegano has potential to be in the NBDL as he appears to be too short to play the shooting guard position in the NBA, nor really enough speed to be in the NBA…but people said the exact same things about Steph Curry. The loss of Emegano is obviously huge for the Golden Eagles, and they may be classically bad in 2017.

Brandon Conley, 6’6″ forward

The undersized big man suffered through little injuries his entire senior year at Oral Roberts, which led to inconsistent play. Conley did shoot 56.2% from the field, which was 4th in the Summit League. His averages of 7.4 points and 5.4 rebounds are something that can be easily made up with Oral Roberts’ youth. They seem to routinely have a guy that goes from averaging 2 points a game to getting 8 to 10 points each game the following year.

Departures

DaQuan Jeffries, 6’5 freshman

Jeffries looked like a guard that loved playing against faster paced teams like Omaha and IPFW, and he even looked pretty good for what Oral Roberts liked to do…yet he transferred away from the team. His versatility as being a 6’5″ guard who was actually probably better as a forward made it difficult to figure out where to play him in each and every game. His 6.7 points per game was going to be 4th among returning players to the team.

Tre Vance, 6’9″ junior

Vance averaged less than one point and one rebound in his time at Oral Roberts. Not really sure what to say here… I’ve lost 17 pounds in the last 2 months…I’ve been working out a lot and eating really well. It’s cool and all, but I have to buy a bunch of new clothes because I look like a little kid wearing a bunch of hand me downs from his big brother.

Western Illinois

I want to say it really couldn’t get any worse for the Leathernecks, but it doesn’t seem like it will get much better.

Graduates

JC Fuller, 6’3″ guard

Fuller started the year off pretty hot, and then his shooting dropped off toward the end of the conference season. Fuller averaged 12.7 points a game, but I doubt Billy Wright will miss his shot selection. The Leathernecks won two games in a row over Omaha and Denver when they decided to play freshman De’Angelo Bruster more than Fuller…then they went back to giving more minutes to Fuller and lost 4 of their last 5.

I will still remember Fuller as the guy that was absolutely on fire in the first half at Baxter Arena and talking shit to the Maverick bench, then put his forearm into Kyler Erickson’s chest right in front of a referee to push off to miss a 30 foot jump shot. Then Fuller went missing the second half and the Mavericks came back from a big deficit to win the game.

Tate Stensgaard 6’9″ forward

I feel like Stensgaard was injured throughout his entire career. He always appeared as if he was playing with a pulled hamstring. Stensgaard could hit 15 foot jump shots consistently, and could put the ball on the floor and drive to the basket and draw fouls, he shot 60% from the field and averaged 8.6 points as a senior. Western Illinois just boggles my mind.

Jalen Chapman, 6’8″ forward

Chapman started at center for the Leathernecks and averaged 17 minutes a game in each of his 2 seasons at Western Illinois. I’m not really sure where else in the Summit League that he would have averaged 17 minutes a game.

Jamie Batish, 6’4″ guard

Batish was a really good shooter that had his career affected by nagging injuries. The Leathernecks may have picked up a few more wins with the shooter being able to play more as a senior.

North Dakota State

Graduates

Kory Brown, 6’4″ guard

Brown is going to be hard to make up for the Bison, but they pride themselves on their Next One Up philosophy. It’s not easy to lose a guy that was a part of 2 NCAA tournament teams and went to the conference championship every year he was a member of the team. He was second on the team in rebounds and was arguably their best perimeter defender. Brown was also that guy that you forgot was in the game when they’re down by 10 and then all of a sudden he makes a handful of defensive stops and scores on 4 straight possessions to get the Bison right back in the game. They may not have that guy that can just create a 10 point swing in 2 minutes completely by himself next season.

Chris Kading, 6’9″ center

Normally, you wouldn’t think the loss of a guy that averaged 3 points and 3 rebounds is a big deal, but it is actually a little bit of a big deal for the Bison to lose Kading. His senior year was slowed down with surgeries before the start of the season, which is what led to a reduction in playing time, but he was still effective for the Bison on the court with his smart play and defense.

In the game at Baxter Arena, AJ Jacobson couldn’t guard Jake White or Tre’Shawn Thurman and Jacobson got into foul trouble so David Richman called on Kading. Kading grabbed some big boards, drew some fouls on Jake White, hit a big three in the first half, and helped spark a little run to keep the game close. Thurman and Randy Reed were both bothered by Kading and couldn’t really score on him. The second half, Jacobson got more playing time before ultimately fouling out, and the Bison probably could have won that game if Kading was fully healthy and could have gotten 35 minutes.

Departures

Trey Miller, 6’7″ freshman

Miller played 5 minutes for the Bison and just decided to say “eff this” and left the team.

Brian Ishola, 6’5″ sophomore

I’m not sure who Ishola was. I think he was just a player that EA Sports made up when there weren’t enough players in the game anymore.

IUPUI

The Jaguars are graduating two seniors, but they are going to have the most returning to their roster in 2016. They also added two senior transfers that will be eligible immediately and could have the most depth in the Summit League in 2016-2017.

Marcellus Barksdale, 6’5″ guard

One of the best perimeter defenders in the Summit League, and Barksdale had to play every position at some point in his career with the Jaguars as they just about didn’t have anyone else on the team in his first 3 years in the program. If James Gardner had not come along for IUPUI and brought in a bunch of transfers with him, Barksdale may have been a part of 8 wins in his entire year with the IUPUI.

The stats for Barksdale won’t be hard to make up for the Jaguars, but his defensive presence that allowed the Jaguars to start most of their fast breaks may hurt them to a degree. They really didn’t win games with their amazing offensive efficiency, they won 9 conference games with their scrappy defense that Barksdale was a major catalyst for.

Mason Archie, 6’5″ guard

The Jaguars considered Archie to be their best perimeter defender, yet that seemed like a ploy to have teams forget about Barksdale somehow. His length may have bothered some of the smaller shooting guards in the league a bit, but it’s not like that is something teams couldn’t overcome.

The Jaguars are going to be the most experienced team in 2016-2017, if that wasn’t the case, I may have said the losses of Barksdale and Archie were more detrimental to the team. They return 80% of their scoring from their 9-7 team, and are adding two graduate transfers and a transfer from Syracuse to the roster. They’ll be fine.

Creighton and UNO baseball are playing, but basketball…

May 17, 2016May 17, 2016 acroth86 College Basketball CenturLink Center, Cole Huff, Creighton Bluejays, Doc Sadler, Greg McDermott, Isaiah Zierden, Mo Watson, Omaha Mavericks, TraDeon Hollins, TreShaun Thurman, UNO Mavericks

Let me start out by saying, and maybe reminding you, that I like the Creighton basketball program. I hope they do well, and I think the program is great for the city of Omaha. I like to see all the Creighton athletic programs be successful in addition to the Huskers and Mavericks (obviously)…except for Creighton softball…I just have this unexplained animosity where I don’t like Creighton softball. I try to watch every Creighton event on television that is available, but they are at the bottom of the three instate division one schools on my Give A Crap About Meter.

