So for my preseason rankings, I went through the Summit League schedule and applied wins and losses to each game, and I did it several times looking at different angles and added up all the records to come out with some standings. So what the hell, why not provide some updated predictions as teams actually physically play?
January 6th
South Dakota @ IPFW
The home team lost each game in this series last season. I admit to being a jerk toward IPFW all year, and I have little faith in this team’s post game and overall depth. I also was not too huge on South Dakota going into the season, so this is a bit difficult of a game to pick. The ‘Dons were never really tested in the non-conference, but they were able to pick up a win at home against Oral Roberts…which is something I originally thought would happen given Oral Roberts back and forth schedule to start Summit League play after playing an incredibly difficult non-conference schedule.
South Dakota forces more teams to take more threes than any other team in the league, and the ‘Dons make 10 threes per game and are 2nd in the conference in three point field goal percentage, which is why I am taking IPFW in this game…with a low amount of confidence.
Match up of the game could be: John Konchar (11.2 ppg, 7.7 rpg, 57 fg%) versus Tre Burnette (15.1 ppg, 6.4 rpg, 48fg%). Both are undersized at the 4 position, but are both very essential for their teams.
Oral Roberts @ Denver
I really wanted to say Oral Roberts here, and really just on the basis of Oral Roberts Cannot Drop Seven Games in a Row. That thinking is how you lose 500 dollars in roulette. How could it possibly land on red 6 times in a row? Clearly, the smart decision here is to put all my money on black! Green double zero! Where is that hospital that gives you money for a kidney?
The key to this game is if Obi Emegano will be in the game or not. Emegano missed Oral Roberts’ game against South Dakota and the Golden Eagles ended up losing by 10. The team made up of mostly newcomers had 22 turnovers against the Coyotes. You cannot turn the ball over against Denver who is going to make the most out of every possession on you, especially when Denver is traditionally a very good home team.
Assuming Emegano is not playing…the match up of the game could be Jalen Bradley (10.1 ppg, 24 made threes, 38 3pt fg%) versus Nate Engesser (13.1 ppg, 33 made threes, 56 fg%).
January 7th
South Dakota State @ IUPUI
This is another game that is coming down to a key injury. Jake Bittle has missed the last 6 games, and the Jackrabbits have acknowledged that they have a number of little nagging injuries to a number of players. The Jacks have dropped 2 of their last 5, which really is not all that terrible, but all the last 5 games have been close with or without Bittle…the scrappy defense of the Jaguars could really get to the Jackrabbits if they do not have Bittle. Seriously though, if Bittle plays you can change my prediction to South Dakota State winning the game. I discussed how the Summit League is so close that an injury to any team could affect their standings in conference play. Granted, I said teams 2 to 8, but Rob, you were there!
The key match up in this game could be Matt O’Leary (10.3 ppg, 5.4 rpg, 46 fg%) versus Mike Daum (11.9 ppg, 5.1 rpg, 52 fg%). I realize I look like a total clown picking this as the match up, but Daum could be the only chance the Jackrabbits have at stopping O’Leary. O’Leary has really been consistent all year and he kept getting wide open looks and getting to the basket against Omaha, but just couldn’t convert as he went 4-of-12 from the field…he could be able to find the bottom of the basket if he gets the same type of looks at home. Yes, I know defensively the Jackrabbits are different team than Omaha, but ride this out with me. O’Leary also leads all players 6’7″ or taller in assists in the league, so there is that as well.
Omaha @ North Dakota State
See, I am not a completely biased loon! The Mavericks have yet to beat North Dakota State since transitioning to D1. They are going to have to overcome the fact that almost no player on their current active roster has really had a good game against the Bison. In 4 career games, Devin Patterson has averaged 7.8 points and shot 22% from the field against the Bison. Ouch. Tre’Shawn Thurman did have 18 and 8 in his first game against the Bison last season, but only had 2 points later in the season when they moved him to the bench to bring in Jake White.
The Mavs need Thurman, Jake White (who combined for 2-of-13 in two games against the Bison last season), Daniel Meyer, and Randy Reed to play big against the defensively sound post of Chris Kading, Dexter Werner, and AJ Jacobson.
The fun match up will be Thurman against Jacobson after Thurman had his 18 and 8 in their first meeting and Jacobson had 17 and 8 in their first career game against each other. The key match up will be if Tra-Deon Hollins who leads the nation in steals can keep the ball away from Paul Miller who is scoring 16.6 points per game and shooting 43% from the field and from behind the arch.
January 9th
IUPUI @ Western Illinois
I fully believe IUPUI is the better team of the two, but IUPUI has not won in Macomb since 2011…and the Leathernecks are a completely different team at home. This game is on ESPN3, but it could be as difficult to watch as someone trying to decide between rebooting Weekend at Bernie’s or trying to come out with a good plot line for Weekend at Bernie’s 3. Watching Marcellus Barksdale defend Garret Covington could be worth the watch, but I have come to terms that Covington for as good of a scorer that Covington is, is incredibly boring to watch.
Omaha @ South Dakota
Alright good, I am back to being a homer. Both games between these two teams were exciting last year, even if Omaha did play with a hobbled Devin Patterson in Vermillion. The Mavs will have to hit some threes against South Dakota and/or get to the free throw line as much as possible. Omaha MIGHT have JT Gibson back by this one for some three point shooting.
IPFW @ Denver
The Dons were absolutely unphased by the Pioneers last season beating them by 16 points in both contests. Does this not seem like the least interesting match up of all Summit League teams? This is the Rachel Weisz film of the Summit League. Seriously, find a serious actor or actress with a lineup of less interesting films. It gets shaky after “The Mummy.”
North Dakota State @ Oral Roberts
Oral Roberts should have Obi Emegano back, which I think would add plenty enough emotion to give them confidence after losing so many games recently. I would like to say the Bison have the best defensive guards in the Summit League to handle Emegano, but he had 34 points on 12-of-17 shooting against the Bison last season in Tulsa. The Mabee Center is not an easy place for teams to come in and pick up wins, unless you are South Dakota…then it is a little easy somehow.
I will accept a partial amount of blame for the loss of this Eastern Michigan game. You see, and please do not attempt to find me and punch me in the face, but I took a Creighton season ticket holder to the game with me. Yes, I took Dick C. Fan with me. DCF is a UNO graduate. He is a MavJaySker, though Husker football is the only Nebraska sport that he roots for, but he is cool with UNO sports. DCF is more of a Creighton fan though, and because of his Creighton roots, he used to despise Jake White due to his Wichita State days. The funny thing is, DCF actually looks a little bit like Jake White. Remember, part of the plan is to get the MavJaySkers to get to UNO games and respect the players, coaches, and where the program has come. I may have given DCF a little too much flack in the past. He did follow UNO athletics in their division 2 days, but thought them moving to division 1 was a bit of a joke at first, but he appears to be comfortable with it now.
When Jake White announced that he was going to transfer to UNO, I immediately texted DCF and told him that his distant relative was going to be a Maverick. DCF was not happy. I think he cussed me out over a text message, and begged me to stop calling Jake White his cousin. Over parts of last season, I would text DCF to update him on how good Jake White was playing as a Mav, and he never responded to any of the texts.
The day the Mavericks played UMKC, DCF texted me to see if I wanted to go to the Creighton game with him. I told him no, but he could go to Eastern Michigan-UNO with me, so we struck up a deal that we go to the games together. Tuesday afternoon, I asked him if he was excited to see his cousin play basketball. He was the opposite of pumped.
When we got to the game, I really thought DCF was going to just start yelling expletives in Jake White’s direction. Instead, the UNO fan in him came out, and he said “there is my boy.” DCF even threw out a first pump when Jake White’s name was announced in the starting lineup. Then, the game happened…
This is the first game that I walked up the arena and people were not on the community ice practicing curling. DCF and I used to want to start a curling team, but we legitimately know nothing about curling. I would feel bad if I get into curling and was instantly good at it and pissed off some guys that were doing curling for decades and saw some guy who doesn’t know how to do it is amazing. It’s no diss at curling, I just don’t know what makes a curling guy a good curling athlete. I’ve never heard anyone say: “oh that Caleb Steffensmeier had a pretty good basketball career, but could imagine him as a master curler?”
DCF asked every question you could think of about Tre’Shawn Thurman and Tra-Deon Hollins, as he remembered watching them play at Central. I really thought about lying to him, but I told him what I knew.
DCF then told me how excited he was about Creighton’s Khyri Thomas, and I almost broke into tears to admit that I used to sit around and hope that Thurman and Thomas would come to UNO and kick start the program to the next level. UNO got half of my equation.
DCF kept hoping that UNO would pass the ball to Jake White, this was quite the change as 3 years ago he was calling Jake White offensive names.
You could tell that he was immediately impressed with Tre’Shawn Thurman, and he should be. Creighton fans will catch glimpses of him over time and be saying things like “ah crap”
With Thurman having 13 points and 8 rebounds at half, we shared a short discussion of Is Thurman better than Creighton forwards…it’s kind of a dumb conversation to get into, but it is what Omahans that like basketball are eventually going to talk about. We agreed that Thurman is probably right on par with Cole Huff from an amount of talent, there are things that Huff does better than Thurman, but there are things that Thurman does better than Huff. It would be pretty difficult for most coaches to decide who to start between them. We then agreed that Thurman is better than Zach Hanson and Toby Hegner, but DCF pointed out that Hanson is playing the best basketball of his college career up until this point. My thought on this is: It is Hanson’s junior year, he should be playing the best basketball of his collegiate career up until now. You don’t want to say, “hey, this guy was one of the best freshman I had ever seen and now he is absolute crap. I love it.”
