Steve Forbes

My precarious Summit League preseason rankings

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This intro is copied from yesterday’s post…

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?

South Dakota State

Range of wins: 13 to 15

This team’s back court is extremely good, and the Jackrabbits could score 30 points a game on just three pointers alone.  The obvious question mark for the team is who is going to rebound and play center?  Scott Nagy has admitted to not knowing what to do there.  I think one of the most underrated part of Cody Larson’s game was his passing ability.  A big man that can pass is so huge for your team.  He could draw in the double team and kick it out to the open man, or pass it to a driving player, and it was just a huge weapon for the Jackrabbits.

Their three game road stretch of at North Dakota State, Oral Roberts, and South Dakota is an extremely tough road stretch for them, but they will be fine in the end.  They start their conference schedule at home with Denver and Western Illinois… must be rough.

North Dakota State

Range of wins:  10 to 13

At first I just thought to myself: oh they have everyone back, and they have enough players to make up for the loss of Lawrence Alexander, so they should just own this conference.  Then I thought: replacing Lawrence Alexander might be one of the most difficult things to ever overcome.  So much of their offense was based on what Alexander could do, and he only had two games last season where he did not score in double figures.  No player in Bison history won more games at North Dakota State than Lawrence Alexander.  Teams generally have a significant drop off when they lose one of their best players in program history, but somehow I still really like them to finish 2nd in the conference.

Dave Richman has this team completely confident though and they are buying into his system, and their team motto is: just get better and better every day…which they do a good job of doing.  One thing that is scary to think about in addition to losing one of the program’s best players in history: is the fact that they went 12-4 in the Summit League last season, but they did not exactly blow anyone out.  Only three of their wins were by more than 10 points, and one of those was a revenge game against South Dakota where Alexander had 31 points on 11-14 shooting.  So who is for sure going to score the ball down the stretch when they find themselves in close games this season?  I am not saying that they cannot find anyone, but it is something to definitely consider.

The Bison probably have the best post game cores in the league with AJ Jacobson, Dexter Werner, and Chris Kading; but Kading is coming off some summer surgeries.   They can go small, they can go big with those three; the three of them each bring something different to their front court to give them several different options.  The Bison also appear to be extremely excited about freshman Deng Geu, but they have also stated that they may redshirt him.

They lucked out with the greatest 3 game road stretch ever.  They are at IPFW on a Thursday and then at Western Illinois on a Saturday, they then have a 8 day break before playing on the road at IUPUI.

Omaha

Range of wins: 7 to 11

I already talked about the Mavs

I realize I look like a total homer placing them this high.

Oral Roberts

Range of wins: 7 to 10

At first, I thought no way on this team.  They have lost too many players in the last few seasons, the newcomers do not look all that great, and they might even be one of the least deep teams in the Summit League, which is almost an accomplishment.  Then I remembered that is the exact same thing that I thought about North Dakota State last season.  Obi Emegano is going to have to have to be the same type of player that Lawrence Alexander was for North Dakota State last season, which is something that he appears to be capable of.

No one seems to be taking the losses of Korey Billbury, Denell Henderson, and Bobby Word very seriously though.  Billbury was potentially a 1st Summit Team player, and he is being replaced by unproven guys.  The whole team is completely changed.  Their two top returning guys (Emegano and Brandon Conley) had shoulder surgery over the summer as well, and did not play in their summer trip.  There is a lot to point at and say that this why they wont be a top 3 team in the conference, but for some reason, I always consider them a top 4 team in this conference.  I just think Scott Sutton is that good of a coach and that Obi Emegano is that good of a player.  Sutton has finished in the top 3 in the Summit League in every season that they were in the Summit League since 2003-2004.

I would not be shocked if this team finished 2nd in the conference, and I would not be totally surprised if they finished 8th in the conference.  There is just no telling what is going to happen.  Jalen Bradley appears to be in the perfect situation playing alongside Emegano.  Freshman Javan White, while he looks like you could snap his arm like a twig, seems like he can really help the Golden Eagles in the low post in a league with not much depth in post players this season.

The start of the conference season does not look like a big help to them.  Three teams they can beat, but on the road against IPFW, then back home for South Dakota, then back on the road against Denver, then back home for North Dakota State.  They make up for it late in the season when they have three straight home games against IUPUI, Western Illinois, and Denver.

IUPUI

Range of wins:  6 to 10

This team was picked last in the preseason rankings before the start of last season.  Everyone thought it was one of the worst rosters they had ever seen, but they were able to pick up 6 wins with that roster.  What were they bad at last year?  3 point shooting…fine add Darell Combs, a transfer that made 32 threes in his sophomore year at Eastern Michigan.  Rebounding…fine add two 6’8″ transfers from Loyola.  Too many turnovers…fine, everyone that turned the ball over the most left the team, except for Marcellus Barksdale who handled the ball the most for the team.  Guard dominated league?  Fine, put Marcellus Barksdale on Obi Emegano or Garret Covington on any given night.  Hell, they don’t even see him as their best perimeter defender.

The roster has improved, the coaches have a year of being together under their belt, and the program is improving more and more every day.  They did hold an open scrimmage this week, but had 3 newcomers sitting out with some nagging injuries.  One of the players that sat out was Jordan Pickett who transferred from Loyola where he had a history of injury problems, and it sounds like the Jaguars were expecting him to be one of the team’s primary ball handlers.  That could become an issue.

They might be one the most boring team to ever watch, but you cannot ignore their improvement and upside.  They also had Marcellus Barksdale playing four different positions last season in just about every single game, and he will not have to take on as much of a load this season with the additions to this team.

South Dakota

Range of wins:  5 to 8

I admit that I really like Craig Smith, and I think the loss of him as an assistant coach was a big factor as to why the Huskers had a drop off last season.  Some of these preseason rankings appear to just rating the Coyotes around 5th primarily on the fact that Craig Smith is their coach…and I am totally cool with that.  This team lost the most scoring in the Summit League, their team has been plagued with injuries in the preseason, oh and the staff currently has no idea who is going to score the ball for them.  Spots 3-9 in the Summit League could be incredibly close, injuries could ruin any team, as well as pretty much starting 3 weeks later than everyone else as far as full team practices go.

Another thing that is kind of weird is that Trey Norris is probably their starting point guard, who started is sophomore year, but Smith thought it was a much better decision to send him to the bench in his junior year.  So does Smith even believe in his point guard?  Also Tyler Flack is returning from a back injury.  You back isn’t important in basketball, is it?  I was on the Craig Smith can coach this team to 3rd or 4th bandwagon, but there seems to be something new every week that continues to point to the fact that this is going to be a long year for the Coyotes.