Now, I would like to awkwardly transition to say that I hate going to Creighton events because of how annoying I find Bluejay fans. That is not to say that Maverick (or Husker) fans are perfect, by any means, but Creighton fans are a lot like 16 year old kids that start out driving and drive like they own the roads that they think belong to them; not to mention they think driving validates them to finally be respected as adults. They turn into the adults that drive 40 through the Village Pointe parking lot and run stop signs because their lawyer is better than your lawyer.

Another awkward transition: Creighton and Omaha will again not be playing in men’s basketball next season. This will upset Omaha Maverick fans and make the Creighton fans’ heads grow…or just go on with their days.

Creightonites will say things like: “We would beat them by 40 anyway” and “That game wouldn’t help us anyway.”

I have to ask, how are you so certain that Creighton would beat the Mavericks by 40? I know you’ve seen very little basketball as you spend most of your time at Creighton games in concession lines for hot dogs, pretzels, and Bud Light; so how do you know this? Have you heard of intangibles? Do you really not think Omaha guys like Tre’Shawn Thurman and Tra-Deon Hollins are not going to outwork guys for 40 minutes on the Bluejays roster that have never even heard of UNO?

As a Maverick fan, I am not sitting here and claiming that Omaha would go into the CenturyLink Center and roll the Bluejays…I am not that guy, and I really don’t think many Maverick fans are in that group. I’m more of a Let’s Have Some Fun With This Game kind of guy. And since when has scheduling teams that Creighton can beat by 40 turned you off as casual basketball fans anyway? The pregame analysis of every Creighton non-conference home game is just wasted time spent trying to legitimize every opponent that won 12 games in their previous six combined season seasons. Is that the problem? You don’t want to spend 8 seconds legitimizing UNO basketball?

I am not even sure what it means when Creighton people (and Greg McDermott) say “Playing UNO would not benefit our program,” and I am pretty confident that they have no idea what it means. It’s been rumored, and confirmed by some local media Twitter accounts that UNO has offered to play a men’s game for free. How did Texas San Antonio, Western Illinois, IUPUI, and Coppin State benefit you in such colossal ways that the Mavericks would not? I’ll even go a step further here, how does playing Nebraska every season help them?

When was the last time we had just a solid player versus player match up that got us super excited for Nebraska versus Creighton? Here is a list of 1 on 1 match ups to laugh at in this series.

2015

Geoffrey Groselle vs. Michael Jacobson

Mo Watson vs. Benny Parker

2014

Avery Dingman vs. Terran Petteway

Toby Hegner vs. David Rivers

2013

Okay, there was decent amount of anticipation for McDermott vs. Petteway

2012

The high octane slow and furious match up of Gregory Enchinique vs. Andre Almeida

Austin Chatman vs. Benny Parker

Jahenns Manigat vs. Ray Gallegos

2016 could be an incredible potential point guard match up between Tra-Deon Hollins versus Mo Watson. We’re being robbed from seeing this happen. Robbed! It’s okay though, it’s not like Omaha is a big event town or anything. People hate going to things here. I’m getting goosebumps over the thought of paying 50 bucks to see Watson get 20 points and 10 assists against over some SWAC point guard who was listed as “pretty good in high school.” A Tre’Shawn Thurman versus Cole Huff match up sounds pretty enticing as well. And even Marcus Tyus versus Isaiah Zierden perimeter match up even sounds pretty fun. Damn it, this game really does not nothing for Creighton.

In state programs do not have to play every single year, but the bigger programs need to play the smaller programs when they have someone that everyone agrees is a legit basketball player. I was in Utah when Damian Lillard was with Weber State (similar in size to UNO)…Utah, BYU, and Utah State all had to take on Weber State that year. It was what was best for them. This is somewhat ignorant of me to see…Maybe they had some instate deal that year or something going on, I don’t know, I hated living in Utah. I am not saying that Tra-Deon Hollins, or anyone with the Mavericks, is on the Damian Lillard level, but Hollins just led the nation in steals and he got better and better offensively as the year went on. Hollins has even been compared to some Big East guards, and you’re seriously tell us this would do nothing for Creighton?

Creighton is like the older sibling that thinks they are really special and they see their younger brother trying to get bigger and better, and develop, so they have to mock and tease them to hide how insecure big brother is. They don’t want to give the Mavericks the big stage of the CenturyLink for the casual fans* that attend their games to see the Mavericks actually play an exciting brand of basketball and grow some interest in actually paying money to go to the Baxter Arena to watch a basketball game…or even two!

*I’m not saying all fans at Creighton games are casual fans, but there is a decent chunk that are just there for the event.

Take Creighton baseball for example…the first year of UNO’s transition, they played twice and split games. The Bluejays got a small taste of Oh Crap, Our Baseball Team Is Not THAT Far Ahead of Them. The second year the two teams played in three games, one was even played at Werner Park, and Creighton won 2 of the 3 games. It was so bad for the city to play that game at Werner Park, the Old Mattress Factory had pretty poor beer sales that day…and on a Saturday… The third and fourth years, the two went down to just playing one game, splitting those games over two years. Now, it’s 2016, and Creighton baseball offered us a charity event for a division one baseball game on a Tuesday at 12:30. That’s prime time for college baseball…in June. How are their baseball season ticket holders no complaining about this game time?

While I know Mav fans are grateful that the two schools will finally play a regular season game in men’s soccer in 2016, the game is at 7 pm on Labor Day; which is exactly when people want to get out and go to an event in this town.

Let me throw this idea out there…it’s a long stretch, but UNO being a division one school was a long stretch for quite some time.

UNO just stops calling Creighton to do events. For them, it will be like they are a girl that has a boy that keeps asking them out, and she keeps rejecting the boy. The boy gives up and then starts talking to other girls, and the girl gets pissed that she’s not getting that attention anymore so she does something dramatic and weird. Is that how middle school worked?

The Mavericks start asking out the Huskers. Make that a yearly rivalry, convince them that Creighton can be the once in a while thing…if they feel like it. Take the big event away from Creighton fans. Taking the event away was lightly discussed during the Doc Sadler era, but Doc was a total dick about that sort of stuff. I think the Creighton versus Nebraska men’s basketball game every year is the super bowl for Creighton fans. It is their Batman versus the Joker boxing match set right in front of them. Shit, play Huskers versus the Mavericks in the CenturyLink Center, let them bring their court up from Lincoln so they actually feel confident in that building… Get UNK involved to come to Nebraska and Omaha in the same weekend for exhibition games, and then play each other. You get three in state games in a week, keep that money in “the system.”

That plan will basically never happen, but it is a thought. Wait, do we know someone’s dad? That’s what Creighton people have taught me, anything is possible if you know someone’s dad.

Creighton better seriously start considering playing the Mavericks in basketball. Some day the Mavericks are going to make the NCAA tournament, and the selection committee loves matching up potential in state match ups in the 2nd round. You really want the first time you play UNO since their transition to be in the 2nd round after pissing them off for not playing them for years by not playing them?