I thought the most shocking part of looking at the stats of this game was that the fouls were actually even. Though, I continuously felt like UNO’s fouls were giving them the shaft. No one was ever really in foul trouble except for Hollins. I think the fouls got into the heads of some of the UNO players, especially the no calls. It is just weird that the refs get incredibly knit picky for 97% of the game but space out for another 3% of the game. All players need to adjust to this crap, the deeper and more mature teams are going to get through this. I believe Scott Nagy said that…not in those exact words, but you get it, right?
Jake White got fouled going up for a basket and the ball flew backwards…DCF and I went on to make a number of Caddyshack 2 references. This has to be the first time anyone has referenced this movie in quite some time. There were also Celtic Pride references shared between us. If Celtic Pride and Caddyshack 2 are not films you are familiar with, I am not sure we would get along.
DCF and I were both thinking that the Mavs should have kept Hollins out on the court when he picked up his 3rd foul pretty early in the second half. The offense was completely flat without him. There was too much standing around when he was on the bench. Can we get a check on how many assists Hollins gets as a result of his penetration to the basket? It has to be 2/3 of his assists.
Jake White and Tre’Shawn Thurman each had double-doubles…when was the last time UNO had two guys with double-doubles in a game…and when was the last time a Maverick had two double-doubles in a row…and when was the last time a sophomore had two double doubles in a row?
I had another game where I found myself asking: why did Randy Reed not play more? The kid had some real hustle plays down the stretch…the team needed that energy for more of the game. Can we not go with a front court of White-Thurman-Reed all at once? I know you probably lose some three point shooting with that line and do not stretch out the floor a bunch, but just let them all set screens for Hollins and Patterson to get around and they will find a cutting man. Is it something you want to go with for 20 minutes of the game? No. But I wish it is something that should be tried out for a 3 to 4 minute stretch. Last year the Mavs went with a Rostampour-Thurman-Reed front court against Oral Roberts for a few different couple minute stretches and it really bothered Korey Billbury of Oral Roberts.
DCF commented about how watching Jake White now is like watching a completely different player than what he saw from him at Wichita State. Claimed that at WSU he just stood around and wanted to shoot threes, and now he is down low posting up and getting knocked around down low. He was really blown away at his nemesis turned…not friend…but…dude guy he has no reason to hate?
I tried to get DCF to go to the family that holds up pictures of Maverick players faces when they are shooting free throws and demand an answer as why they have his picture when they are holding up Jake White’s photo. I could not convince him to do this, but it could been entertaining.
Thanks to Facebook’s On This Day, I was able to get reminded that 3 years ago on December 1st, I watched a terrible football game in which Nebraska was involved and it was the most embarrassed I ever was to watch a Husker football game.
Mavericks were 4 of 17 on threes in this game…is this killing Marcus Tyus? Like how it was killing Mike Rostampour when he was sitting out and the Mavs could not rebound the ball?
Night 2 – Creighton vs Arizona State
This was painful for me.
I do not hate Creighton athletics, but I do get annoyed with their fans. I would say it is safe to call me a MavJaySker…in fact I think that is my gamer tag on Xbox. I would just much rather watch their games on television or listen to them on the radio than to actually attend a game. Hanging with 18,000 people freak out at every single whistle, good or bad, is not my thing. Let me make a correction there, I would be with about 14,000 people freak out at ref calls as at any given time the CenturyLink Center has a combined 4,000 fans walking the arena looking for the cheapest beer that they can find, or they are permanently planted in the beer garden to brag up about how they went to the most expensive bar in all of Nebraska. You can also always find a handful of people reading a magazine at any given moment.
It’s also stressful to hear some drunk guy try to convince his friend that the ranking of best basketball programs goes as this: 1. Duke/North Carolina/Kentucky/Kansas…2. Creighton…350. UNO…351. Nebraska…And Creighton was a three point shot away from Booker Woodfox from beating Kentucky in the National Championship in 2009? 2010? Ah hell, that one year the NIT second round was just as good as the NCAA Tournament.
I also love that when you go to a Creighton game and the fan’s pregame analysis is just that the other team sucks. For three straight hours Wednesday night, I just heard how Arizona State was a shitty basketball team…then the Jays lost to them. So I guess that means the Jays are back.
Some takeaways from the Creighton game…
I remember a few years ago thinking that Geoff Groselle was going to be one of the worst ever in Creighton basketball history. He was recruited to be a Missouri Valley player, and his first couple seasons were filled with several injuries; and when he did play he would bobble the ball a lot and could never score a basket. I thought for sure he would transfer out at some point. He has turned into a completely competent player though, and the Jays actually draw up plays to get him the ball in the post. He had a moment at the end of the game where he grabbed an offensive rebound under the basket and the guy in between him and the basket was 6’3″ or so, and he should have just gone back up for the easy basket, instead he pissed off 18,000 people…or just the 6,000 or so people that were paying attention. I know the Jays were down by 3 at this point with a few minute to go, but take the easy basket when you can get it!
The Jays take care of the ball, and their perimeter defenders are never caught flat footed. They really don’t have the greatest weak side defense though…which led to a few wide the hell open threes.
An attendance dip tonight for the Jays actually, only around 16.2k…was it the 8 o’clock start time?
I’m still sitting here wishing Khyri Thomas would have gone to UNO.
What is with Division 1 universities in Omaha not being able to box out and let up a bunch of offensive rebounds?
I know the Jays like having stretch 4s, but Cole Huff and Toby Hegner took 13 threes. It’s nice to have big men that can hit threes, but having forwards that only want to take threes is…well…Walter Pitchford… Don’t you want bigs that use it as a last resort type of thing? Maybe I am just old fashioned and love Jake White shooting 60% in the paint. Dumb, right?
Arizona State’s warm ups had hoods on them. I am sure there is some story behind this, but I am just going to assume it has something to do with witchcraft and that is why they had a better second half.
Arizona State did not look like a great three point shooting team, but they hit threes right when it mattered.
Whoever is in the Billy Bluejay costume is doing a great job. He spun a basketball on his finger, that cannot be easy in a costume like that. They were also a great break dancer, seriously, a great job and could really give the Oregon Duck a run for his money…even if Billy Bluejay looks like an evil stork and not a Bluejay.
Cole Huff missed 2 free throws and 1 three pointer in the last 8 seconds of a 1 possession game. I feel sorry for Huff, not just that he missed the shots, but that the Jays fans are going to completely turn on him. How many days until they demand that Toby Hegner start over him?
I watched a number of Jays fans heading for the exits when Creighton was down by 1 point with 6 seconds to go, like the Jays were down by 12 points.
There were two guys behind me that looked like Creighton Bluejays super fans, but instead of talking about Jays basketball or cheering on the Jays, they just talked about Breaking Bad the whole time. Seriously though, Breaking Bad was fantastic. Great basketball scenes that were totally applicable to what was going on too.
I heard a number of Jays fans say that Creighton would have won that game if the refs would have called the 8 travels that Arizona State committed in the game. I seriously want you to find me a basketball game where the refs got every single traveling call right. I watched a number of Jays players travel with no whistles blown, and the Jays fans would clap on like it was a great move. I complain about calls too, but I would never say the one and only reason a team lost the game is because of the fouls.
Isaiah Zierden is the best shooter out of Creighton, Nebraska, and UNO. The balance in his shot is the best…the best Jerry. The Jays have great quick plays to get him wide open on the outside too, it is the best thing about watching the Jays.
I really thought Greg McDermott was going to have a hard time dividing up minutes between Groselle, Hanson, Hegner, Huff, and Krampej this year, as he has seemed to have trouble distributing minutes other than when it was just obvious to go with Doug McDermott and Ethan Wragge at the same time; but Greg has done a great job of that so far this season.
Heard a couple of Jays fans saying the worst part about the loss was that Arizona State didn’t have any stars that scare you. Honestly, what star does Creighton have? Zierden is a great shooter, but is he a star putting fear into his opponents for 40 minutes?
I’ve gone to two basketball games in two nights, and the home teams have lost in each one. I wanted to go to the Lady Mavs game tonight, but I am afraid I’ll drop three in a row and be the bad luck guy.
So I had kind of a bummer of a day yesterday. My laptop finally died on Thursday night and confirmed yesterday that it had passed. It was an ASUS, and I somehow got 7 years out of that piece of crap. I was hoping to stretch its life out until after Christmas, but I knew our relationship was ending soon, so I had been backing everything up pretty good for the last year or so. I still lost a few things that I will never get back, but I will not lose the pride in making a cheap hunk of junk last twice as long as it should have. If anyone wants to go to a field and break it to pieces with my wife’s softball bats and listen to some gangster rap, I’ve got a little spare time. We can bring the cheapest 40 we can find too. Why? Because I think it’s actually a societal norm that if a cop catches you doing illegal stuff in the middle of a field that you need to have a 40.
But there was a basketball game last night. It was frustrating, there was very little flow to it with all of the fouling. Yeah, not a big fan of the fouling. We saw some new faces and some old ones with new haircuts. The crowd was big, which was great. The student section was full! It wasn’t very loud, but they did not have much to cheer for in the first half. It was just a really odd first half. Justin Simmons and CJ Carter were both on the sideline to cheer on the Mavs. I think I may have saw Alex Phillips as well, but I was not 100% sure about it.