This team though is going to force teams to take 3s on them.  They forced their opponents to take the most amount of threes last season, and held them to the lowest three point field goal percentage in the Summit League…so you kind of need to be able to hit the three against them.

IPFW

Range of wins:  5 to 7

I have seen this team ranked any from 4th to 6th in preseason rankings.  The Summit League ranked them as the 4th best team.  I don’t see it.  They return the 2nd least amount of scoring the Summit League, and they return the least amount of division one starts on their team.  The losses of Steve Forbes, Joe Edwards, and Isaiah McCray seem too big.  It seems like they are asking their newcomers to do too much and are placing too high of expectations on them.  They think Brent Calhoun is going to have a breakout year because he lost a bunch of weight and is really healthy, but let’s wait a few games to see how much of an asset that can be.  They are putting a lot of emphasis on redshirt freshman John Konchar to be an undersized 4 man and play small ball this season.

I am just not sold on this team yet.  This team was the worst free throw shooting team in the Summit League, but I think they really are going to improve there, which could help them with some of the rule changes, but teams should be adjusted to the rule changes come conference play.  I do think this team does have probably the best order of games in the conference as well.  Oral Roberts at home on a Wednesday, South Dakota at home on a Wednesday, North Dakota State at home on a Thursday, South Dakota State at home on a Thursday; and on top of that they never have three games in a row in which they should not be completely unfavored.  Have to give credit to the fact that they have one of the top back courts in the league with Mo Evans and Max Landis, but who knows how valuable that can be in a back court dominated league…says the guy that bases part of Omaha’s potential success on the Mavericks having one of the top back courts in the league.

The team did underachieve last season, but Joe Reed admitted that last year’s team was just completely focused on the Summit League tournament, and did not look at their season on a game-by-game basis.  He said they are more focused on taking it one game at a time this season.  I will be surprised if this team ends up in the top half of the Summit League, but they could do it with lucky breaks with injuries to other teams and whatnot.  It is a young team, and a team of mostly newcomers.  I will say if they can keep this roster together, add their two transfers sitting out this season, and a 6’10” freshman that recently committed, that the Mastodons will be a very good team against the Summit League in 2016-2017.

Denver

Range of wins:  2 to 7

There are many question marks for this team.  I am really curious how a 30 second shot clock affects a team in the Princeton offense, probably not a ton, but it has to affect it in some way shape or form.  Denver does have 3 seniors to run that offense, but they do have 13 underclassmen on their team that have to learn that offense and be prepared to hit shots with the shot clock winding down.  Denver can pick up a few wins at home with their elevation advantage,  style of play, and Joe Scott’s coaching abilities, but do you really feel fully confident in 9 freshman and 4 sophomores on the road in conference play?  They also have 3 seasons in a row of declining in wins, so it is not like there is a bunch of momentum heading into this season.  Not to mention, they were picked 2nd in preseason polls last season.  I have seen them ranked as low as 9th in the Summit and as high as 6th.

This team should have a pretty decent non-conference season though with no power teams on their schedule, and Wyoming is the hardest team on their non-conference schedule, who lost everyone.   The start to the conference schedule is not very kind to the Pioneers.  They start off with with two weekend games on the road against North Dakota State and South Dakota State, and then they have Oral Roberts at home…so they are starting off with the three teams that are known for being the toughest in the Summit League.  After the Golden Eagles, they have IPFW at home who swept them last season by 16 point margins in each game; and then they are back on the road for games against Western Illinois and IUPUI.  It is possible that they start the conference season at 0-6.  Talk about momentum!

Western Illinois

Range of wins: 2 to 5

No one is taking Western Illinois very seriously, and it completely makes sense.  They ended 2014-2015 on a nine game losing streak and they were 0-8 in Summit League road games.  Western Illinois is not an easy place for other teams to pick up wins though.  They were 3-5 at home, and they lost both of their home games to North Dakota State and South Dakota State by 2.

It also seems like everyone on this team was injured at some point, and they return the most scoring in the Summit League at 89% of their offense.  They are also very excited about their two freshmen 6’11” Brandon Gilbeck and 5’11” DeAngelo Brewster.  Gilbeck and Brewster do not need to carry the load for this team with Garret Covington, JC Fuller, and Jabari Sandifer still on this team, but they need to just be role players; so it is not like they have any pressure on them.  It is completely easy to write off the Leathernecks and pencil them in as the worst team in the Summit League, but they could seriously surprise a couple teams this year and pick up a shocking win or two.  The toughest part of the season for them is going to be when they 6 out of 8 games on the road in the conference.

But the serious questions were all no for the Leathernecks last year.  Can they stay healthy?  No.  Can they win on the road?  No.  Can they beat South Dakota State or North Dakota State?  No.

Can the Mavericks improve on 5 Summit League wins?

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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.

Who has the best core of post players in the Summit League?

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So the Summit League is stacked with guards and wing players this season.  College Sports Madness recently came out with a All Summit League 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th team and 16 of the 20 players were guards, 17 if you count South Dakota State’s Reed Tellinghuisen as a guard.  The Summit League came out with their preseason 1st and 2nd teams yesterday, and 8 or the 10 players were guards.  The teams they selected are fair for the most part, though I do not agree with leaving Tre’Shawn Thurman off the list, but I get that I am biased.

Anyway, there are so many guards on this list, and that is because the Summit League is going to be a very guard heavy league this year.  So could one come up with a conclusion that who ever has the best post game is going to set themselves apart from the rest of the conference?  So who has the best post players in the conference?

For the sake of argument, I am going to reduce each team’s list to their top 4 post players, because realistically teams hardly ever use more than 4 post players in the Summit League.  Hell some players do not use more than two post players.

North Dakota State

Chris Kading, Dexter Werner, AJ Jacobson, and one of the other 3 players that will mix in.

I have kind of had North Dakota State as my team to win the conference this year, but I am growing more and more uncomfortable with that recently the more I am looking things up.  Not that I think they are in trouble or anything.  Anyway, it is pretty hard to argue that they do not have the best core of post players in the Summit League.  I know someone might look at Chris Kading and say he’s only a 5 points and 4 rebounds guy, but he takes smart shots, he led the Summit League in blocks per game, and he would routinely hold the other team’s best post player to a bad game.

Dexter Werner was the Sixth Man of the Year in the Summit League last year, and he completely deserved it.  He was a big time force that brought immediate energy to the Bison post game off of the bench, and he shot 51% from the field.  He was playing undersized most of the time, but he was still able to get 1 block per game, which is tied with the 2nd most for returning players to the league.

Dexter Werner was selected to the 2nd Team for the All Summit Preseason Predictions.
Dexter Werner was selected to the 2nd Team for the All Summit Preseason Predictions.