The Mavericks: Reloaded

May 3, 2016May 3, 2016 acroth86 College Basketball, The Summit League AJ Hess, Ben Kositzke, Daniel Meyer, Devin Patterson, Jake White, Johnny Trueblood, JT Gibson, Justin Simmons, Kyler Erickson, Marcus Tyus, Mitchell Hahn, Omaha Mavericks, Randy Reed, South Dakota State Jackrabbits, Thik Bol, Tim Smallwood, TraDeon Hollins, Tre'Shawn Thurman, UNO Mavericks, Zach Pirog

2016-2017 is going to be a bit of a sequel to last season. Consider it The Mavericks: Reloaded. Is The Matrix Reloaded the 2nd or the 3rd one of the Matrix series? They blend together to me for 4 and a 1/2 hours of stupidity for me, so it is difficult to remember.

The Mavericks graduate Kyler Erickson, Devin Patterson, Randy Reed, Tim Smallwood, Jake White from the program. Each player brought something unique to help guide the program through the first year of transition into the CBI. Erickson brought the heart, and the other 4 bought some earth element to create a superhero to save the world of disaster. Normally teams that lose 5 seniors do not compete too highly the following season, but the Mavericks get to quickly reload their roster with Marcus Tyus (redshirted to recover an injury), Mitchell Hahn (redshirted due to transfer from Holy Cross), and JT Gibson (only played 10 games due to an injury).

The decision to redshirt Tyus apparently came a day or two before the start of the regular season. Really, it was a smart move on the part of the Mavericks. He tore his ACL in February of 2015, and normally tearing your ACL takes over a year to fully recover. I still showed up to the opening game and had a 2 hour WHERE IS TYUS panic attack for that game.

You have got to think that Tyus will get the most shot attempts on this team next season. His junior season, he may have had one of the most efficient seasons since the transition to division one, for a guard at least. In his junior season he shot 49% from the floor and 44% on threes. The only guard who really came close to that, that played most of a season, was Justin Simmons who shot 47% from the field and 40% on threes in his junior season.

While Tyus may take over as the primary shot taker, he never really showed the ability to create his shot in the same capacity that Devin Patterson could. I’m not really sure this program has seen a guy that has that ability that Patterson had, and no one remaining on the roster is really that guy who can do that; so next season the team will have to work together more to get open looks…which can be good because of less standing around and less jump shots with 25 seconds on the shot clock. Patterson attempted 5 threes a game in 2015-2016, granted that number would have been lower with Tyus on the floor, but Tyus should be taking about 4 threes a game in his senior season, but his percentage should put him at making the same number of threes each game as Patterson did in 2016. Tyus wont really need to create his own shot with a play maker like Tra-Deon Hollins with him in the back court.

The Mavericks finished 8th in the conference in three point field goal percentage at 33.7%, but that number should go up with Tyus, Hahn, and Gibson on the court; and also Hollins improved from behind the arch as the season went on. Hollins shot 17% on threes in November and December, and 39% on threes after January 1st.

Aside from the expected better shooting; arguably the best post player the Mavericks have had since transition, Jake White is graduating and that will be a huge piece to make up. Tre’Shawn Thurman will continue to get better and should be an All Conference player in his junior season. Daniel Meyer and Zach Pirog will really have to improve this summer to help make up for that post production. I never got to actually watch Mitchell Hahn in high school, but he doesn’t appear to be the same type of rebounder that Jake White was, or a dominating post player against Nebraska high school basketball. Hahn has the ability to handle the ball and play as a very tall three, which could make the Mavericks very versatile team. Either way, I hope one of the main on the court goals of the Mavericks this season will be to get my section to stop screaming “BOX THE EF OUT!”

The Mavericks currently have 10 players on scholarship. Maybe 11 if they give Ben Kositzke a scholarship, who actually could be a pretty underrated player. He has some really nice post moves, a baseline jump shot as good as Jake White’s, and he just had a year of redshirting to work out on basketball. Kositzke also apparently had a scholarship offer to Tennessee Tech out of high school. I was telling my wife about some of the Mavs’ roster and mentioned this, and she usually does some shit talking whenever a university in the state of Tennessee is brought up, instead she was like: “Tennessee Tech, really? They’re a really good program, that’s a great scholarship offer…and he walked on to the Mavericks? That’s great!” That’s got to be worth something.

Speaking of basketball in Tennessee: the Omaha signee Daniel Norl, originally from the state of Tennessee, appears as if he can really add depth to the Mavericks back court. The 6’2″ guard averaged 11 points, shot 50% from the floor, and 40% on threes for a top 25 junior college in 2015-2016. He started his career at Eastern Kentucky after getting offers from Tennessee Tech, Belmont, Austin Peay, Middle Tennessee State, and Murray State. In his highlight videos you can tell he is a solid defender and likes to make the extra pass on offense.

There are still many available transferring players out there. It is unclear if Nebraska’s Johnny Trueblood is going to transfer somewhere to play basketball, or if he going to just destroy every pickup basketball game in Lincoln; but many Husker fans on the Husker Hoops Central would like to see him transfer to UNO. I’m sure both South Dakota schools will try and move in on Trueblood should he decide to pick the Mavericks.

South Dakota State was able to pick up a transfer from Southern Utah, AJ Hess, who will be a senior and eligible to play immediately for the Jackrabbits. Hess only played in 6 games for South Utah in 2015-2016; in his junior season at SUU, he averaged 11.7 points and 3.7 rebounds; Hess also shot 44% from the floor, 41% on threes, and better than 80% at the free throw line. The Jackrabbits are going to be able to put out some bigger lineups with two 6’6″ guys who can play the guard position.

I’m bummed that Omaha Benson/Iowa Western’s Thik Bol committed to Southern Illinois. His post defense combined with Hollins’ perimeter defense would have been a delightful combination on the court.

With the potential to sign two to three more players, and another assistant coach, the Mavericks still have a lot to come in the next few weeks.

The Jackrabbits are going to have that new basketball team smell in 2017

April 19, 2016 acroth86 College Basketball, The Summit League Adam Dykman, AJ Jacobson, Andre Wallace, Cole Gentry, Craig Brackins, Ian Theisen, Iowa Western, Mike Daum, Omaha Mavericks, One Tree Hill, Reed Tellinghuisen, South Dakota State Jackrabbits, Tevin King, TJ Otzelberger, TraDeon Hollins, Tre'Shawn Thurman, UNO Mavericks

With a new coach, five players graduating, two players transferring out, and a new coach; it is definitely going to be difficult for people to just pencil in the Jackrabbits as the best team in the Summit League again in 2017.

Iowa State Assistant, TJ Otzelberger, who I may refer to Taco John Ostrich Burger at some point, will be taking over as the head coach of the Jackrabbits. I’m sorry about making fun of someone’s name, I was forced to watch an episode of One Tree Hill last night, so I’m just in a mood. Former Coach Scott Nagy left the program for Wright State, which seems like an odd move to most outsiders.