So my seats got temporarily moved over a section with something to do with hockey that I didn’t quite fully understand but I nodded my head because I am a weak adult, the new seats were not as great of an angle. I made up for it by drinking a Shock Top Twisted Pretzel ale. As far as I know, you can only get this beer at Omaha Mavericks and Omaha Stormchasers games. I am one and done with drinks at sporting events. I never get these people spending 80 bucks on 10 beers at a sporting event and going to the bathroom every 10 minutes. You spent at least 100 bucks to pretend to be at a sporting event. I’m pointing at you CenturyLink Citizens.
The pregame for my friend and I was at Ponzu. Why is Ponzu so bad at wrapping their sushi? It just falls apart. We were able to make at least 20 Seinfeld references though. You cant beat that.
As we were sitting there the marching band (or I assume the marching band) came by pounding on drums around Aksarben Village. My friend and I discussed how it’s actually kind of weird to see school spirit around UNO. That wasn’t there 5 years ago.
So Randy Reed? High energy guy off the bench? Damn it, I hope that continues! He is going to play such a big role in the Summit League, everyone has a 6’5″ or 6’6″ guy they throw in at the 4.
I know that Santa Barbara was missing their top returning player, and Omaha was missing Marcus Tyus, but Tyus’ three point shooting was dramatically missed last night. I still say the basket on the side of the visiting team’s bench is cursed.
The fouls got annoying, this is worse than two years ago, it completely took any flow out of the game. This scares me for a team that needs a face pace and flow to win games.
Jake White fouled out, took some contact himself, but he was healthy and that is so awesome. He had a hard fall to the ground and quickly got up, like it was his way of showing us all that he was alright. I remember a game last year in which he fell to the ground and my wife’s coach mind was saying “get up kid, get back on D, what is wrong with him?” And I sat there like: Careful babe, he might literally break.
I feel like Devin Patterson is able to channel this inner Chris Paul thing from time to time, but last night was not that night. He has taken bad games by him personally in the past and had great bounce back games in the past. Can he save that for UMKC when he goes up against an All American?
Did anyone notice that Kyler Erickson has an entire Millard South section cheering for him? I think it’s 215 or 216? His one rebound in the game was fantastic. It was another moment where I thought the Mavs were giving up another offense board, but then he came flying out of no where to start a break. He was out on the floor for the last defensive play. I want to point that out.
It was so hard for the Gauchos to find passing lanes with Devin Patterson and Tra-Deon Hollins on the court at the same time, like they seriously could not figure it out. I’m coining that backcourt as: The Devil’s Gate…whether you like it or not.
Hollins is a bandit. He steals everything. Remember in Home Alone 2 when Marv is thinking of all the dumb nicknames for him and Harry? I motion to nickname Hollins as The Sticky Bandit. It’s also great that this team has two passers that can penetrate as well. All the kick out threes from the two of them to Tyus and Gibson are hopefully coming.
I want to say this about Tre’Shawn Thurman. He picked up that second foul in the first half, and you could tell he was just angry with himself. He sat on that bench in absolute Hulk like anger. He was never more ready for that second half to begin. When the first half ended, he wasted no time getting up off that bench and running to the locker room. The fouls did not scare him in the second half, he came out more aggressive on offense and showed off some new post moves. You could feel his pain and anger at the end of the game as he walked off the court. He is a leader.
Seeing Zach Jackson get the start was a shock for me, especially since Tyus was in warm ups. Jackson did okay though, he didn’t pass up on his first shot and took it with confidence. He was not scared.
JT Gibson also played with great confidence. Those two threes in a row got the big crowd back into the game. He made it a game. Going to love watching Gibson and Jackson grow and develop.
Toward the end of the game, the team bench was dry. It was a close game, and guess who got the rest of the team to get up and cheer on their teammates…Ben Kositzke. I think I was sitting near the Ben Kositzke and Alex Allbery fan clubs too.
I saw Rylan Murry after the game. He looked sad. I wanted to yell “Skinny Love” again, but I had Pandora on Skinny Love at work all day on Thursday and I think I almost cried at the music selection.
Did I hear Jon Green say this right on the radio: If UNO Volleyball wins the regular season title, they get to host the Summit League tournament the following year? Oh my. I wish this worked to a degree in basketball. But like, since we beat Marquette last season, they have to come to Omaha to play the following year. Or if Wisconsin lost to Western Illinois last night, they will have to travel to the fine town of Macomb in 2016. Why cant that be a thing?
IUPUI beat Indiana State. Oral Roberts beat Missouri State. North Dakota State beat UC Davis. How tough is the Summit this year?
If the Mavericks are ever on ESPN or ESPN2, or whenever they make the NCAA tournament; I badly want to see Derrin Hansen slowly and dramatically take off his glasses like he is in the cheesiest TNT drama that has ever been produced.
Twice this week I was up past midnight watching sports. Tuesday night for the World Series, and last night for the Oregon Ducks-Arizona State game. Today could be rough, but I am still on a Baxter Arena high, so there is that. Here are some random observations from last night’s Midnight Madness event.
Mikaela Shaw informed us that the student section for basketball games will be right behind the visitor’s bench. I love that, great move.
Are the curtains going to be down for most of the sections during basketball games? Like, I get it. But what if a visiting team’s fans wants to come in and buy out one of those sections? We wont turn them down, right?
The taco cannon shot a taco right next to me. I was 2 seats away from a free taco. I have also realized that I will probably never recognize the person holding and shooting the cannon as a person. I just see a taco cannon and I do not recognize a person, I just see a taco cannon that is floating around on it’s own shooting out bliss wrapped in tortillas.
I saw Rylan Murry walking around and I really wanted to scream “Skinny Love!” into his direction and then run away like I’m a 4th grade girl.
The women’s scrimmage was nice. None of the women had their numbers on the back of their jersey, so every time a new player touched the ball I would have to ask who the heck that was, since there are so many new players.
In the Summit League teleconference, Brittany Lange talked about how impressed she was in newcomers Ellie Brecht and Amber Vidal, and they do look very impressive. Vidal’s point guard skills are fantastic. Really excited to see her run the team’s offense. Like, I want to create her as a player in NBA 2k16 and have her run my team.
All the women’s team appears to show a lot potential. The hype in their recruits might be real. This team could be stacked next year too if they keep everyone together and add in their transfers in 2016-2017. Incredibly curious how the minutes get divided up though.
I am glad that Rodney Rogan is not a professional referee.
I was sitting on the side where the men’s team was warming up, so I was watching them warm up instead of the women.
The freshman that I have heard the least about, Zach Jackson, looks like he could be a really good player. I do not think that he missed a shot in warm ups, or even in the team’s scrimmage. Seriously look up any photo of him though, he might be incapable of smiling. Looks like he has some pretty good ball handling too, but let’s get a real game under our belts and see whats up.
Can we give Zach Pirog the nick name of “The Mile High”? I watched Zach Pirog take the ball coast to coast and get a dunk, so my life is complete.
I was actually really impressed with Ben Kositzke. I know it is all based on an open scrimmage and warm ups, but he was showing some good stuff: hitting some jumpers, keeping guys out of the low block, putting on a couple post moves. Also, I am a Millard South guy, so to be impressed with a Millard West guy should mean something.
Speaking of Millard South, Kyler Erickson had a crossover that changed my life. By the way, when I was in high school I badly wanted to make fake letter jackets that said Millard East. I would wear it all over town and convince people there was a Millard East High School that was just atrocious and undersized in basketball and football.
Daniel Meyer looks like he has bulked up, like he just goes to the rocky mountains and lifts boulders and pushes cars up mountains just for the thrill. All in blue jeans too. I also watched him take the ball coast to coast. Scrimmages, man.
Jake White just looks overall healthier, a healthy Jake White could really be a an All Conference player.
Marcus Tyus got to play, his knee looks fine. Boo ya!
Tra-Deon Hollins is going to bring great defense, sweet dunks, and another great passer to his team…not a bad thing to have at all.
Randy Reed was hitting the three on command in warm ups, and handling the ball in the scrimmage really nice. Granted, it’s not like Devin Patterson and Hollins were trying to poke the ball away from him constantly, but I can be optimistic about things. Randy Reed can fly too, he might be a super hero.
The shooting competition was pretty fun, but for some reason the basket on the side where the visiting team’s bench is lost every single time. Jake White couldn’t miss on the other end, but then couldn’t make it on that end. I am convinced that side is cursed. The Mavs are going to lose the first half of every game. By the way, I have been a Celtics fan my whole life. Even through the Rick Pitino era, so I sometimes scare easily with basketball.
The student that shot for free tuition made the lay up and free throw pretty easily, but the three pointer was rough. Josh White shagged the ball for him for a little bit. Josh White might be the best passer in Maverick history. I call for Josh White shagging the ball for every shooting challenge this season.
Tre’Shawn Thurman did not have a great dunk competition. It made me sad. Tra-Deon Hollins won it (see previous tweets). By the way, Omaha Central has 4 players from their 2013 state championship team in division one.
Quite possibly the greatest photo ever. Photo by Mark Kuhlmann
Two weeks until college basketball. Two of the longest weeks of the year. It will be like when you drive from Denver to Omaha and it all goes pretty quickly until you get to Grand Island and time slows down because it hates you.