Then the Bison have AJ Jacobson, and while there is no official Summit League Freshman of the Year Award, I am pretty sure it would have been him last season.  He appears to be a popular choice for 1st Team All Summit this upcoming year, after coming off averaging 11.6 points per game and 4.2 rebounds, and many people think he is going to take a large load of the shots that Lawrence Alexander was taking.  He is probably more of a traditional 3, but he did quite well for the Bison at the 4 position, and the Bison can bring in Werner off the bench and slide Jacobson over to the 3, making for a big lineup.

It is kind of unclear who the 4th post player will be at this point for the Bison.  They had Nebraska-native, Spencer Eliason redshirting last season, and they are bringing in two 6’8″ freshmen that they appear to be pretty excited about.  With Kading and Werner, you kind of expect one of the two true freshman to redshirt though, right?

South Dakota

Eric Robertson, Tyler Flack, Tyler Hagedorn, Dan Jech

I admit that is pretty difficult to go on from here, so how about South Dakota?  The Coyotes might actually have the most talented post players, but there are some questions to it.  Can Tyler Flack bounce back from sitting out all of 2014-2015 with an injury, and does Craig Smith even like him?  Flack was averaging 8.5 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 1.5 bpg, and shooting 55% from the field as a sophomore in 21 minutes on a pretty bad South Dakota team.

Flack is back.
Flack is back.

Can Eric Robertson survive as a starter if Smith doesn’t feel comfortable with starting a true freshman?  Then there is two freshman, Tyler Hagedorn and Dan Jech.  Jech gives the Coyotes a post player and Hagedorn gives the team a stretch four.  The Coyotes were able to survive last season with 6’3″ Tyler Larson and 6’5″ Tre Burnette as their primary options in the post last season, so what is going to happen when Smith adds some height to their post game.  Oh yeah, and there is also Tre Burnette, who had the highest rebounding average of any player returning to the Summit League.

Omaha

Jake White, Tre’Shawn Thurman, Daniel Meyer, Zach Pirog (or Randy Reed)

It is kind of a bold move picking the Mavericks that high here.  Consider this though, no player 6’7″ or taller that is returning to the league averaged more points per game than Tre’Shawn Thurman last season.  Jake White is healthy apparently, while I cannot 100% verify this, but I am pretty sure he had limited minutes in his junior season due to injuries.  Even with as many injuries that he had in his junior season, he was probably the fastest post player in the league.  So you have to assume he will go from 20 minutes per game to 25-30, his field goal percentage should rise above 40% while he’s healthy, he can probably be a 10 and 8 guy.  10 and 8 should get you Honorable Mention in the Summit.

Could Jake White be the most underrated post player in the league?
Could Jake White be the most underrated post player in the league?

Daniel Meyer should be getting a minutes increase as well.  Statistically, he had about the same statistics that Dexter Werner had in his freshman season at North Dakota State, and he should receive an increased role (maybe even a Werner like role) with Mike Rostampour and Rylan Murry no longer on the team.  One game last year, I was sitting near Matt Hagerbaumer, you seriously need to take the opportunity to sit next to Hagerbaumer if you ever get that chance.  He’s constantly yelling support to younger players, and he was so excited about Thurman and Meyer as freshman.  He at one point said that they needed Meyer to be a banger down low and be the dirty work guy.  Basically, the Mavs need him to be Matt Hagerbaumer 2.0, and he is capable of being that.  Meyer apparently played very well on the team’s trip to Italy as well.

I am still unsure if Zach Pirog will redshirt.  Hansen kind of has a history of redshirting big players, and the team already has White, Thurman, and Meyer; but maybe Pirog is even better than advertised?  He should add immediate rim protection to the team, which would be extremely helpful, but how many minutes would be able to get this season?  Not to mention, there will probably be a lot teams playing 6’5″ guys at the 4 position for a decent chunk of minutes this season, so wouldn’t you want to play Randy Reed more at the 4 position this season; leaving a lot of the minutes at the 5 to White, Meyer, and even Thurman.  Just seems like minutes wise it would be a good idea to redshirt Pirog, but he is someone that can immediately help this team.

South Dakota State

Connor Devine, Ian Theisen, Michael Daum, Adam Dykman

There is a big gaping hole to make up in the loss of Cody Larson for the Jackrabbits, and it is unclear who will fill that role.  The Jackrabbits also grew comfortable playing Reed Tellinguisen at the 4 last season, as the team’s 5th best offensive player, they really couldn’t keep him off the floor, even if he was playing undersized at times.

You look at Devine and Theisen and you think two guys that don’t even combine for 5 points per game, but really they were playing behind Cody Larson and sharing that role of backup post player.  Then you realize that they both shot over 50 percent from the field, and they both had stretches over the season where they were making big plays.  It’s also not like Scott Nagy cannot develop guys at all.  Devine as a 40% free throw shooter might get left off the court down the stretch of the few close conference games the Jackrabbits will have.

The Jackrabbits also had Nebraska-native Michael Daum redshirting last season, who seemed like a pretty attractive recruit coming out of high school, so who knows how much he developed under the Jackrabbits staff.  The basketball fan in me says “oh wow this guy averaged 25 and 13 as a senior in high school,” but the Nebraskan in me says “I have never even heard of Kimball, how could anyone be good at basketball from there.”  The Mavericks offered him a scholarship though, he also held offers from South Dakota, Wyoming, North Dakota, and others, so non-Nebraskans see something in him.

Then there is even another Nebraska-native on the team, 6’7″ Adam Dykman.  I am pretty nervous about Dykman, I constantly saw his name in the paper for big games, and I know a few guys hugely into Nebraska high school basketball that were upset that UNO or Nebraska did not give an offer to this kid.  I am afraid he’s psycho angry about that.

With such a strong group of starting guards, I don’t think it’s going to come down to the post players for the Jackrabbits.  The show Scrubs had a great core of cast with JD, Turk, Kelso, Elliot, and Dr. Cox, would the show have been successful if they threw in a bunch of episodes centered around Ted and made a three episode story arch about Ted?  Many people would have turned away.  I actually would have watched the crap out of that.  So how many times are you going to hear a ESPN3 commentator say: The Jackrabbits are having a great night with Marshall, Bittle, Parks, and Tellinghuisen knocking down all these outside shots and beating their defenders to the rim; but I really think they need to get the ball into Devine to work his magic on Dexter Werner?  Probably never.