Seriously, the basketball writing in One Tree Hill is awful. For starters, two brothers for some reason get super excited to go see a Charlotte Bobcats game. Later on at one point, the team captain walks into the coaches office and the coach tells him he’s going to run the triangle offense this season just for him. I love that some writer in LA just turned on a 2002 Lakers game and heard the words “triangle offense” and just rolled with it because they didn’t know what else to do. Then the whole team gets in a fight right as being introduced to the crowd, which just turned into a dog pile fight for literally no reason. The captain started a fight with his brother, then all the players just reacted to fighting each other with absolutely no build up to fighting each other. Then in the post game the coach lets the captain remain captain and makes his brother co-captain so they “can figure it out together.” What a terrible show. One Tree Hill just makes me worry about…everything on this planet.

Wait, what happend? I blacked out.

Otzelberger had two separate stints at Iowa State, recently one under Fred Hoiberg and a few more years under Greg McDermott. He spent a few years at Washington under Lorenzo Romar, who is an idiot, and he has been a part of recruiting some top nationally ranked classes at Iowa State and Washington. That’s great. Recruiting classes are everything, especially when you get a bunch of overrated chubs that don’t do a bunch and you cannot even reach the top 25 with that class during the regular season. I’m mostly referring to Washington’s teams…and no one can talk me out of Craig Brackins being incredibly over hyped at Iowa State. I believe I saw that at one time in high school he was rated over Blake Griffin. That worked out. Don’t take this as me bashing Otzelberger being an overrated recruiter or something, it takes an entire coaching staff to recruit and actually develop their players and team…not just one assistant; and I have no idea how much of a role he had in actually recruiting those players…but if it’s going to be bragged up on the internet by South Dakota State on how great of a recruiter and developer of post players coach that Otzelberger is, we should discuss how worthless of a college basketball player Shawn Kemp Jr was in the process.

Otzelberger’s scheme does not sound all that much different than Nagy’s, he wants the team to get out and run at a fast pace, which is similar to just about what everyone in the conference seems to be moving to. He basically wants the Jackrabbits to be Omaha, but with defense. I will say, it appears Otzelberger is incredibly excited for this opportunity with South Dakota State and he sees big things for his new basketball program.

There is a problem with the Jackrabbits as of right now in time. They currently only have 8 scholarship players returning, and have one junior conference guard committed for next season. Two of those eight returners redshirted last season. It’s tough to count out South Dakota State already since North Dakota State almost had the exact same situation in 2014-2015 and they ended up winning the Summit League tournament.

Unless the Jackrabbits get a graduate transfer with one of their remaining scholarships, the team will have no seniors on their roster…which is usually not good, but the Summit League is not going to be filled with seniors in 2017. Otzelberger may not be going for those transfers as he stated he wanted to go for 4 year players he can develop, but coaches say a lot of things, and coaches have a tendency of going after transfers to load their new teams with some needed experience in their first year when there is a lot of turnover from the year before. Do you not remember Dana Altman’s CBI run at Oregon in his first season?

The Jackrabbits will return Summit League First Teamer and 6th Man of the Year, Mike Daum, who is a great player. He is going to go from almost always being the 3rd or 4th option on the court to always being the first option. Some player do not adjust to that very well, especially as sophomores, and Daum seems like a pretty well mature guy; but it is definitely worth keeping an eye on at how well he adjusts to this. Denver, Omaha, IUPUI, and South Dakota have quicker forwards that can get out and bother Daum a little; so maybe Jackrabbit fans wont see Daum take a quick jump his sophomore season, as much as they expect.

Another core player returning to the Jackrabbits will be Reed Tellinghuisen, who I really thought took a step back his sophomore season. His freshman season he appeared to be up there with AJ Jacobson and Tre’Shawn Thurman as one of the top three freshmen in the Summit. He put on some muscle going into his sophomore season but dropped in field goal percentage from 45% to 40%, dropped in three point field goal percentage from 41% to 37% and dropped in free throw percentage from 66% to 61%. He was still 7-of-9 from three in Omaha, though.

In most situations this season Tellinghuisen was playing at the 4 with the Jackrabbits, and it was maybe a mistake on the part of the Jackrabbits staff, even if they did have limited options on where to play Tellinghuisen. I sit with a perfect few of the baseline in Baxter Arena, and Tellinghuisen looked great on offense; but you could literally see the fear on Tellinghuisen’s face when Tre’Shawn Thurman got the ball on the baseline and Tellinghuisen had to play defense in the post. He had nothing he could do to Thurman other than just foul him. Tellinghuisen played best when he was on the court at the same time with Mike Daum and center Ian Theisen in the front court.

That front court has the potential of being the best front court in the Summit League next season. Theisen has a little bit of Cody Larson with his post game, but needs a little jump shot to really be an all conference player. Since Otzelberger is apparently such a great developer of post players, perhaps he can make Theisen into an incredibly scary post player for the Jackrabbits. Or he might just look sweet since the Jackrabbits don’t have many other post players (as of yet) and he will get 35 minutes a game. Who knows, it’s a crazy world and it’s the Jackrabbits league…we’re just living in it. The team will be adding Nebraska-native Adam Dykman to the front court, who redshirted his freshman season…and I know a number of people that watch a lot of Nebraska high school basketball that really felt the bigger schools really made a mistake by not recruiting Dykman.

The Jackrabbits went into the 2016 season with having what was expected to be the top back court in the Summit League, and let’s just be happy that the Tra-Deon Hollins & Devin Patterson back court challenged them for that top spot. The Jackrabbits back court will be relatively unproven going into 2017. Tevin King will be the only returning player in the back court, and he saw limited action really since he was playing behind three seniors in his freshman season…which sounds great from a development standpoint. King only shot 4-of-14 on threes in his freshman season, which would worry me as a Jackrabbit fan, and he only shot 59% from the free throw line.

The team recently added 6’1″ guard Andre Wallace from Iowa Western, who could really be a great player in the Summit League for the next two seasons. He was a 40% three point shooter for the Reivers and had 4 games of scoring 20 or more points in his sophomore season. He wasn’t known for being a great defender at Iowa Western, which could suck for the Jackrabbits in a guard dominated league. The Jacks will also have Cole Gentry, a point guard out of Chicago, who redshirted his freshman season. The redshirt freshmen in the Summit League have been exceptional the last few years: AJ Jacobson, Mike Daum, John Konchar just to name a few…so who knows if Gentry can be a great player right away or not.

With what is going to be an entirely new look for the Jackrabbits, to their roster and their coaching staff, there are going to be a large amount of questions for South Dakota State at the start of the season. Usually those teams with a lot questions get rated low in preseason rankings, but it’s South Dakota State so they will probably get tabbed as the preseason favorite just because.

The Coyotes are going to have a new pack in 2017

April 13, 2016 acroth86 College Basketball, The Summit League Air Force Falcons, Brandon Armstrong, Carlton Hurst, Casey Harriman, Cody Wichmann, Colorado State Rams, Craig Smith, Dejon Davis, Fran McCaffrey, Iowa Hawkeyes, Matt Mooney, Milwaukee Panthers, Omaha Mavericks, South Dakota Coyotes, Tim Miles, Trey Dickerson, Triston Simpson, Tyler Peterson

So the Coyotes finished 2016 as the 8 seed in the Summit League tournament after being preseason picked as the 5th team in the Summit.