Sometimes I find preseason predictions pointless, other than starting a conversation about the upcoming season or letting people know what could potentially be the biggest games of the year, there is not really much of a point to it.
I mainly find them useless because of the methodology in ranking teams. Many seem to just copy and past the standings of last year, and then make a small edit if a team had a high amount of turnover from last season’s roster. But I came up with a plan to do this for the Summit League. I was reading some preseason predictions for the Big 10 football season which was done by a bunch of ESPN writers. Some made good points but they all had to come up with a record for each team, and the math did not always make sense. One clown had Ohio State going 12-0 with a 8-0 Big Ten record and Michigan State going 11-1, and also with a 8-0 Big Ten record. Seriously, how drunk and lazy and/or bad at math was that guy? Or some guys would have two teams going 8-0 in conference, a couple going 0-8, and everyone else going 5-3. The math didn’t add up and they were telling you that these teams would win these amount of games because they are Skeletor and they said so.
So I came up with a plan. I would go through the Summit League conference schedule and assign wins and losses over the course of a number of weeks. At first it was just: South Dakota State is a better team than Denver, so win goes to the Jackrabbits. Then later, I would look at the difficulty of each team’s conference schedule. Obviously, everyone plays each other twice, but there are some things that stick out; like how Denver is the only team with the highway to the danger zone in playing at North Dakota State and South Dakota State in back to back games. Or how South Dakota and Oral Roberts are the only two Summit League teams without three straight games on the road in conference play. Then things like Omaha playing on the road against someone on a Thursday, as road games on Thursdays appear to be difficult for most teams. Actually road games are pretty difficult for anyone. Then I would go through the schedule again and consider some teams’ strengths versus their opponents weaknesses. Like how teams better be good at three point shooting against South Dakota as they forced teams to take the most threes with their defense…and other things.
But I assigned wins and losses to each game, and did it several times considering different factors. Then I plain and simple would add up each team’s wins and losses to see who had the most after going through it about 15 times. Is it perfect? No. Is it better than just saying South Dakota State will go 15-1 in conference because of Jesus? Probably.
Really, after going through all of this; I really do not see much separation between many of the teams. South Dakota State seems like a clear cut favorite. Then North Dakota State seems like they are 2nd best, but they really should not be as comfortable as one would think. Then Oral Roberts-Omaha-IPFW-IUPUI-South Dakota appear to be in a fight for spots 3 to 7 with Denver and Western Illinois sitting at 8 and 9; but Denver is a difficult place to play; and Western Illinois, while not great last year, they do return basically everything.
So much of the 3 to 9 in the Summit League appears to come down to:
Who can stay healthy?
Who can win on the road?
Who can pick up a win against South Dakota State and North Dakota State?
But for the sake of length, I am going to just post about Omaha to get started and why they should win more games than their 5-11 record last season. Then I will come out with the rest of the Summit League later.
Omaha
Range of wins: 7 to 11 wins
Boldest Predictions: Will pick up win against North Dakota State at home, will sweep South Dakota
Clearly, I am biased in how well I think the Mavs could do this season. The Mavericks finished 5-11, but they had 4 conference losses decided by one or two possessions. I know it does not work this way, but the Mavericks could have finished 8-8 or 9-7 in the Summit League had just a couple more things gone their way. There is also more to play for with the Mavericks this season, and they should have a slightly stronger home court advantage with their new arena being right on campus. The attendance for the Mavericks has risen each season since transition, and people in town are starting to take them more serious. 2012-2013 was probably the most fun season to watch, but Omahans did not seem to even notice. UNO Men’s Basketball was that new television show that had some good looking commercials that got you interested; but it was pitted in the same time slot as Breaking Bad in it’s prime and Sunday Night Football. Justin Simmons had some of the most exciting dunks you could possibly witness; but Doug McDermott was in the middle of one of the greatest careers in Creighton and NCAA history; and Tim Miles was bringing a personality to the Huskers. Omahans were in the mode of thinking they’d like to go to a Mavs game, but never fully pulled the trigger. A few years later: Creighton is down and Nebraska is too young for locals to know what is happening. UNO has a brand new arena, in a fun part of town, some local guys on the roster that can make some noise, and six seniors to help start the new era of the program.
The Mavericks also have a pretty good way to start conference play with Western Illinois and IUPUI at home. 2013-2014 started @ Western Illinois, @ North Dakota State, @ South Dakota State; and 2012-2013 was @ North Dakota State, @ South Dakota State, and then a month conference break before they had South Dakota and Kansas City at home before going back on the road against very good IPFW and Oakland teams. Last year the Mavs started on the road @ South Dakota and Western Illinois, and then came back home for North Dakota State and South Dakota State, before going back on the road against Oral Roberts. The Mavs are finally not being welcomed to the Summit League with the middle finger jammed in front of their face, so hopefully they can start league play with some momentum. The most difficult part of the conference schedule is going to be three straight road games at Denver, and the Mavericks yet to have a good game in the state of Colorado; then at Oral Roberts which is one of the toughest places to play in the Summit League; and then at South Dakota State who is the preseason favorite in the league and swept the Mavs last season by margins of 19 and 22 points.
As far as what is returning to the Mavericks: they lost Mike Rostampour and CJ Carter, but they are returning 61% of their scoring; which is the 4th highest in the league. Marcus Tyus and Devin Patterson as a returning back court is arguably one of the top 3 back courts in the league. Jake White is hopefully healthy enough to give significant minutes when the conference season turns around, he is tied with his fellow teammate Tre’Shawn Thurman as the 2nd leading returning rebounder in the league. Randy Reed and Tim Smallwood should hopefully finally have roles edged out to really help this team improve. Lack of depth was an issue for this team last season, but newcomers Zach Pirog, JT Gibson, and Tra-Deon Hollins sound as if they can really help the Mavericks improve on some of the weaknesses the Mavs had in 2014-2015, and add some needed depth to this team. This team can go big, it can go small, it has adaptable lineups that can go up against anyone in the Summit.
From what I could tell, the preseason predictions biggest concerns with the Mavericks are that they cannot make up for the loss of Mike Rostampour and CJ Carter. Okay, everyone loses someone in college athletics, but should we really be concerned about losing two guys that were not recruited to ever play in a Summit League conference tournament? So really, why are people so hard on them for losing Rostampour and Carter, but no one is hard on IPFW for losing Steve Forbes and Joe Edwards; or South Dakota for losing Tyler Larson and Brandon Bos; or Oral Roberts for losing half of their team? Please don’t take this as a Rostampour and Carter Were Not Unimportant thought… The Mavs would not be the same without them. The point is, it does not seem like the Mavericks are asking as much out of their newcomers and returning players as much as other teams. They are asking Jake White to be healthy enough to score 2-4 more points and grab a couple more rebounds, which I realize is easier said than done; Tre’Shawn Thurman to continue to improve; Tyus and Patterson to be more consistent; and Reed and Smallwood work more on their roles that they established toward the end of last season. Other than North Dakota State and South Dakota State, everyone else appears to be asking guys to come in and be stars or huge impacts right away. One thing that does scare me about Omaha finishing in the top half of the conference is the injury to Marcus Tyus. He’s coming off ACL surgery that he injured in February. Being ready in full form throughout November, December, and January just seems like a lot to look for at this point.
Hip hip hooray, it’s the annual: Who the Heck is Going to be in the Starting Line Up this Season post
I was listening to the Summit League media day, it sounded as if Derrin Hansen was not 125% sure of who to start on his team, and it is kind of fun to sit around and speculate stuff for people so here we go. If millions of people can sit at their computers dressed like a 7 foot tall puppy and speculate as to why Mark Hamill is not on the new Star Wars poster, then I can sit on the internet decked out in UNO Mavs gear and speculate who is going to start for the Mavericks and who will be the first guys off the bench.
One can safely assume that Devin Patterson and Tre’Shawn Thurman will be back in the starting line up. One could also assume that Marcus Tyus will be in the starting five as well, but he ended the season early on a knee injury in 2014-2015. It has been put out there that Tyus is doing fine in his recovery, and I am sure he is, but remember when Jake White got hurt in his junior season and we kept being told that he would be back next game because he was doing fine? I am sure that Tyus will be in the starting line up, but maybe not at first. We will see how his knees is actually doing in a few weeks.
So that leaves two spots open for starters to replace Mike Rostampour and CJ Carter.
Is it safe to assume that Jake White will fill in Rostampour’s spot? White started in 3 games in his junior season as a Maverick. He averaged 6.3 points per game in those three starts, and 8.3 rebounds. He is probably the obvious choice over sophomore Daniel Meyer and freshman Zach Pirog.
What becomes a more difficult choice for Hansen and staff will be filling in the void left by CJ Carter, one of the top scorers in school history. The leading candidates at this point appear to be Tim Smallwood, Tra-Deon Hollins, Randy Reed, or JT Gibson.
I was kind of hard on Smallwood and Reed last season. It’s not that I thought they were bad players, I just felt that UNO was not entirely sure how to use them for most of the season and did not have well defined roles for either of them for a majority of the year. I was unsure about them as most of you would be if there was a new movie coming out featuring Adam Sandler and Nicholas Cage. Over a ten game stretch, Smallwood had 3 DNPs, and was 0-10 from three point land. I felt that Reed’s junior year was up and down. One game he was getting 20 minutes, then the next game he was getting 2 minutes, and then a week from then he was getting a DNP. It just seemed like it was difficult for either of them to get any rhythm going. I would love a world where Smallwood is hitting three 3s a game and Reed is getting a monstrous dunk every other play. That world might actually have Luke Skywalker on a Star Wars poster.