IUPUI

Nick Osborne, Matt O’Leary, Evan Hall, and Noah Thomas

Nick Osborne and Matt O’Leary were decent players at Loyola and will now have increased roles with the Jaguars.  Evan Hall and Noah Thomas are both true freshman, so the hard part for the Jags is throwing in an entirely new core of post players into their lineup.  Hall is a 6’7″ freshman that was rated as a 3 star recruit and had offers from Eastern Kentucky, Western Kentucky, and Lipscomb out of high school.  Hall is a 6’9 and 235 post from the state of Indiana that averaged a double-double in his senior season.  The Jaguars also survived last year on having guards playing as post players, so it’s not like they cannot win without a post game at all.  Essentially, the team decided that they didn’t like the cast of the last season of the Power Rangers and went with entirely new ranger squad, and they feel pretty comfortable about how the new cast will go.  How many other places are you going to find a Power Rangers reference talking about sports?  Actually, I don’t think this my first time on here.

IPFW

Joe Reed, Brent Calhoun, Andrew Poulter, Racine Talla

You’ve got to feel confident in a 6’8″ guy like Joe Reed that has shot about 55% for his career.  Like Jake White and Tre’Shawn Thurman getting more shots because of departures, you’ve got to think that Reed’s shot attempts will go up with the loss of Steve Forbes.  Reed is another guy with potential to be a 10 and 8 guy.  His other three front court teammates are kind of question marks.

I’ve seen people bragging up Andrew Poulter, and I do not get it.  He was a 7 and 5 guy as a sophomore at a junior college, and he also shot 47% from the field.  I watched a video of him in high school working on some 1 on 1 moves, he was looking like an All American but he’s 6’11” and 275 going up 1 on 1 against some 6’5″ 175 pound guy.  Granted, it is high school and I doubt there were too many guys near his size to work out with, but still, I don’t see how his 1 on 1 skills will ever come into play from the Summit.  Then there is sophomore Racine Talla who is 6’9″ but hasn’t played a game of basketball in 3 years.  It just seems like a gamble to take them seriously at this point.  Maybe Jon Coffman realizes how to use them appropriately though, we will clearly have to wait and see.  And many people have them picked as the 4th best team in the conference, so maybe I am just a moron.  95% chance that I am a moron.

Oral Roberts

Brandon Conley, Tre Vance, AJ Owens, and Darian Harris

Did you know this team led the Summit League in blocks per game last season?  They essentially did not need production offensively from their post players as they had Obi Emegano, Kory Billbury, and Bobby Word to take on a bulk of the scoring, so they really just needed their post players to play defense and make great outlet passes.  I don’t think people are realizing how important Denell Henderson was to this team.  None of these players are huge scoring threats, and a lot of people are high on Owens even though he basically only got minutes when the Golden Eagles were getting killed last season.  He shot 40% from the field, and he was basically playing against other teams’ 3rd string most of the time.  Darian Harris also seems like he should be a shooting guard, but the ORU had to use him at the 4 position several times last season due to lack of a post.

I am nervous for Scott Sutton this season, but not in a way that I think he’s going to get fired or anything.  I really do not think he has a great roster this season, but it is Sutton and Obi Emegano.  I love hearing rumors every off season about schools looking at Sutton as a head coaching hire, but we may not get that this April and May.  If Sutton can come in top three of the league this season, I really think he deserves coach of the year, but I don’t think he’ll get it.

Denver

Marcus Byrd, Daniel Amigo, Christian Mackey, and 1 of 2 freshman.

I am scared for Denver this season.  A few have selected them to finish in last this season, CBS Sports rated them as the 3rd best team in the Summit League but it was pointless.  It is really hard to look at Denver and say they have the best players in anything, not because of a lack of talent, but because of the offense that Joe Scott runs.  Marcus Byrd averaged 8.5 points per game as a junior, 8.5 at Denver is like averaging 13 any place else.  Byrd can also step out and take the three, he actually has the highest three point field goal percentage of any player returning to the Summit League this season, and he makes nearly 2 threes a game.

Daniel Amigo was also giving the Pioneers pretty good minutes as a freshman, but his season ended early due to injury.  The Pioneers also have a 6’7″ freshman named Abiola Akintola from Australia, who was not widely recruited, but he averaged 17.8 ppg and 6 rebounds per game in the U18 Australian Junior Championships, whatever the heck that is.  I know there are a lot of question marks for international players, and it could be difficult to figure out if he is even the right fit for Denver, but it could be something amazing watching him develop.

Western Illinois

Tate Stensgaard, Jalen Chapman, Mike Miklusak, and the mystery man

All are average guys that on any other team in the Summit League would be role players, and really they are just role players for Western Illinois, but they give a lot of minutes to the Leathernecks when they are available.  They many lost the last 13 of 14 games of the season because they had no Stensgaard or Chapman for that time, but still, could they have made the difference.  The team has 4 freshman post players that will mix in.  I wonder how they will work out.

 

 

 

Each Summit League team’s case as to why they are number one

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It is going to be a very exciting year in the Summit League for men’s basketball.  Several teams are returning a good portion of their rosters, and while many think the league will be easily won by South Dakota State; they will be in a much tighter race for a championship than most people think.  Every team has a goal of winning the Summit League, but what is their case as to why they are number one?  After all, 9 walk in and only one comes out… I’m just messing with you.

March To The Summit League

 

Denver

Hi, we are the Pioneers, and we know that some people are picking us to finish last in The Summit League this upcoming season.  But we saw a statistic from kenpom recently that our coach, Joe Scott, has coached teams over the last ten years that have had the 2nd highest 2 point field goal percentage in division one.  That is because we run the Princeton offense, we are all about using the entire shot clock to find the absolute best shot possible, it is based on unselfishness and not on stars.

We ranked 298th in division one in points per game as a team, but we were 20th in the country in field goal percentage which was 1st in the Summit League.  We were 3rd in the Summit League in 2013-2014 in field goal percentage behind North Dakota State and Fort Wayne, who were both pretty good that year.  We were also 3rd in the Summit in three point field goal percentage over the last two years, and we recruit to our style, so expect that to continue.

We know we are a young team this year with 8 freshmen and 4 sophomores, but it is not like we are going to just play the underclassmen for 40 minute a game.  We have an unselfish trio of seniors to run our offense with Marcus Byrd, Nate Engesser, and Bryant Rucker.  Engesser shot 51% from the field last season, he and South Dakota State’s Jake Bittle are the only 2 guards in the Summit League to shoot over 50% on the year, and they have the two best shooting percentages of any players returning to the Summit League this year.

With the exception of three games in the Summit League last season (we are still pretty baffled by our losses to IPFW), we play every game very close, so your players better be ready to hit some clutch shots in the closing minutes.  We know we had a record of 12-18 last season, but we are a tough home team going 9-7 at home and we even beat this upcoming year’s favorite, South Dakota State, in Denver.  So take that!