At the beginning of the year, I said, no, this team is not in the top half of the conference. They lost 54% of their scoring going into the 2016 season, which was the most in the conference. Now, actually heading into the 2017 season, the Coyotes will lose almost 70% of their scoring…but they cannot get worse than 8th, right? I mean, right? Similar to Tim Miles at Nebraska, Craig Smith was supposed to improve this team year after year.

The Coyotes had three transfers sitting out this season who could immediately help the Coyotes try and improve next season and stay away from the 9th spot in 2017. 6’3″ Junior guard Carlton Hurst will join the Coyotes from Colorado State. Hurst averaged 4.2 points per game and shot 44% from the field in his freshman season, but his production dropped his sophomore year to 1.8 points per game. That CSU team his sophomore season won a program record 27 games and made the NIT.

Trey Dickerson is a 6’0″ point guard who transferred from Iowa after being upset that he was the 3rd string point guard for the Hawkeyes…and also probably because Fran McCaffrey messed up Dickerson’s income taxes. Seriously, McCaffrey looks more like the team accountant than the head coach. Apparently, Dickerson has the potential to be the fastest guard in the Summit League next season… He only played in 15 games for the Hawkeyes and averaged 2.7 points and 1.2 assists over those 15 appearances. Not super impressive numbers, but yeah, I would be throwing a parade if the Mavericks had a transfer from Iowa being thrown into their lineup. It would be the world’s worst parade. It would be more like a random guy walking down Center Street screaming incoherent babblings.

Lastly, the Coyotes will be adding Air Force transfer, Matt Mooney, who will be a 6’3″ sophomore. Mooney averaged 7 points in a Princeton offense his freshman season at Air Force; he shot 45% from the floor and 39% on threes. He had 8 games of scoring in double figures for Air Force. Mooney cited that bullying was one of the reasons for wanting to transfer away from Air Force.

Each player has potential to be at least Honorable Mention in the Summit League in 2017 and/or 2018 and help the Coyotes reload their roster quickly. Granted, they finished 8th in 2016, so maybe rebuild is a better word here than reload.

Aside from just bringing in transfer players, the Coyotes will also be adding Lincoln native, Triston Simpson – who held offers from South Dakota State, North Dakota State, and also the Mavericks. Simpson averaged 16.2 points and 6.2 assists per game in his senior year for Lincoln North Star. I feel like I hardly heard Simpson’s name throughout the high school basketball season, but maybe that is just because he is from Lincoln? The Lincoln Journal Star named him to the 1st Team Super State team. South Dakota also signed two wing players: 6’4″ guard Tyler Peterson from the state of Minnesota who also had an offer from North Dakota; and 6’5″ Brandon Armstrong, from the state of Texas, who also held offers from New Hampshire and Texas-Arlington.

South Dakota may be losing 70% of their scoring, but they still have some interesting pieces coming back. Forward Tyler Flack finally came back after sitting out for nearly a year and a half with a back injury. Flack ended up averaging 9.9 points and 5.5 rebounds in 17 games this season. He had a bit of a coming back party in Omaha when he had 14 points and 6 rebounds against the Mavericks at the end of January. After that game Flack looked like an All Conference player averaging 12.9 points and 6.4 points per game. If Flack can come back and be healthy all season, the Coyotes can actually make a pretty big jump from 8th place next season. The Yotes also have their two big freshmen Dan Jech and Tyler Hagedorn coming back for next season, who both had flashes of potential in 2016, but they both kind of fell out of the lineup when conference play started and Flack was back in the lineup as a key player to the team. A player that probably surprised us all was sophomore Dejon Davis. His freshman season he averaged 2 points a game, but jumped to 9.2 points per game in his sophomore season…his minutes did increase by almost 20 minutes per game as the Coyotes did not have much depth at the wing…so it wouldn’t be shocking to see his production drop off in 2017 after adding the transfers and incoming freshmen.

Craig Smith and his staff still have 2 scholarship spots to fill, and Smith is likely to still go after some transfers from bigger schools as that is how he has tried to jump start a heartbeat into his program so far. It would seem pretty typical of Smith to go after Nebraska transfer Johnny Trueblood, as Smith used be an assistant for the Huskers and he clearly likes to recruit out of the state of Nebraska. Jerk.

I’m going to throw out another potential name that makes me want to punch a stack of bricks. Marvin Clark, Jr… Smith has also made attempts at going after players from the Kansas City metro area, and Clark is originally from Kansas City. Clark played two seasons at Michigan State where he saw his minutes drop to 10 minutes per game in his sophomore season, but he was working himself back into the rotation near the end of the season due to some injuries on the team. He would be a 6’7″ 225lb junior (and could add more weight sitting out for a year) in 2018 and could really make the Coyotes a favorite in the Summit League that season, and he would immediately replace Flack after he graduates.

They may not be from bigger schools, but Milwaukee had a few players leave their team this last month after the coach had been fired; and both Austin Arians and Cody Wichmann had offers from South Dakota out of high school. Arians would be eligible to play immediately, and at 6’6″ he could really help improve the wing position of the Yotes; he averaged 11.4 points and 3.8 rebounds per game as a junior…he also made 2.5 threes per game; but Arians visited Wake Forest last week so he may be a little too classy for South Dakota. Wichmann will also graduate and be eligible immediately; he is a 6’5″ smaller power forward type similar to Casey Harriman (Creighton alum). Wichmann averaged almost 5 points and 2 rebounds per game in 2016, he shot 47% from the field and 48% on threes in his junior season…He might not be the huge impact to the team that Clark or Arians would be, but he would still help the Coyotes look better than 8th in 2016.

So 2017 may depend on how quickly the Coyotes can get the new faces acclimated to their program, but they can quickly make a jump and hopefully not trend down. They will be one of the youngest teams in the Summit, which is never great, but they will have players that have been around the block before. This was also a team that had a decent amount of injuries in 2016, and even a couple of mid season departures, so who knows what can happen if they can actually be healthy in 2017.

The Mavericks were 3-1 against the teams in the Summit League Championship

March 8, 2016March 8, 2016 acroth86 College Basketball, The Summit League AJ Jacobson, Chris Kading, David Richman, Denver Pioneers, Deondre Parks, Dexter Werner, George Marshall, IPFW Mastodons, Khy Kabellis, Kory Brown, Mike Daum, North Dakota State Bison, Omaha Mavericks, Paul Miller, Scott Nagy, South Dakota State Jackrabbits, UNO Mavericks

So the Mavericks are 3-1 against the two teams currently in the Summit League Championship, and I am not bitter about it at all.

We all knew from the start of the year that these were the two teams to beat in the conference. Even though IPFW tied for the best record, they were never a guaranteed lock to win over North Dakota State. We also knew that this conference tournament would be incredibly tough to come out on top and every game had potential to be great and filled with drama…and both of these teams are entering the championship game after roller coaster and emotional wins. Every game in this tournament has been extremely difficult to win, well IPFW over South Dakota was pretty easy it seemed, and North Dakota State didn’t really pull away until late in their 15 point win over IUPUI.