Then Marcus Tyus went down with an injury and missed the last 6 games of the season, and these two guys became the twist at the end of an independent film. Smallwood was put into the starting line up, and I thought to my self: oh great, the guy who hasn’t had it in 2015 is getting the starting spot. When Smallwood started getting more minutes, I realized how good of a defender he was. He was not racking up a bunch of steals or blocks, but he was disrupting opposing players shots and passes, and he was a big reason why the Mavericks ended the season on a 3 game winning streak. I grew super proud of his work on the defensive end in those last 6 games. His 5-of-7 from downtown at IUPUI was a big factor for what helped the Mavericks hold on for a overtime win. A statistic that surprised me when I saw the final results was that UNO finished 8th in the Summit League in 3 point field goal percentage last season. Whether Smallwood is going to start or be one of the first guys off the bench, he has to help improve the team’s 3 point shooting. If he can get his 26% 3 point shooting up to the 33% range, he can be a huge impact on his team. The Mavs are 3-1 when Smallwood hits two threes or more…
Going into 2015, Smallwood has scored in 7 straight appearances. How does Paul Miller tie his shoes? Photo by Mark Kuhlmann
Due to life, my wife was not able to get to many games last season. She was able to attend Oral Roberts at the Ralston Arena. When Randy Reed came onto the court, my wife asked me who this guy was. I read off his resume to her, and we watched on. Reed was the high energy guy off the bench that the Mavericks needed that game. He had clutch defensive plays to keep the game close, blocked some shots, altered even more shots, and really disrupted the Oral Roberts’ rhythm. Every time the Mavs were on defense and Randy Reed was on the court, the Mavs fans were completely locked in. We all wanted to see Reed take his game to the next level that night. Like, who cares if they have Obi Emegano? We’ve got Randy Reed on defense! You have to like Reed coming off the bench though, since he can really guard the 4 and the 3. With the much of the Summit League going to small ball, teams will really have a difficult time going up against Tre’Shawn Thurman and Randy Reed at the 4 for 40 minutes if they really want to play small ball against the Mavericks. If they want to play big, the Mavs can go with Reed at the 3 and either Meyer, Pirog, Thurman, or White at the 4 and 5.
Reed can be one of the most excited Mavs to watch. Photo by Mark Kuhlmann
Then there is Tra-Deon Hollins. Get excited for this kid. He adds a lot to this team, and he brings a lot to the areas that the Mavericks were missing last season. He can defend, he can pass, he can score, he can rebound, and he can hit threes. I would not be shocked if he got into foul trouble (along with other guards) early on in the season with the rule changes in college basketball, but hopefully everyone can adjust to everything fairly quickly. If Hollins does not start and he is used as the high energy bench guy, he should definitely be on the court in crunch time in most situations. It seems to take junior college players a little while to really define their role on a team, unless they are going to a 0-30 team that had no scoring before and they averaged 25 a game in junior college, then they probably know they will be taking a large quantity of shots. Hollins knows what the Mavericks were missing last year though, so hopefully it does not take him long to find his niche.
The Mavericks and some local media sound to be pretty excited about J.T. Gibson as part of future for the Mavs. Gibson was the player of the year for the state of Minnesota last year, and there are several Minnesotans that think bigger schools made a mistake by not recruiting Gibson. Sounds like this other guy named Tre’Shawn that we know. I have doubt that Gibson will start right off the bat for the Mavericks, but maybe he will as the season goes on and he establishes himself. He would really have to impress coaches and set himself apart from teammates as there are so many upperclassmen guards on the team. Apparently, Gibson is completely capable of playing the both guard positions.
Either way, the Mavericks should at least know who their top 8 guys are at this point. They probably even have a good idea what their best line ups are, which is not something every team in the Summit League has figured out yet.
Joe Scott knows his team is young and the Pioneers are a work in progress, but he is preaching maturity to his team.
Jon Coffman is pretty damn excited about college basketball and his team.
Redshirt Freshman John Konchar has apparently put on a ton of muscle, and the ‘Dons are really excited about him and are more prepared to go small ball this year in the Summit
Brent Calhoun is expected to make a big jump for the ‘Dons, he has lost a bunch of weight and is in the best shape of his life.
I have realized that after an entire season that I have been spelling “Mastodons” incorrectly.
Jason Gardner is excited about this program, and thinks his staff will be more comfortable working together this year. He has gained a large amount of respect for the Summit League.
In his opinion, Mason Archie is his team’s best defender and wants to defend the other team’s best player.
Marcellus Barksdale had to play four different positions in just about every single game for the Jaguars, he will not have to do that this year and expects Barksdale to benefit from not having to playing too many different roles.
Barksdale and Archie have both graduated already, and set a great example for the team.
His 4 transfers are really going to help this team.
The new arena has really helped the Jaguars in recruiting.
Dave Richman acknowledges that his team has 11 of his 15 guys as freshman and sophomores, but they are a deeper and more talented team than last year.
Chris Kading had 3 surgeries in the off season, will probably miss the first couple games of the regular season.
Lawrence Alexander carried the Bison on his back, he was the winningst most player in Bison history, it is not going to be easy to replace him. They will have to replace him by committee.
The Bison ended up 12-4 in the league, but many of their games were won by just a possession.
Derrin Hansen (and Brittany Lange) is excited about the new arena, it has been a huge asset to the program, and they know it will help them catch up to the rest of the league in the next few years. Not to mention it is extremely huge for the community.
Hansen is expecting more productivity from Tim Smallwood, Hansen is unclear if Smallwood will start or come off the bench yet. Smallwood has a much better feel for the game right now. He was a huge help when Marcus Tyus missed the last 6 games of the season.
Devin Patterson has become better in his leadership role.
Marcus Tyus is coming off his knee injury very well.
Jake White was only healthy for 2 or 3 games last year, he can have a big year if he is healthy.
Randy Reed is going to have a big role this year.
The players UNO has brought in bring in a winning culture, with all of them playing in their state championship games. Zach Jackson’s team won the state championship.
Hansen thinks his new guys can be immediate impacts for his program, but it sounds like minutes may be an issue at this point.
Scott Sutton says he is excited and optimistic, but he also sounds like he wants to skip the morning and get straight to lunch. He likes his new players, he knows there will be growing pains, but it is a tough group of guys that should be ready by the conference schedule. Their non-conference schedule should really help prepare the Golden Eagles for the Summit League.
Obi Emegano and Brandon Conley have both been injured throughout the summer and had shoulder surgeries, but are doing very well at this point. The staff is doing the best that they can to protect them.
Sutton thinks the rule changes in college basketball are going to benefit a guy like Emegano the most. He already led the league last year in free throws attempted per game and he should get even more attempts at the line this season. Sutton also likes how his team plays with a 30 second shot clock.
Sutton really really likes Jalen Bradley, and will have a hard time keeping him out of the lineup. Bradley got to play a lot on the team’s summer trip, where the team got to play with a 24 second shot clock.
Sutton could have a year where he is starting a couple freshmen. AJ Owens is their post player, but not as consistent as they would like him to be. Owens could have the biggest jump this year in the league.
Craig Smith sounds like he came to party. He thinks it is going to be a heck of a year for the Summit League, and his team will be a work in progress. He is glad that his team set a foundation and a culture last year. They lost a lot of scoring, so they have to figure out a way to score the ball.
Smith really does not know who is going to help take on the scoring yet, but Tre Burnette really caught on toward the end of the season. Casey Kasperbauer is one of the best three point shooters he has ever coached.
The Coyotes have had a lot of injuries. They have 17 players on the roster, but ended a practice with only 10 players recently. It has been hard to get going and figure out lineups and who plays well together.
Dan Jech can score in a lot of different ways and is a great rebounder. Smith sounds really excited about Jech.
Tyler Hagedorn has a great feel for the game and can do a lot of different things.
Tyler Borchers has been a great surprise for the Coyotes, he doesn’t look pretty with everything that he does, but he does great things.
Scott Nagy says his team has taken their time getting ready because of the great experience that they have at the guard position. He thinks the Jackrabbits have a lot of depth, which is going to be needed in college basketball with the rule changes.
He points out that preseason awards mean nothing. No one expected Deondre Parks and George Marshall to be all league picks last year. Some transfers from IUPUI or on other teams could be big time players, and no one knows anything about them yet.
Jake Bittle and George Marshall both have nagging injuries, nothing that would keep them out, but they will be hurting after games.
Nagy thinks his team is smaller than he would like it to be. They could even go very small with no true post player in some games.
Adam Dykman works extremely hard, and down the road will be a tremendous 4 man in the future.
The biggest question mark for the Jackrabbits is: how will they replace Cody Larson? They are looking at 3 guys to replace him…Connor Devine, Ian Theisen, and Mike Daum. He has no idea who will be their starting center at this point.
Nagy just seems displeased by rule changes, doesn’t see the need for them, but they have to play with them. He doesn’t think the rule changes will affect how they play though.
Billy Wright feels his program is headed in the right direction. His team has set a philosophy in how they want to recruit and compete.
Western Illinois returns 85% of their scoring.
His freshman are working hard to compete for starting spots and playing time.
Garret Covington has really worked hard to improve his rebounding
JC Fuller is one of the most underrated players in the league.
De’Angelo Brewster and Brandon Gilbeck will have big breakout years as freshmen.