Engesser is the only returning player for Denver that averaged more than 10 points per game.
Engesser is the only returning player for Denver that averaged more than 10 points per game.

Fort Wayne

So we return the least amount of division one experience in the Summit League, but at least we have arguably one of the top three point guards in the league with Mo Evans.  Our offense will probably run through him, and he will hopefully be either on the 2nd team All Conference team or at least Honorable Mention at the end of the year.  Team that up with Joe Reed and we have a good inside-outside game that can be pretty difficult to defend.  With so many new faces on our roster, it could be difficult to set a consistent line up at first and get everyone on board with our team defense, but at least we will be a mystery team for our opponents to defend.

One thing that we would like to point out is that we were last in The Summit League in free throw percentage last year, which can matter sometimes apparently.  Our three players that shot the most free throw attempts: Steve Forbes (75%), Joe Edwards (63%), and Isaiah McCray (49%) are all gone.  We still have Evans and Max Landis who both shot over 80% from the free throw line, two of the best returning players in the league in free throw percentage.  We recruited a junior college player named DeAngelo Stewart who shot 82% from the free throw line in his sophomore season at North West Tech.  Let’s just say we do not plan on losing to Dartmouth by 1 because we went 18-30 from the line or losing to Georgia Tech by 9 because we went 14-28 from the line.  Oh, we know we cannot go 100% from the free throw line, but damn it we lost 4 games last season where missed the exact number of free throws that we lost the game by.  That stings a little.

Stewart also played at Alabama State his freshman season, where his team went to the CIT, and we are totes expecting Stewart to be a major contributor on this team.  Some magazine also tabbed him as the preseason newcomer of the year in The Summit League.  We added another junior college player who has division one experience in 6’11” and 270lbs Andrew Poulter who started his career at Arkansas-Little Rock.  Does anyone in the league have anyone that can defend 6’11” and 270?  Do not answer that.  Aside from these additions, we have two transfers from Purdue and Bradley that will have to sit the year out, but hopefully they should help our team out in practice.

Wait, what does Stewart's jersey say? The Mastadons will need big things from their newest addition this season.
Wait, what does Stewart’s jersey say? The Mastadons will need big things from their newest addition this season.

IUPUI

Remember how many dicks picked us to finish dead last in The Summit League last year, and we ended up winning 6 conference games?  Do you remember that?  Were you there for that?  Sorry if we are a little rambunctious right now, but seriously do you freaking remember that?  We have one of the better young coaches in probably all of the Mid Majors, and he can go into any recruits home and his parents will remember who he is just by his name alone.  Scott Sutton goes into someone’s home and his parents are automatically concerned if he has his drinking problem under control because they hear the name Sutton, and that is what they associate with.  With new facilities, a new coach, a new type of recruit, our program is a reboot film and it is being led by the best young director out there, James Gardener.  We had one of the largest attendance increases by per game average in the country last season, so you know things are getting good.

Again sorry if we seem rude, but y’all can suck it.  Combine our coach with Indianapolis, the 14th largest city in the United States and we are actually a fun place to live.  It’s not like we’re a bunch of yokels that base their diet off of a 5.99 steak combo meal at the local grocery store chain.  No, this is IndianGoshDamnApolis!

We lost 5 players to transfer, but it is cool because we have already forgotten their names.  We get to put 4 new players onto our team that transferred from bigger conference schools, so basically we traded in a vespa for a regular motorcycle.  Like, we actually have a threatening post game now that we get to add to a 6-10 team, so we are thinking those wins are going up.  Oh, and we still have the widely disrespected Marcellus Barksdale, maybe the best wing defender in the league. Who are the two biggest offensive threats at the wing position in the Summit League? Obi Emegano and Garret Covington?  That is cute.  Barksdale held Emegano to 30% shooting in three games and Covington to 36% shooting in two games last season, so that is nothing to us.

What can the Jaguars do with an actual post game this year?
What can the Jaguars do with an actual post game this year?

North Dakota State

We basically win everything as it is, so why would you expect anything to be different this year?  We lost Lawrence Alexander, but we return everything else for the most part.  Our players actually have the most returning division one starts in the entire Summit League.  On top of all the players returning, we got to take our team on a summer trip to the Bahamas for exhibition games, where we learned even more about each other.  We have the best defense in the league, and while we are young, we have an incredibly mature and well disciplined roster.  Anyway you want to cut it, we are the San Antonio Spurs of the Summit League.  We have the best fans in the Summit League, because of the cold weather and there not being much to do in Fargo or the state of North Dakota, there is not much else to do.

Can you think of a team with a better core of post players than us?  Chris Kading, AJ Jacobson, and Dexter Werner: the three players combine for the complete package in the post.  If you think Omaha’s Tre’Shawn Thurman can run the floor and dunk, you should see our newest recruit post player Deng Geu, he’s 6’8″ and has about a 40 inch vertical.  There is about 4 blocks a game right there with Kading, Werner, and Geu.  Oh, and our perimeter players are incredible defenders, so that stupid Jackassrabbits and their great core of guards do not scare us at all.  We held that team to 31% shooting in the Summit League championship last year.  What a bunch of turds.

The Bison lost by 10 to Gonzaga in the NCAA tournament.
The Bison lost by 10 to Gonzaga in the NCAA tournament.

Omaha

We know you are supposed to get better the more and more you go through transition, but we admit that last year we did not appear better by our amount of wins and losses.  Looks can be deceiving though… After picking up our best win ever as a basketball program, we stumbled mightily with losses against teams we should have beat like UMKC and Chicago State.  Consider the injuries though to some of our best players: Jake White, Devin Patterson, and Marcus Tyus battled through injuries.  You get all of those guys healthy on the court and we have a pretty deadly team.  Throw in some added motivation with a brand new arena and an opportunity to play in the Summit League Tournament, and we have an under the radar team.  Our attendance has been rising each and every season since the transition, and we expect that to continue as we move into the Baxter Arena so hopefully we can gain more and more of a home court advantage as time goes on.

We ended the 2014-2015 season on a three game winning steak, all those games were on the road.  We were actually even maybe 2 or 3 plays away from ending the season on a 6 game winning streak.  We still have yet to beat North Dakota State, but we came closer than we ever have before.  This was all with only having 4 players returning last year.  This year we have 9 players returning and 61% of our scoring, which is the 4th best in the league behind Western Illinois, South Dakota State, and North Dakota State.  We were able to take our players to Italy and learn about each other, we got in 10 extra practices, 4 exhibition games, and we know that this will pay off this season  We score a lot too.