I’ve liked South Dakota State to win the league the whole year, but it hasn’t been as dreamy as people have thought it would be. At half time last night, Scott Nagy said his team was playing pretty well defensively, but they were playing poorly on offense. It didn’t get any better in the second half. The only player for the Jackrabbits that has played well offensively in the first two games of the conference tournament has been Mike Daum. Could Daum be the tournament MVP if the Jackrabbits win this game? A freshman taking home 1st Team All Conference and other awards, on top of Tournament MVP? We’re going to have 3 more years of this? I mean that’s great and all, but with all the other solid freshmen in the league, could this be the groundwork to make this a multi-bid conference in the future?

The Jackrabbits’ other 1st Team All Conference player, George Marshall, has looked like the opposite of an All Conference Player. Marshall is 2-of-16 from the floor in the first two games of the conference tournament, and it kind of looks like he keeps looking at the bench wondering when someone will replace him on the court. North Dakota State could have their two top players on the bench in foul trouble and still beat the Jackrabbits if Marshall is shooting that poorly in the championship game. We could bring in Western Illinois to play and they could beat the Jackrabbits if Marshall continues to play like this, or Eastern Illinois.

You would think that South Dakota State could win this game on (basically) a home court advantage and the extra day of rest over North Dakota State. I have to say, though, there has been a lot of green and yellow in the seats there in Sioux Falls. I guess it could be Oregon Duck fans, but I will go with my instinct on this one. The Bison are in the heads of the Jackrabbits, having an advantage over them in the last few seasons. After the Jacks easily handled IPFW in January, the Bison beat the Jackrabbits by 11 in Fargo and held the Jackrabbits to 29% shooting. Deondre Parks went 1-of-10 from three in that game.

The Bison also appear to just have more weapons on offense to throw at the Jackrabbits. SDSU has 5 games that can shoot from anywhere and go off on any given night, but as pointed out, 4 of those 5 guys have not played well lately. AJ Jacobson, Paul Miller, and Kory Brown all average double figures in scoring for the Bison. Freshman Khy Kabellis has had his fair share of big scoring games and is coming off a 19 point performance against IPFW. Dexter Werner is that off the bench high energy post player every team wishes they had, and he just had 18 points and 11 rebounds against IUPUI in the first round. Carlin Dupree scored 22 points last night against the ‘Dons and made clutch play after clutch play. The Bison also have senior center Chris Kading who can come in and affect the game with his defense.

Scott Nagy has built a strong reputation as a coach around the Summit League, but for some reason he has not fully connected with Marshall and Parks. David Richman is the best coach in the league at getting his players to believe in themselves and play to his style. The Bison lost almost everything from 2013-2014, and he got everyone to buy into him in his first season in 2014-2015. This season, they lost the Player of the Year from 2014-2015, and he was able to convince them all that they could pick up the missing scoring and not have much of a drop off. If it had not been for some poor free throw shooting and key injuries, the Bison could have finished with 1 to 2 more wins and been 3rd or 4th in the conference…maybe even 2nd depending on who they beat. South Dakota State also had some injuries along the way to affect their season. Nagy has questioned his team’s toughness for the last 3 months, and they are going up against a team that proved their toughness in a huge comeback win over the number 1 seed in the tournament. You could rate the Jackrabbits’ toughness up there with the toughness of the lemurs in “Madagascar.”

With all of this, I generally feel like South Dakota State should win this game, but there is obviously no way to count out North Dakota State. Like, there is not even that much confidence riding on the Jackrabbits in this. I feel like the biggest challenge almost is that weave offense that the Bison run. Facing the weave, after facing Denver’s Princeton offense, is 2 straight nights of constantly having to move, switch, and rotate on defense. Both of those offenses are designed to mentally and physically tire out their opponent, among other things. The lack of movement on offense by South Dakota State on offense really showed just how mentally exhausting it had become last night, and if they continue to play that way, they are going to lose this game. At least the lemurs can move it move it. .

This game has all the makings of going down to the wire and being won or lost on a last possession just like the last year when these two teams played in the championship game. So that means one of these teams will probably route the other and win by 20.

The laziest of Summit League semi final previews

March 7, 2016March 7, 2016 acroth86 College Basketball, The Summit League Chris Kading, Denver Pioneers, Deondre Parks, Dexter Werner, George Marshall, IPFW Mastodons, IUPUI Jaguars, Jake Bittle, Joe Scott, John Konchar, Kory Brown, Max Landis, Mikaela Shaw, Mike Daum, North Dakota State Bison, Omaha Mavericks, South Dakota State Jackrabbits, UNO Mavericks

I’m just, eh, I just want to, ugh… Okay, I am bitter right now. I guess the Summit League tournament will still go on?

IPFW and North Dakota State

The last time IPFW and North Dakota State met, the Bison held the ‘Dons to a season low 46 points and 28% from the field. The Bison were also without their leading scorer, Paul Miller.

The Mastodons may have the advantage of an extra day of rest, but the Bison are not a great match up for IPFW. For the best IPFW offensive players, North Dakota State has a great defender to counter that player. Joe Reed will be defended by Chris Kading or Dexter Werner for a bulk of the time, both players come off the bench, so Reed may need to take advantage of his time with them on the bench. John Konchar will have to deal with AJ Jacobson and also Dexter Werner at any given moment. Konchar did not play that great offensively against the Bison in their two meetings. In Fargo, he shot 1-of-5 from the floor and in Fort Wayne he shot 2-of-6 from the floor but he had 19 freaking rebounds. Max Landis will also be guarded by Kory Brown, who is one of the better wing defenders in the Summit League. Landis shot 2-0f-10 in the loss in Fargo and 5-of-15 from the floor in the ‘Dons win in Fort Wayne.

The ‘Dons do have the extra day of rest, but the Bison have a slightly deeper team to throw at IPFW. Seriously, only 6 players on IPFW actually get any real minutes. The Bison also played one of the slowest games in the last decade last night against IUPUI. A game so ugly it can only be described as the any given parody Andy Dick character of basketball games. The Bison defense held the Jaguars to shoot under 30% from the field last night. They also held South Dakota State under 30% from the floor earlier in the year. So I guess that probably means they have a good defense or something. Numbers are hard. Once the blog gets Rylan Murry to be the Blog Math Guy, that’s when this can really get rolling.

Anyway, this game should be a great watch and should really go down to the wire. If it does get down to the wire, North Dakota State is not a good free throw shooting team. They shoot 68% from the free throw line, which is last in the Summit League.

South Dakota State and Denver

South Dakota State playing Denver is actually pretty scary. Scott Nagy has called out his team a few times this season for not showing any toughness, and the only player on the entire team that showed any toughness Saturday night against Oral Roberts was Mike Daum. The three senior leaders of the Jackrabbits combined for 5-of-20 from the floor against Oral Roberts and each had difficulty guarding freshmen guards of Oral Roberts.