The Summit League is close in talent, you are an injury or two away from going from the top to the bottom, or a recruit away from going from the bottom to the middle of the pack.
Basketball, meh, mainly the NBA has entered into an era of looking at teams by asking the question: Who has the best Big 3? Having a Big 3 certainly is key, but really I think it’s just as important to follow up with who has better role players to back up Big 3? Could the 2008 Boston Celtics have won an NBA championship without their young starters Kendrick Perkins, Rajon Rondo, and older bench players of PJ Brown, Sam Cassell, and James Posey? But while we are on the subject, that I brought up, let’s take a look at who could have the best Big 3 in the Summit League in the 2015-2016 season.
SDSU:
Jake Bittle, George Marshall, Deondre Parks
There is little doubt that the Jackrabbits will have the best guard trio in the league. Each averaged double figures in scoring, and all three can defend the perimeter. Each averaged double figure scoring, and Bittle has the highest field goal percentage of any returning player to the Summit league at 53.4 %. The Jackrabbits also have 3 of the top 5 returning players in 3 point field goals made, Marshall made 64 threes in 2014-2015 and he did not even play the entire season. The big question mark is; with Cody Larson graduating, who is going to rebound and defend in the post for them?
The Jackrabbits are returning 74% of their scoring from 2014-2015.
Role Players:
Reed Tellinghuisen, 6-6 SO: If you look at the Jackrabbits fan forum, someone posted pictures of Tellinghuisen lifting weights, which is not weird at all. He does appear as if he has added some weight onto his frame, which is great as he will be used more at the 4 position in his second year as a Jackrabbit. The Summit League has Tellinghuisen, AJ Jacobson, and Tre’Shawn Thurman all in the same class at the forward position. How excited are you for 2017-2018?
Connor Devine/Ian Theisen: These two split time and basically taking turns of who was backing up All Conference player Cody Larson. These two combined for for almost 5 points and 4 rebounds per game. With a young front court, these two will be counted on more in the 2015-2016 season to step up.
Skyler Flatten, 6-6 SO: Flatten was actually getting a decent amount of minutes, but then something happened. George Marshall happened.
Keaton Moffitt, 6-5 SR: Keaton Moffitt also happened. The transfer, from Division 2 Sioux Falls, made quite the impact on his team with his leadership and hustle, routinely making big plays when it was needed most.
Omaha:
Devin Patterson, Tre’Shawn Thurman, Marcus Tyus, (Jake White)
The Mavericks could have a Big 4 if Jake White is healthy, with as many injuries as he had in his junior season, it is going to be like getting an entirely new player in the line up. It seemed as if the entire team faced injuries issues last season, so if the Mavs can stay healthy, they can be a very dangerous team in the Summit League with their senior back court of Patterson and Tyus to go along with their rising sophomore star Tre’Shawn Thurman.
Random stat: The Mavericks have the most experienced roster with the average eligible player being 2/3 of the way through their sophomore season, but they have the smallest roster with an average height of 6’4″. If Zach Jackson, Ben Kositizke, and Zach Pirog all redshirt, the roster gets even smaller, but more experienced. It is still up for debate if this is one of the meaningless things I have ever posted here.
The Mavericks are looking to make a big jump with a new arena and new era.
Role Players:
Tra-Deon Hollins, 6-2 JR: Averaged 17 ppg, 6.2 rpg, and 5.3 apg his freshman season of junior college, he appears to be a little bit of everything, and can really help the Mavericks improve their perimeter defense.
Daniel Meyer, 6-9 SO: Only averaged four and a half minutes a game in 2014-2015, but he is likely to see an increased role with the graduation of Mike Rostampour and the departure of fellow redshirt freshman Rylan Murry. Meyer appeared to play with a lot of activity on the team’s trip to Italy.
Randy Reed, 6-6 SR: I’d like to see Reed’s shot chart, I cannot think of many jump shots Reed made, or took. He really can slash and get to the basket though. When Marcus Tyus missed the last 6 games of the season, Reed really did a decent job of bringing energy off the bench. There were many instances in the Mavericks’ home game against Oral Roberts that he made a play to keep Omaha in the game. I would think with not a ton of post players around the Summit League that Reed will be used as a backup 4.
NDSU:
Kory Brown, Carlin Dupree, AJ Jacobson
After losing the Summit League player of the year, Lawrence Alexander, the Bison will look to replace that offense in their back court. AJ Jacobson said in a Q&A that the Bison are all about a team effort, and know that there is a next one up to take Alexander’s place. It will probably actually be two up with Kory Brown and Carlin Dupree to take the load on offense over. Seriously, this team is starting to become the HYDRA of the Summit League.
While this team is still relatively young, they seem to have completely bought into Dave Richman’s schemes. A Big 3 probably does not really matter to the Bison, they appear to be ready for anything. Looking at their roster, they probably have the most complete roster in the Summit League. It is also probably worth nothing; that while the Bison are a young team, their roster has the most division one starts on the active roster for 2015-2016 with 197 starts. Kory Brown is after all a 4 year starter…assuming he is going to start this season.
The Bison will continue to work as a team after the loss of Lawrence Alexander.
Role Players:
Chris Kading, 6-8 SR: Kading averaged 5.3 points per game and 3.9 rebounds per game in 2014-2015. He is not much of a threat on offense, but he does rarely make mistakes. Actually the Bison rarely make mistakes as a team. Kading led the Summit League in blocks per game.
Paul Miller, 6’4 SO: Miller averaged 6.7 points per game and 3.8 rebounds per game, while making 37 threes in his freshman campaign, which is all impressive considering he was sharing the back court with the likes of Lawrence Alexander, Kory Brown, and Carlin Dupree. He also had 10 games in which he scored in double figures.
Dexter Werner, 6-6 JR: Had a massive jump from his sophomore to his junior season going from 2.8 points per game to 8.4 points per game. He also only averaged under 20 minutes per game in 2014-2015. With Werner coming off the bench, he and Jacobson allow the Bison to be extremely tough at the 4 position for 40 minutes. It also allows Jacobson to move over to the 3 and play more outside, which is not a bad thing for them. Werner was second on the team in blocks per game, and is tied with Omaha’s Tre’Shawn Thurman as the 2nd leading shot blocker returning to the league.
IUPUI:
Marcellus Barksdale, Darrell Combs, Nick Osborne
A bunch of new faces for IUPUI, which is not a terrible thing. Marcellus Barksdale is the team’s returning leading scorer, but he can easily fall to the team’s 2nd or 3rd best scorer on the team. Eastern Michigan transfer Darrell Combs is ready to go and has shown he can get buckets. I cannot wait for the “combing the court” puns from terrible ESPN3 commentators. Loyola-Illinois transfer Nick Osborne is expected to make a big impact on this team as well, and will more than likely serve as the team’s primary post presence, as he and other Loyola-Illinois transfer Matt O’Leary are the only upperclassmen post players on the team. Osborne was known for getting into lots of foul trouble when he was a post player for Loyola. The Jaguars are going to look entirely different this season.
The Jaguars exceeded expectations in 2014-2015, what can they do with a group of new and improved players?
Role Players:
Seriously, how many 6’5″ guards do the Jaguars need?
Aaron Brennan, 6-6 SO: Averaged 6.4 points per game in 2014-15 and started in 24 games, but could be moved to the bench with the additions of Osborne and O’Leary. Not a bad thing for your team to have a guy on your bench with 24 career starts as a freshman.
DJ McCall, 6-5 SO: Averaged a shade under 5 points per game and had 15 starts on the year. Could also see an increase of minutes with the graduations of Elijah Ray and Khufu Najee.
The further I get into this, I realize that the entire team is a group of role players.
South Dakota
Tre Burnette, Tyler Flack, Casey Kasperbauer
I admit that throwing Flack’s name into the mix is a risk. Due to an injury, he has yet to play under Craig Smith, but Craig is probably going to like using a 6’7″ guy who shot 45% on threes in his sophomore season. Combine that with Casey Kasperbauer ranking 95th in the nation last season in threes made, and South Dakota will rely on the three ball a lot this season, again. The trio can really make up for the losses of Tyler Larson and Brandon Bos from last season.
Tre Burnette is the Summit League’s leading returning rebounder from 2014-2015, and Kasperbauer has the most three point field goals made of any returning player to the League, he also has the 3rd highest three point field goal percentage of any returning player.
South Dakota lost 56% of their scoring, that is the most in the Summit League.
Role Players:
Trey Norris, 6-0 Sr: Came off the bench in his junior year after being a starter in his sophomore season, but will compete for the starting point guard position with incoming JuCo player, Shy McClelland. Norris had a drop off in production from his sophomore season under coach Smith, but he can still be a capable part of the offense for the Coyotes.
Eric Robertson, 6-8 Sr: He made the game winning shot over the Mavericks in Omaha, right? I just remember the beard, and being incredibly angry. I do not completely blame him for the Mavericks’ loss, it is just the final image I have in my mind of that game. Perhaps an increased role in his senior season with the departure of James Hunter, but Craig Smith did a decent job recruiting two 6’9″ freshman (Tyler Hagedorn and Dan Jech) that he may be intrigued to get to the top of the rotation immediately.