College Sports Madness put senior guards Marcus Tyus and Devin Patterson on the Preseason All Summit League 2nd team, SDSU had George Marshall and Deondre Parks on the first team, so if you think about it; we have the second best back court in the league.  That is probably how it works, right?  Sophomore Tre’Shawn Thurman has the highest points per game average for any returning post player in the league, unless you count NDSU’s AJ Jacobson as a post player, that is up to you.  Thurman also has the 2nd highest rebounds per game average for returning players, actually he is tied with fellow Maverick Jake White.  So we could have the second best back court in the league, as well as one of the top post combinations in the league.

The transition is over!
The transition is over!

Oral Roberts

“OBI EMEGANO:PLAYER OF THE YEAR!  SCOTT SUTTON:14 STRAIGHT WINNING SEASONS!  FIRST IN THE LEAGUE IN ATTENDANCE!  GOLDEN EAGLES RULE!”

*drops microphone*

*flips off the crowd with both hands*

If there is ever a Summit League All Century team, Emegano will probably be on it.
If there is ever a Summit League All Century team, Emegano will probably be on it.

SOUTH DAKOTA

We had a winning record last year and most people were thinking we would finish in 7th or 8th in the conference. Fun thing: we were able to pick up a win against every single Summit League team last year, other than ourselves, that would be ridiculous. Craig Smith is from the Tim Miles coaching tree, so you should expect him to increase his win totals this season, based on nothing.  We may have lost a ton of our scoring and whatever, but we still have Casey Kasperbauer: the three point king of the conference.  We also will have Tyler Flack back who sat out 2014-2015 due to injury, and a gang of role players that know how to play as a team.  No one was expecting Tyler Larson to be one of the best players in the league last season, so who knows who will step up this year.

Yes again we lost a lot of our team, but we found two great recruits in Tyler Hagedorn and Dan Jech.  Hagedorn picked to come here over Omaha and North Dakota State, and Jech picked us over North Dakota State, Montana State, Louisiana-Lafayette, and others.  You want to talk about a place where there is nothing to do?  Talk about Vermillion, South Dakota.  All our players can do is work out and get better at basketball.  Also, somehow Hagedorn continues to get taller and is now listed at 6’10”.  Did any teams in the Summit League pick up any big men better than what we picked up (on paper)?  Probably not.

Fear Red! Or something like that.
Fear Red! Or something like that.

SOUTH DAKOTA STATE

We are the favorite to win this league this season, everyone’s favorite.  We return the most scoring in the Summit League, after Western Illinois, but ours has proven to be competent.  Slam!  We have an inexperienced post, but if we cannot get the ball into them we can just do whatever we want with Deondre Parks, George Marshall, and Jake Bittle.  Even after those three we have Reed Tellinghuisen who can score on the outside and is also capable of getting to the basket.  We keep being told about how our freshman Adam Dykman was incredibly overlooked by everyone as well.

We lost to North Dakota State by 1 in the Summit League championship, and our returning core is clearly upset about it.  It is not a question of why will South Dakota State win the Summit League, but rather; who has any chance of beating South Dakota State?

Seriously, come at us, bro.
Seriously, come at us, bro.

Western Illinois

We do not have much to say.  Garret Covington will score a bunch of points though, probably even be 1st Team All Summit.  We had a lot of injuries last season.

If it were possible, Covington might be demanding a trade.
If it were possible, Covington might be demanding a trade.

 

 

A look back at the players The Summit League has lost from 2014-2015

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Every year we as sports fans analyze teams in college sports in consideration to what players teams lost versus what they have coming back, and what they have potentially coming in.  It is the easiest and the laziest way to determine who we think will be the best and worst teams.  So before all of that starts, lets take a look at the players the Summit League has lost so far from the 2014-2015 season.

North Dakota State – The Bison won the Summit League championship for the second straight year, and they are only losing one player to graduation.  So the lazy man will tell you that with only losing one player, they will probably go on for a three peat.  No, no, no, we are talking about a potential eight peat here.  That is a Bill Swerski’s Superfans reference.  The problem with the They Won the Championship and Are Only Losing One Player argument is that the only player that they are losing was the best player in the entire league.

Graduated:

Lawrence Alexander – there is no doubt that it will be difficult for the Bison to make up for the loss of Alexander, the 2014-2015 Conference Player of the Year.  Losing 19 points per game is no easy thing to lose, but we know players cannot stick around forever  Senior to be, Kory Brown showed some moments of that he could be the guy to make up that loss, but the Bison won the Summit League the last two years behind a complete team effort, so they will have to band together again to continue their dominant run in the Summit League.  They did pick up a commitment from Malik Clements, a 6’3″ junior college guard that will be a sophomore, who did at one time have an offer from the Mavericks.  They also have still no player on their roster that is smaller than 6’3″.

Transferred:

Jake Showalter – After only playing 13 games and averaging 1.4 points per game, it is no surprise to see the guard from Wisconsin transfer out after his freshman year.  With the addition of above mentioned Clements, Showalter was still probably going to be at the bottom of the rotation for the guards of the Bison.

South Dakota State – A team that only loses 2 players to graduation, but one player was an All Conference player and arguably the best post player in the league.

Graduated:

Zach Horstman – the senior was getting a lot of playing time before getting sidelined with an injury and being forced to miss two games against Omaha and IUPUI, this opened up more room for some of the younger guys to show off what they could do.  Before missing those two games, Horstman had 5 (out of 17) games of scoring in double figures and did not have any afterwards.  With lack of depth in the front court, the Jackrabbits had Horstman playing most of his time at the 4, but at 6’6″ and 205 pounds he was probably more in line to be playing the 3.  The Jackrabbits will have Reed Tellinghuisen and Skyler Flatten to still pick up most of the time for Horstman, and both are very capable players.  Not only that, but the Jackrabbits will have Nebraska native, Michael Daum to make up for the lost time at the 4 position, who redshirted in the 2014-2015 season.

Cody Larson – the perennial Lord of Jerkfaces and former First Team All Summit League player will definitely be tough for the Jackrabbits to make up.  Sophomore to be Ian Theisen showed some strong moments of what could come in the future for the post game of the Jackrabbits, and the Jackrabbits have some pretty big expectations from Daum, but are they 9 double-doubles good?  Are they 14 and 7 good?  Yes, I just puked a little.  I will be the first to admit it, and I have already mentioned variations of this before though, the Summit League was not stacked with really good post players this season.  There was Larson, Steve Forbes, and Mike Rostampour as the top 3, and then a big drop off after that.  Where was I going with this?  Not entirely sure, I just started saying that and was hoping it would go somewhere.  Maybe, just that the loss of Larson is not as big as it seems if no one else in the Summit League has a great post game.