The Jackrabbits have to go from a fast paced team to a team like Denver…and while South Dakota State swept Denver this season, they struggled in each game against the Pioneers this season. Deondre Parks and George Marshall both struggled in each game against Denver, and the Pioneers had the game close in down the stretch in each meeting. They both struggled Saturday against Oral Roberts, and they can really win this tournament with both players cold.

“The other guys” for South Dakota State need to step up for the Jackrabbits to avoid an upset against the Piooners. Denver doesn’t have the length to guard Mike Daum from…anywhere, nor any length to bother Ian Theisen in the post. South Dakota State has the defense to disrupt the Princeton offense, but if Denver is still on fire after their game against Omaha, the Pioneers are an extremely tough out for anyone. Denver has also shot 50% or better in their last 3 games…one of those games was against the tough defense of before mentioned North Dakota State.

Denver’s freshmen have gotten better and better as the season has gone on, and they have really exceeded expectations as a team. This is actually exactly what Joe Scott said would happen with this team. The Pioneers also played in a weekend classic to open up the season playing 3 games in 3 days, where they beat Santa Clara and Lipscomb on days 2 and 3; so they are capable to continue playing their game day-after-day.

With an RPI hovering around 200, and probably little chance at a post season tourney, there is almost no pressure on the Pioneers. If they win, they get to keep going, and yay. If they lose, they had a season much better than expected and have a lot to build on for next season. The Jackrabbits have a lot of pressure to win this game. It is basically a home game, they need to prove their toughness to their coach, and they are losing a lot off their team heading into next season. The expectation for this team was to win the Summit League regular season, and the conference tournament, anything less than that is a failure for them this season.

Just something quick on the Omaha women against South Dakota State

It’s obviously going to be tough for the Omaha women playing against South Dakota State in the semi final. The Mavericks played them tough and impressed some people with their play against the Jackrabbits the first time the two teams met.

Talk about a team that exceeded expectations. Some people just started looking ahead to 2016-2017 after the Mavericks lost an exhibition game at home, but now in March they have a winning record and are playing in the conference semi final after upsetting the 3 seed in the tournament.

They never backed down against IUPUI in what was a close game almost the entire time. There was a moment when Mikaela Shaw hit a three to put the Mavericks at 57 points and ahead by 9 points, which was finally the defining moment to put the Mavericks ahead for sure, and the smile on Shaw’s face really was an accumulation of all the moments of where this team envisioned themselves to finally be after the entire transition period. With a win in the damn post season.

This team could seriously be in the top 3 in the conference next season. I ignorantly say this as I am not sure what other teams have coming in; but they only graduate one player and have a former Missouri Valley Conference Honorable Mention player to add, along with some other fine pieces. The team they are playing today, only graduates two players and returns 4 players that score in double figures…so this game this afternoon could be a trailer for what could become the conference championship next season.

#MarchMavericks versus Denver Pioneers Summit Tourney preview

March 4, 2016 acroth86 College Basketball, The Summit League AJ Jacobson, Denver Pioneers, Derrin Hansen, Devin Patterson, Garret Covington, Jake White, Jon Coffman, Marcus Byrd, Marcus Tyus, Omaha Mavericks, Randy Reed, Tre'Shawn Thurman, UNO Mavericks

I almost forgot this game was happening. It’s not that I am not used to the Mavericks playing in March, or that I am weirded out at a 8:30 pm college basketball game in the state of South Dakota on a Sunday night. I just almost forgot the Omaha Mavericks, or the Summit League, was a thing because I made the mistake of listening to John Bishop and Josh Peterson on Unsportsmanlike Conduct all week try the 215th way to rephrase the questions: Is Mike Riley a good football coach; and is Tommy Armstrong Jr a good quarterback?

Oh, but it’s happening…it’s finally here, the Mavericks are playing in the Summit League tournament as a 3 seed. I don’t really know where to start with this as I am too excited. So um, okay, how about this…

Denver, huh?

I like the idea of Omaha fans traveling to Denver this weekend for hockey, all while other Omaha fans are traveling to Sioux Falls to see Omaha and Denver play in men’s basketball. The fans going to Denver get to start little trivial arguments of who is better, drink some beer, go to a hockey game, bond over why they both hate North Dakota, and grow a rivalry. Oh, and not to mention, UNO softball is in Colorado this weekend to play Colorado State and Idaho State. I know it doesn’t have much to do with the Pioneers, but hey, hopefully some Mav fans can get to Fort Collins for some Mav softball.

Omaha and Denver basketball have two contrasting styles. Omaha loves to get out and run and find quick baskets, and Denver likes slug up the court and pass the ball 5 times before even thinking about shooting, and then pass 3 more times, and then get a backdoor cut for a player to get a wide open shot. These two contrasting styles makes this game the hardest to guess on to win and get out of the first round of the tournament.

Denver, though, while last in the Summit League in scoring, can actually really play at a fast pace and keep up with higher scoring teams. Playing in Omaha, the Pioneers were able to get 5 guys in double figures and were able to outscore the Mavs with 75 points. Weeks later, playing at IPFW, Denver scored 84 points before losing by 4 to the Mastodons. Denver had three different guys score more than 20 points in that game, and they were able to hit 20 three point field goals as a team. 20! Amazingly, Denver shot absolutely no free throws in that game. IPFW had to shoot 62% from the field in that game and shoot 12-of-18 on threes to outscore Denver in that game.

Statistically, it’s not easy to talk about Denver because of their Princeton offense. They are last in scoring in the Summit League, last in rebounding, last in blocks; but they are first in field goal percentage and free throw percentage…the things Denver cares about. Interestingly, Denver finished 4th in the conference in steals, which is good for them because they love playing possession to possession. So maybe, we should look more at some intangibles in this game.

I’m just going to assume that Denver is going to be the least represented fan base in Sioux Falls, based on what LetsGoDU whined about last month, well they may have more fans than Western Illinois there. Zing. Omaha has a bus of students heading to Sioux Falls, and people that have the ability to not work on Monday morning could be headed up…and people that do not care about sleep. Seriously, 8:30 pm on a Sunday, and maybe an even later start time if the earlier games don’t go according to plan.

The Mavericks may have some Oh Shit, We’re Actually Here jitters, but Derrin Hansen made a point that the quickest way to get over that is to get out play fast and make it a basketball game. Denver’s staff has been here before, but Denver’s players may actually have those jitters as well since the team is mostly newcomers. Denver does have some seniors that have been here before that can help ease the nerves of the Pioneers. Oh here is a stats thing: Denver’s senior forward, Marcus Byrd averaged 17.8 points per game over the last 6 games of the season, he also shot 59% from the field, and 60% on threes. That is pretty scary.

It’s good for the Pioneers that the Mavericks don’t have anyone that has been in a conference tournament before. Oh wait, there is Jake White! In 2013, White played in each of Wichita’s State’s games in the Missouri Valley tournament. He had a 9 point, 8 rebound, and 3 assist performance in the first round against Missouri State. That team also went to the Final 4 that year.