IPFW
Mo Evans, Max Landis, Joe Reed
I continuously forget about the existence of Max Landis, but he is on the team, I swear it, and he was 4th on the team in scoring last season. The ‘Dons lost a lot of their post game, and they do not appear to have much replacing what they lost, so the team could rely a lot on Mo Evans to be a star. Landis will be there to shoot the three, and Joe Reed will need to be counted on even more to be a stretch 4 than he has before. Seriously, this is the first time we have seen the ‘Dons without a serious threat of a stretch 4. Yep, first time in 5 years? Reed did shoot 36% from behind the line last year, but did not take many as he only made ten on the year. The team will be counting on two junior college transfers to fill the void of what they lost from last season, and will need them to adjust and contribute quickly.
Side note: The ‘Dons will have transfers from Louisiana Tech, Purdue, and Bradley all eligible to play in 2016-2017.
The ‘Dons have the fewest number of Division 1 starts by players on their roster.
Role Players:
Andrew Poulter, 6-11 JR: Played in seven games his redshirt freshman year at Arkansas-Little Rock before transferring to Western Texas for his sophomore season, where he averaged 7 points and 5 rebounds per game.
DeAngelo Stewart, 6-6 JR: Played his freshman season at Alabama State before transferring to Northwest Tech in Kansas for his sophomore season. Averaged 16 ppg, 6 rpg, and shot 47% from the field in his sophomore season. A few people have already tabbed Stewart as the Newcomer of the Year in the Summit League.
Western Illinois:
Garret Covington, JC Fuller, and Jabari Sandifer
It is hard to determine who the Leathernecks’ third best player is behind Covington and Fuller. Sandifer was the third leading scorer on the team with 7.4 points per game, and he also led the Summit League in assists with 4.3 per game. He even had a great opening weekend in the Summit with 22 points and 4 assists against IPFW and 20 points and 6 assists against Omaha, but then he was basically never heard from again only scoring in double figures one more time through the season.
Western Illinois actually has a lot of experience on their team, but how much faith can you put in a team that has gone 1-27 on the road in the last two seasons. The last time they won a road game was January 30th, 2014 against IPFW.
The Leathernecks return 89% of their scoring, can they see improvement if they stay healthy?
Role Players:
Mike Miklusak, 6-6 JR: Played in 15 games because of a season ending injury He had 21 points and 7 rebounds against Omaha. I am putting my head down right now.
Jamie Batish, 6-4, SR: A bit of an inconsistent guard, but gives the Leathernecks an option on offense after averaging 6.4 points per game in his first season with the team. He had 15 points in a win against Omaha. Seriously, I am going to punch myself in the face right now.
Tate Stensgaard, 6-8 SR: Played in 20 games before facing a season ending injury. Has shot over 56% on his career as a Leatherneck.
Denver:
Marcus Byrd, Nate Engesser, Bryant Rucker
Honestly it is pretty difficult to analyze a team’s Big 3 when they run the Princeton offense. Excuse me, I have to take a break, I just had a random memory of Barry Collier being a terrible basketball coach.
Okay, I am back… With their offense you need guys that take high percentage shots. These three seniors-to-be had a combined shooting percentage of nearly 50% from the field and 42% on threes. Marcus Byrd has the highest three point field goal percentage for any player returning to the Summit League. The Summit League has been more difficult for Joe Scott and the Pioneers than it was for them against the Sun Belt and WAC, which hopefully is not all that surprising. The Pioneers have gotten worse each of the last three seasons going from 22 wins to 16 wins to 12 wins, can they go for 10 this year? With their high shooting percentage, the Pioneers can always be in a game, but with the Summit League having so many good shooters, teams have been able to take over games down the stretch. It is pretty difficult to beat at home as they are 32-13 at home over the last 3 years, and last year they lost 7 games at home by a combined total of 39 points…one of those games was a 16 point loss to IPFW as an outlier.
Denver does not care about a Big 3.
Role Players:
Daniel Amigo, 6-10 SO: 5.7 ppg, 46 FG%
Jake Pemberton, 6-3 SO: Likely to see an increased role with the graduation of Brett Olson and Cam Griffin.
Oral Roberts:
Obi Emegano, Brandon Conley, Scott Sutton
With Korey Billbury and Bobby Word departing from the team, I really cannot come up with who is going to make up a Big 3 for the Golden Eagles. On paper, it looks kind of rough for Oral Roberts and coach Sutton, but Sutton is probably one of the top coaches in the Summit League and entering his 17th season as the head coach of the Golden Eagles, so they cannot really be counted out, especially if they arguably the best player in the conference. You want to talk about new faces? Oral Roberts is going to be like trying to figure out who is joining the cast of another Expendables film.
Obi Emegano is a popular choice of Preseason Player of the Year.
Role Players:
Seriously have no idea what will be happening with this team. Perhaps this is what happens to a team when they change conferences so often…naw what I mean Denver? Brandon Conley is probably the only for sure thing on the team, everyone else seems to be the mystery man with his trigger on the finger. The Golden Eagles can probably get above .500 in the conference with Emegano and Sutton though.
I am sitting here looking at the basketball schedule and many things go through my mind as I see the Minnesota Gophers.
Minnesota is only about 6 hours away
The state of Minnesota is known for Juicy Lucys, and no one here in Omaha has really perfected it
The Mavericks played the Gophers pretty close when these two teams met in 2013
The Mavericks have 3 players from the state of Minnesota
Could this game be on the Big 10 Network?
Am I the only one who thinks Richard Pitino is a little overrated?
Do we have a shot here?
This will be the Gophers first game back after a trip to Puerto Rico
UNO Hockey plays Ohio State the same day basketball plays Minnesota, and possibly at the same time?
Minnesota has not lost a true home game against a Mid Major team since 2006…they were really bad in 2006-2007
Does the internet have enough Minnesota Gophers/Caddyshack memes?
The first thing I want to ask myself when I see this schedule is: Should I make the trip?
As noted above, Minnesota is not a difficult drive unless the weather is not cooperating. I debate several times a year for a reason to go up to Minneapolis. While it is only a 6 hour drive, probably less even, it would feel even longer as I would sit in excitement like I am Buddy the Elf impatiently waiting for Christmas. I would be thinking of that first sweet bite of bliss as I bite into a Jucy Lucy burger, and the idea that the Mavericks could potentially pull off this upset.
This thing is seriously life changing.
A few scheduling conflicts that come to my mind are; the Nebraska-Iowa football game; and the UNO hockey game against Ohio State. Since the game time of the Mavericks at Minnesota has yet to be posted*, it is tricky to determine if I could make the trip, listen to the football game on the radio during the drive and watch the hockey game from Minnesota or listen to it on the radio on the drive back. So many burning questions that need to be answered.
Could this game be on the Big 10 Network?*
The last time the Mavericks and Gophers faced off, the game was played on BTN. My wife and I had a few friends over, for something actually completely unrelated, so I definitely had the game going on in the background. Turning on the game we thought the game could get ugly, but it was ugly for Minnesota in the beginning. A friend of mine, who did not and still does not pay attention to the Mavericks, but he is a big college basketball fan (he is a Husker fan, it’s cool). He was completely impressed with the shooting of the Mavericks.
At first, I thought the game could get out of hand, as Justin Simmons was slowed by injury. My friend and I were completely surprised by the shooting of Alex Phillips that game. Every time the Mavericks needed a 3, Phillips showed no fear taking it. With no prior experience watching the Mavericks, my friend thought Phillips was the star of the team. Phillips (along with Caleb Steffensmeier and Matt Hagerbaumer) really brought energy and experience off the bench for that Mavericks team. The Mavericks do not have that same dynamic this season, but hopefully seniors Randy Reed and Tim Smallwood could bring the experience, and new guards Tra-Deon Hollins and JT Gibson can bring the energy.
Marcus Tyus had 11 points and 5 rebounds against the Gophers in 2013-2014
I just realized how I got off track here. Anyway, the game was on BTN, there was drama to that game, could the network pick up the Mavericks-Gophers again for a live broadcast?
*So I looked it up after typing all of this out. The game time is currently not posted on omavs.com, but the game is listed as a 2 pm start time on ESPN3 on the Gophers’ website. With that in mind, 2 pm brings up a few different scenarios of stuff to do.
If DJs Dugout or Dudley’s Pizza could stream the game, this could create a watch party at either place, and create for great pre gaming for the hockey game against Ohio State…nice.
Or yes, one could drive to Minnesota listening to the Husker game on the radio, go to the basketball game, and then hopefully watch or listen to the hockey game on the radio. That is a big day.
OR, your significant other could throw a big wrench in your plans and tell you that you have to put up Christmas decorations all day and you have an event with your in-laws because you did something with your family on Thanksgiving.
Do the Mavericks have a chance?
So after checking out what most Big 10 beat writers had to say, almost every single one had Minnesota ranked 11th in the Big 10 in the incredibly worthless “Way too early rankings.” Much of this is based on the fact that the Gophers had big expectations for 2014-2015, but instead they came in 10th and failed to make the post season. With that in mind, the Gophers lost their two leading scorers, most of their experience, and they will be a pretty young team this season with 6 freshman and 4 sophomores. They also have two juniors that transferred into the program but will be sitting out during the 2015-2016 season.
The Gophers do not have much talent in their post game, as the two juniors that are sitting out after transferring are basically a bulk of their talent in the post. The Gophers do have 6’9″ senior Joey King, who could pose a threat to the Mavericks, but King does play more like a guard with literally half of his field goals made in 2014-2015 being three point field goals. King only averaged 3 rebounds per game in his junior season, and has only had a total of 11 games with 5 or more rebounds in his entire three year career between Minnesota and Drake. While King is mostly a threat on offense, and the Gophers lack an inside presence, the Mavericks could feel comfortable with forwards Jake White and Tre’Shawn Thurman to guard King on the outside, as both appear comfortable stepping out and playing defense.