Transferred:

Anders Broman – I remember coming out of high school, the Jackrabbits were incredibly excited about Broman.  Every school sounds excited about every player coming out of high school though.  It is not like Scott Nagy comes out to announce the players he signed and talks about his expectations of a few of them never developing and transferring out.  Either way, Broman is on his way to Winthorp.  Not sure his playing time was going to really increase his junior year playing behind Wisconsin transfer George Marshall, Jake Bittle, and Deondre Parks.  Seriously, does that guard trio not scare you, especially with Tellinghuisen and Flatten also capable of playing the guard position?

Oral Roberts – The 2015-2016 does not look like anything the Golden Eagles are looking forward to on paper, but Scott Sutton has seen this and done this before.

Graduated:

Denell Henderson – the loss of Henderson will mean Oral Roberts will again not have much of a post game, but they have never been extremely reliable in their post game.  Henderson averaged 3.5 points per game his junior year, before moving up to 8.8 points per game his senior year.  Albert Owens averaged 3.8 points per game this last season as a freshman, so is it pretty safe to say Owens will just kind of take over that role.  Yes, I based that off of very little.  No offense to Henderson, but it is not a bunch to make up.  Oral Roberts also has two freshman coming in that are taller than 6’7″, so there is really not a ton of fallout here.

Adrion Webber – I think Oral Roberts made the most appearances on ESPN3 out of all the Summit League teams last season.  I watched most of their games, and I cannot remember Webber’s name ever being mentioned.  He did score 9 on the Mavericks in their game in Tulsa, so it is possible I was too engulfed in anger to take in anyone’s name from the Golden Eagles during that game.  Former Creighton guy, Darian Harris did see an increase in minutes toward the end of the year, I assume Harris is a guy that is capable of making up for the loss of Webber.

Transferred:  

Korey Billbury – probably the biggest loss in the Summit League in terms of a guy transferring out.  It sounded as if Billbury had issues off the court that forced him to leave, which is why it is not really a huge shocker that he transferred out.  With Obi Emegano, I really thought these two had the chance to be the greatest guard combination in the Summit League for 2015-2016, but that will never be played out.  He shot 13-19 against the Mavericks in Tulsa, that is why I cannot remember Webber’s name.  On the court, he also averaged 14.4 points per game and led the Golden Eagles in rebounds with 7.4 per game.  Billbury’s game will be a lot for the Golden Eagles to make up, but they did beat North Dakota State, Denver, IUPUI, and a CBI tournament game without him last season.

Dederick Lee – not a shocking loss for the Golden Eagles here.  Former Maverick, Jalen Bradley will more than make up the loss for Lee.

Jabarr Singleton – another guy Bradley can make up for.  Singleton did score 10 points in the Golden Eagles win over the Mavericks in Tulsa.  Seriously, what the hell was going on in that game?

Bobby Word – an incredibly significant loss for the Golden Eagles.  Known mostly for being a shooter, Word averaged 8.4 points per game as a sophomore.  He also averaged 13.5 points per game after Billbury stopped playing, I cannot see Golden Eagle fans being super excited about losing both of those guys on the court.  The Oral Roberts, are going to be a pretty young team this upcoming season.

IPFW – The Mastadons had high expectations at the beginning of the 2014-2015 season, and it was partially because of their senior trio of Joe Edwards, Steve Forbes, and Isaiah McCray, but with first year head coach Jon Coffman never really materializing the roster, and ultimately just seeming somewhat bored on the bench, the Dons fell below expectations.  If their expectations were so high because of the players they lost, what are they going to be like next season without those guys?  The Dons did sign three junior college players in an attempt to land some guys to be immediate impacts, so they could be the Magic 8 ball of the league in 2015-2016.

Graduated:

Joe Edwards – losing 12 points per game can be made up.  The Dons picked up a 6’5″ junior college player, who at one time played at Alabama State, DeAngelo Stewart who averaged nearly 17 points per game and shot 47% from the field his sophomore year.  He averaged 2 points per game as a true freshman at Alabama State, yes Alabama State is a real college.

Steve Forbes – some could argue that Forbes was the best post player in the Summit League, and really it was just because of his roundness and overall size.  There was not much seen out of him from a leadership standpoint, just a Hey Lets Get Out There and Try Maybe and We Can Still Get Some Nuggets Afterwards Anyway mentality.  I would have much rather had Mike Rostampour or Cody Larson as my team’s main post player last year, each guy had that leadership quality you are looking for.  The Dons may have fell off the map because of how little Forbes seemed to give a shit.  I watched their loss at South Dakota in March, and kept thinking that Forbes should have been dominating the Coyotes post.  South Dakota’s James Hunter, who averaged 6 points a game, had 16 points in the game off of 8 of 12 shooting, because he actually cared about the game.

Kevin Harden – Kevin Harden was never the same after missing 21 games in 2012-2013 with an injury.  His minutes kept dropping, his scoring kept dropping, he just fell out at IPFW.  It is something that you hate watching happen, but it does happen.

Isaiah McCray – McCray was always capable of doing a lot of things at IPFW, he just never did a lot of things at IPFW.  As one of the more inconsistent players in the Summit League, McCray may not be dearly missed by the Dons.  They still have junior to be, Mo Evans (10.2 ppg), and senior to be Max Landis, who was on the Summit League All Newcomer team, to make McCray a forgettable player.  The more I type, the more easy it is to understand why IPFW did not do as well as expected in 2014-2015.

Transferred:

Gage Davis – He did not play in 2014-2015.

Herbert Graham – everyone likes a guy named Herb, well except for the IPFW coaching staff apparently.  In 3 years, he only played a total of 195 minutes at IPFW.

Jure Gunjina – he played in 243 minutes in his one year at IPFW before transferring to Division 2 Georgia Southwestern.  Seriously, what has IPFW been doing the last couple of years.

South Dakota – I still feel like head coach Craig Smith did the most with the least in the Summit League in 2014-2015.  The losses of Brandon Bos and Tyler Larson will be tough tough on the Coyotes, but Smith continues to bring guys in.  He will have Iowa transfer Trey Dickerson and Air Force transfer Matt Mooney sitting out in 2015-2016, unless they get some form of waiver, but Smith is quickly turning South Dakota into the Transfer Here school in the Summit League, which instate foe South Dakota State cannot be too excited about.

Graduated:

Brandon Bos – It can be difficult to make up for someone who was a great shooter, but great shooters are all around the Midwest.  And again, Craig Smith, he is no idiot.  If you watched the game mentioned earlier with Steve Forbes full out not caring against South Dakota, you would have noticed Brandon Bos playing the game of his life scoring 29 points on 7 of 12 shooting, he also had 7 rebounds and 5 assists.