I’m sure Jake White is happy being named to the All Summit League 2nd Team, but maybe he feels a little disrespected and is incredibly hungry to win and keep playing. Not that the guys on the 1st Team weren’t great, and I am sure it was incredibly hard to decide between John Konchar, Mike Daum, and Jake White to get onto the 1st Team…but 2 freshmen beating out a senior has to piss someone off. The same goes for Devin Patterson. How about the snub to Tre’Shawn Thurman? Garret Covington was selected to the 2nd Team, for scoring a lot of points on a team that was limited on scoring options that finished last? Thurman averaged more points, more rebounds, more blocks, and shot a higher field goal percentage than AJ Jacobson who was named Honorable Mention…and Thurman averaged less minutes. I know the stats may not be a big part of it because guys are going to get stats for Omaha at their pace, but still…Thurman has to be happy for his teammates, but not happy about the snub.

Tra-Deon Hollins was the first Mav men’s basketball player to be named to the 1st Team for the Summit League, by the way.

I don’t think there is just one guy that is most important for the Mavericks to get a win in the first round. All of the Mavs needs to play efficiently, and make few mistakes…especially after the load of mistakes the Mavericks made against the Pioneers in Omaha with the missed layups, missed dunks, and terribly timed turnovers. That’s the other thing, is there a game that Omaha would like to have back more than any other as that Denver at Omaha game? Actually, maybe that whole week. Omaha seems to have more of a revenge factor, and be playing for more recognition in this first round than Denver. That was also a game that Omaha played without Randy Reed, who just had two of the best basketball performances of his life in the last two games.

Derrin Hansen also said it pretty well on the radio this morning when he said his team appears to play better when going into their tougher games. I didn’t get all of it, because I had that moment at work where the guy that takes 15 minutes to ask me a question that a normal person only takes 1 minute to ask had to come up and ask me a question…and give me the whole story has to why he has come to ask me the question…you know, so I could understand the point of view of all the characters involved.

By the way, could Hansen feel slightly snubbed for not being named Coach of the Year? Hansen actually probably doesn’t care all that much, but his players might be a little angry about it and that may add to their hunger for some conference wins. Not to take anything away from Jon Coffman. He did a great job, even after losing a player due to academics. Hansen lost his returning leading scorer, lost a freshman who was expected to help replace the shooting lost in Marcus Tyus, and finished 3rd in the conference after being expected to finish 7th in the Summit League.

For all 7 of the people that have paid attention, I basically selected no upsets in the first round of the Summit League tournament…which is kind of lame. If someone had a gun to my head and said I had to pick who was the most likely to get upset in the first round of the conference tournament, I would have to answer because I really question the mind of the person who would hold a gun to my head for something that like, but I would shockingly pick South Dakota State… I like South Dakota State, but their game with Oral Roberts just looks like a trap. The Jackrabbits swept Oral Roberts, but just played them last week, and Oral Roberts has a great coach and the leading scorer in the conference, and a load of dudes that can just randomly turn it on in a game.

A sore IUPUI-North Dakota State Summit tourney preview

March 2, 2016 acroth86 College Basketball, The Summit League Evan Hall, IPFW Mastodons, IUPUI Jaguars, Jordan Pickett, Kory Brown, Malik Clements, North Dakota State Bison, Omaha Mavericks, Paul Miller, South Dakota Coyotes

IUPUI and North Dakota State make for the most even match up for the first round, and it may not even be an entertaining game. Well, it will be entertaining from the aspect of it probably being a close game for 39 straight minutes, but not so entertaining that there will be a load of missed shots, probably some pretty bad calls by the referees. Really, what else do you expect out of a 4 versus 5 game? It’s like watching a movie where there is a good story and plot line in place, but all of the protagonists keep doing dumb mistakes to have you screaming “DON’T SHOOT THAT GUY, IT’S GOING TO CAUSE A LOT OF PROBLEMS…WHY DID YOU SHOOT THAT GUY!!!”

Both of these teams faced some injury issues in the last month. The Bison were without their leading scorer, Paul Miller*, for 6 straight games in February. The Bison lost 4 of their last 6 games, and Miller made it back for the last game of the season against Denver and went 1-of-9 from the floor in an 11 point loss.

*Miller averaged 15.9 ppg (8th in SL), 42 FG%, 41.8 3ptFG% (9th in SL), and 4.9 rpg)

The Jaguars were without their starting forward, Evan Hall**, for 7 straight games from late January to mid February. They were also missing their top guard off the bench, Jordan Pickett***, for two games against Omaha and North Dakota State in February. Pickett scored 20 points off the bench for the Jaguars and hit the game winning shot against the Bison the first time these two teams played. IUPUI lost 5 of the last 7 games, with the injuries, and the early success in conference for both of these teams, makes them both tough outs in the conference tournament.

**Hall averaged 5.2 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 52 FG%

***Pickett averaged 9.5 ppg, 39 fg%, 83 FT% (5th in SL)

Both of these teams appear to have all of their major players back for this game, and both of these teams were healthy enough to have all of their key players in their first game; and that game ended in a three point made field goal by Pickett, and then a 75 footer that just missed by Paul Miller.

The teams seem just about even, but IUPUI should have the slight edge on North Dakota State. The Jaguars are slightly deeper, have a slightly better core of post players, and are slightly better at defense. IUPUI is 2nd in the conference in steals and are capable of disrupting the North Dakota State weave offense.

The Bison also have the worst free throw shooting in the conference, so in a close game when fouling becomes prominent at the end of the game, the Bison can lose their edge in a close game. In their first game, IUPUI’s defense was able to force North Dakota State’s inbound passes to all of the worst free throw shooters for the Bison; and then the Jaguars were able to knock down shots to make the small comeback.

North Dakota State really cannot reasonably win this game if Paul Miller is back but not actually healthy. If he’s in the game, but going 1-of-9, and not able to keep up with IUPUI’s transition offense; why wouldn’t it be better to just go with guards Kory Brown and Malik Clements more than Miller? Brown averaged 12 points 7.2 rebounds in 6 games without Miller. Clements, though, started the year off well and then really seemed to struggle as the year went on…which seems common for newcomers. Seeing him in person in Omaha, made me feel like he was either injured or just not in great shape. He appeared to struggle whenever Omaha would get out and run, and IUPUI likes to steal the ball and get out and run…maybe not as much as Omaha, but they like to play that way. It actually made me kind of happy that he never committed to the Mavericks.

Anyway, the winner of this game will face the winner of IPFW & South Dakota…which will more than likely be IPFW, but obviously not guaranteed. Both teams provide for a bad match up for IPFW in the second round, as they combined to go 3-1 over the regular season champion. North Dakota State held IPFW to 46 points in Fargo, a team that averaged a shade over 80 points per game; and IUPUI swept the ‘Dons by a total of 5 points, but they were able to keep up offensively with IPFW by scoring 84 points in the first game and 80 in the second game.

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Omaha Mavericks Blog

I did not have anyone to talk Omaha Mav sports with, so I decided to talk to the internet.

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