The biggest threat the Gophers have is 6’5″ senior Carlos Morris, who can do a little bit of everything, averaging 11 ppg, 3 rpg, 2 apg, and 2 spg in his junior season while shooting 45% from the field and 36% on threes. The scariest thing to think about is who the Mavericks will use to guard Morris. Could Minnesota go with Morris at the 4 with their lack of size? If so, look to Thurman and/or Randy Reed to try and contain Morris in this one.
While Minnesota had a decent recruiting class and signed two talented point guards, their young guards are going to have to go up against seniors Devin Patterson, Marcus Tyus, and Smallwood; as well as junior Tra-Deon Hollins. Patterson loves these games against the bigger schools. A stat that I love to bring up is that in 5 career games against Power 6 teams, Patterson has averaged 16.2 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 4.4 apg, 1.6 spg, and shot 55 % from the field and 35% on threes. Tyus has shot 52% from the field and 48% on threes in 9 career games against Power 6 teams.
Please note that if these figures seem off as compared to earlier posts (assuming you have actually read any of these posts), it is because I realized I forgot to include Kansas State into those figures earlier.
Not to mention the Mavericks were scaring the crap out of Gopher fans for about 30 minutes of the game the last time these two teams played. That Maverick team had a little bit of a different look, but actually so do the Gophers with only one player (King) that played in that game. Patterson and Tyus combined for 26 points, 11 rebounds, and 6 assists in that game.
With the Mavericks having seniors Jake White and Marcus Tyus*, along with freshman JT Gibson, looking to have big games in front of their home state fans, the Mavericks will more than likely be looking to work harder to push on for a win against the Gophers. Out of the three games the Mavericks have this season against power conference teams, this could be the Mavericks best chance at getting an upset. I say that without even really getting into Missouri yet. This is what is making it difficult to pass up a chance to make the drive to see the Mavericks take on Minnesota.
Mav freshman was the 2014-2015 Minnesota Gatorade Player of the Year for basketball
* I just realized that I am not even 100% sure that Marcus Tyus will be back and ready at this point. I just kind of assumed, because there was actually (minimal) debate of him playing in Italy.
I am not saying it is a guarantee that the Mavericks will win this game. I am not Paul Finebaum claiming that the SEC football teams will go 56-0 in non-conference play because God spent days 8 to 13 creating what we now know as SEC football. I am saying the game should at least be entertaining, and that the Mavericks do have a chance to win this game if they play big. Seriously though, imagine how crazy the UNO Maverick Maniacs would be at a Ohio State-Omaha hockey game hours after a Omaha win at Minnesota. We are talking villagers storming Dr. Frankenstein’s house crazy.
This is where I could have done a preview of the Mavericks’ second opponent, St. Mary’s from Minnesota, but they play in Division 3 and on top of that St. Mary’s lists the game as an exhibition. What fun would that be? It does feel good to actually have 100% confidence in these games though, it is not like in 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 when you just were not really sure what UNO would do against these teams.
So we move on looking at the UMKC Kangaroos.
Last year I heavily debated of going to Kansas City to watch this game. I do not recall why I did not go, but it was more than likely because I had no one that wanted to brave the exhausting three hour drive with me. Seriously, you have to drive through Iowa for part of it. I listened to the game on the radio, but found myself screaming like I was Krusty the Klown screaming at the Washington Generals for just watching the Harlem Globetrotters spin the ball on their fingers.
The Mavs were getting Jake White back into the lineup after being injured in their home opener against Central Arkansas. UMKC was playing without probably their best post player, former Bradley Brave, Shayok Shayok. I was not feeling like it would be an easy win, but I was still expecting a win that day. The Mavs ended up losing to the ‘Roos with a 20 point performance from CJ Carter and a 19 point and 8 rebound performance from Tre’Shawn Thurman. You can pretty much completely attribute the loss to a season high 26 turnovers. 26! That is scary! That is sick, and not the good kind of sick that all the kids are throwing around now a days. The kind of sick you feel when you find out that person you hate at work is getting their cubicle moved right next to you. That Mavs even outrebounded UMKC by 14 on the day. This is still the one game of the 2014-2015 season that I look back most and say, if they replayed that game, UNO wins the game.
This loss, in my opinion, was more embarrassing than any other Mav loss on the year. More embarrassing than Chicago State. Even though the Kangaroos beat Missouri earlier in the season, the Mavs were a superior team but could not handle the ball. The game was right there. UMKC took their decent back court and attacked UNO’s poor perimeter defense. Martez Harrison, who became the first D-1 All American (Honorable Mention) that UMKC has ever had, dropped 25 on the Mavericks. Frank Williams Jr, doubled his season average with 16, these 6’4″ to 6’6″ wing players always seemed to have out of body experiences against the Mavs last season.
Martez Harrison was also the 2014-2015 WAC player of the year.
The obvious hope this upcoming season is that this will not be a glaring issue anymore. Tra-Deon Hollins is expected to help with this perimeter defensive issues, and in my opinion, Randy Reed should hopefully get a little more playing time to guard against those 6’4″ to 6’6″ wing players that gave the Mavs fits last season.
In that wing position, the ‘Roos have sophomore Darius Austin, who averaged 4.4 ppg and 4.2 rpg in 20 minutes per game. He did have 9 points and 8 rebounds against the Mavs last season. There is also junior Broderick Newbill, who averaged 4.2 ppg and 2.1 rebounds per game in about 12 minutes a game last season. He had 4 points, 4 rebounds, and 3 steals against the Mavericks last season. UMKC will also be adding a 6’3″ junior college transfer, Deshawn King, who averaged about 12 points per game, 4 rebounds, and 2 assists. King was not a tremendous threat from long range being that he made 33% of his threes in in his sophomore season, but he only attempted about one three point shot a game. He also only shot 60% from the field.
My perception (actually this blog is pretty much 100% about my perceptions) is that one of the Mavs top two strengths this upcoming season will be their post game. The Mavs lost crazy inside force Mike Rostampour, and that will hurt, but how good can the post look with a hopefully healthy Jake White and a stronger and more experienced Tre’Shawn Thurman? Not to mention, Daniel Meyer is sounding as if he has improved his game a tremendous amount, based on the Mavs Euroblog. The Mavs have a good three headed monster down low, and maybe even a 4 headed monster if freshman Zach Pirog is ready to play. But if the Mavs have 26 turnovers again, or hell, even 25 turnovers, it is not like they are going to have enough opportunities to get the ball down low to the triple dragon.
With that in mind, the Kangaroos do not have much of a post game. Can Shayok play this year? He is basically their entire post game, but only played in 8 games last season. UMKC will also be adding former Youngstown State forward, 6’7″ Kyle Steward, to their post game. Steward spent his sophomore season at Butler Community College, who is pretty much good all the time (they went 29-4 last season), where he averaged about 13 points per game and 5 rebounds per game. Steward can also step out and hit the three, so he can really help open things up for UMKC.
UMKC is a team the Mavs are kind of used to. The proximity and somewhat equal size which has made this a little bit of a rivalry, it seemed like UNO-UMKC was going to create a nice little rivalry as Summit League members. It would make sense for UMKC to come back to the Summit League and make it an even 10 teams, especially since UMKC does not have one conference opponent in the WAC that they do not have to fly to play. Until they man up and face the reality that they have to come back to the Summit League, it will probably be a regular thing to play UMKC once a year.
The Kangaroos were the first team that UNO got a Summit League regular season win over, and the first team that the Mavericks swept in the regular season. Okay, maybe that is why they do not want to come back.
It is definitely a good thing that this game will be played in Omaha. Last season, for their conference schedule, the Kangaroos were 6-1 at home and only 2-5 on the road, so they are not that great away from the state of Missouri…but they did pick up a win in double overtime at Indiana State in their non conference schedule. The Mavericks will have two games under their shorts at the Baxter Arena, and things are starting to look pretty good in Mavtown as it is, so hopefully a good crowd can make it out to this Tuesday game.
One difference with the Mavs as compared to last season is that when the Mavericks traveled to Kansas City, they were really still trying to figure things out. The team was already trying to figure out where the additions of Tre’Shawn Thurman, Randy Reed, Tim Smallwood, Rylan Murry, Daniel Meyer, Kyler Erickson, and Devin Newsome were going to fit into a rotation. That is even with trying to figure out what to do with Jake White, who was coming back with an injury at that point. This season, there is not going to be a lot of process trying to figure those things out, and the Mavs will be trying to figure out how to add just three or four players into the mix (Gibson, Hollins, Pirog, and Jackson). The team has had a trip to Italy and more practice to figure out rotations, so it will not take as long for the Mavericks to figure out who everyone is. The team is going to be slightly deeper this season, which makes since now that they are a full fledged member of division one now.
So how are the Mavs’ chances against the Kangaroos this November? The Mavs can hopefully take better care of the ball and be able to edge out UMKC this season. Really, how could they not take better care of the ball this time around? This is not the same Kangaroos team that Omaha swept in their first year in the Summit, really either are the Mavericks…the only player they still have from that team is Marcus Tyus. This game can still be as close as last season, but with better defense the Mavericks will look to better contain Martez Harrison.
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