James Hunter – Hunter came into Vermillion from Washington State and did just enough to give South Dakota some form of a post game.  He may have only averaged 6 points per game and 3.5 rebounds, but it is not like he was worthless.  Without him, the Coyotes could of had Tyler Larson playing center.  Smith will have Nebraska native Tyler Hagedorn and Minnesota guy Dan Jech to come in to fill in the post in 2015-2016, along with a core of upperclassmen guards, the Coyotes may actually have some expectations coming their way at the beginning of the year.  Thanks a lot, Craig Smith.

Tyler Larson – at 6’3″ Larson averaged nearly 8 rebounds a game, and averaged 14.4 points per game.  He could do a little bit of everything, which is what helped him land on First Team All Summit League team.  Not to brag, but I think I called that one.

Transferred

Adam Thoseby – The Coyotes lost one of the greatest beards that the Summit League has ever seen.  Thoseby’s minutes were dropped significantly from his sophomore to his junior year, so it was no surprise to see him go.

Denver – Only graduating two players can be a good thing, but only graduating arguably your two best players can prove to be a headache.  Losing your two best players and not doing nearly as well as anyone would have thought you would have done, that can lead to a mystery team next season.  They will essentially be playing Clue on the court in 2015-2016.  Now who scored the shot from the corner last game that started with a pump fake, and can they do it again?

Graduated:

Cam Griffin – Griffin had some off the court issues, which caused his playing time to fluctuate throughout the season.  Fans do not miss these guys.

Brett Olson –  averaging 14 points per game at a school like Denver, who runs the Princeton offense, is like losing a guy that averages 20 points per game at a different school.  One of the best shooters and most disciplined players in the entire league will not be an easy thing to make up.  Denver has never been a team for the stars though, they have been successful off of team efforts.  Head Coach, Joe Scott, may actually prefer not to have a main scorer on his team.  Either way, losing a 2nd team All Summit League player is not anything that anyone should ever be in love with.

Transferred:

Dorian Butler – the 6’6″ California native never played for the Pioneers.

Cameron Delaney – Delaney started to pick up some minutes toward the end of the 2014-2015 season, but it was not enough to convince the Texas native to stay.  Delaney and Love could have really been a decent combo for the Pioneers in 2015-2016, but we will never know.  Delaney is off to Sam Houston State, which is where all great players go.

Jalen Love – surprised to see him go, I really thought he would have been a guy that would have been used to make up for the loss of Griffin and Olson.  But he is off to (Hello,) Newman.

IUPUI – There have been a ton of transfers in and transferred out with the Jaguars since Jason Gardner has taken over at IUPUI, which is not entirely abnormal.  I am not really sure they will miss anyone that left, mainly because I doubt the staff has had enough time to learn everyone’s names.  They have lost a lot of players, but they have been one of the worst teams in the Summit League, so it is not like the guys they bring in can be any worse.  With 5 guys transferring out, you may want to assume that they were leaving because they see the incoming players as guys that are going to be better than them.  6 wins though in 2014-2015 is probably 6 more wins than most people assumed the Jaguars were going to get.

Graduated:

Player name, 2014-2015 stats

Khufu Najee – 6’4″, 190lbs…7.4 ppg, 3,1 rpg, 1.2 apg, 44% FG, 28-35 FTs, 6-22 3pters

DavRon Williams – 6’7″, 225lbs…8.0 ppg, 6.3 rpg, 0.7 apg, 0.7 spg, 0.7 blg, 57% FG, 58% FT

Transferred:

PJ Boute – 5’9″ , 160lbs, Junior…5.7 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 2.9 apg, 1.0 spg, 30% FG, 32% 3ptFG, 78% FT

Josh James – 6’9″, 225 lbs, Sophomore…3.2 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 0.4 apg, 0.3 spg, 0.5 bpg, 48% FG, 69% FT

Jalen McCallum – 5’9″, 160lbs, Sophomore…2.3 ppg, 0.1 rpg, 0.7 apg, 0.6 spg, 56% FG, 2-3 FT

Elijah Ray – 6’6″, 232lbs, Sophomore…4.6 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 0.2 apg, 0.3 spg, 47% FG, 70% FT

Justus Stanback – 6’8″ 220lbs, Sophomore…2.4 ppg, 1.2 rpg, 0.2 apg, 0.3 spg, 0.2 bpg, 52% FG

Omaha – Another a team only graduating two players, but also losing their two best players.  On top of losing their two best players, the Mavs top returning players; Devin Patterson, Marcus Tyus, and Jake White each had a significant number of injuries during the 2014-2015 season.  If Jake White can get healthy, he and Tre’Shawn Thurman can hopefully make up for what the Mavs are losing in Rostampour on the court.  Neither of them really seem to have the motor and intangibles that Rostampour brought to the Mavs however, not sure anyone does really.  It is still possible that the Mavs could lose some players to transfer as they have yet to announce any players leaving.  The Mavs will also have to learn to deal with more buzz in 2015-2016 as it is their first year being fully eligible for division one, and they will have a brand new arena.  Oh, and we cannot forget the Taco Cannon prestige.

Graduated:  – I am not going to talk a lot about them at this point, because I kind of already have…

CJ Carter – 2nd Team All Summit

Mike Rostampour – Honorable Mention All Summit

Western Illinois – Although the Leathernecks only went 3-13 against the Summit League in 2014-2015, they have to be pretty optimistic about 2015-2016, when they return their two top scorers, and one of those players was a 2nd Team All Conference player.  Really Western Illinois does not lose much of anything, and a number of players on the team showed some flashes of being quality players.  Really, I feel like the Leathernecks spent the entire 2014-2015 campaign as a way of waiting for the summer of 2015.

Graduated:

Mohammed Conde – led the Leathernecks in rebounding at 6 per game.  The Leathernecks are bringing in two 6’10 freshman, so it is possible that they will not even notice the loss, or at least will fill in the loss pretty quickly.  The Leathernecks really played from the outside-in, rather than the inside-out this season, so the post game was never really anything they relied on.

Remy Roberts-Burnett – I am not sure if he had some injuries or off the court issues, but his time decreased significantly this season and he missed 9 games this last season.  I also do not want to be mean, but Western Illinois went 5-4 without him.  They ended the season 8-20.  Math.

Transferred:

Tyson Reynold – The 6’9″ junior from New York played a total of 14 minutes and scored 2 points for Western Illinois.  Remember the fallen.

Kendall Rollins- Never played.

Served on a North Dakota bun, we have an IPFW hate sandwich

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I do not really want to get in too deep about the South Dakota State game from Wednesday night, because it is pretty similar to everything that was said about the home loss to the Jackrabbits a few weeks ago.  SDSU is the best team in the league, and a goal for UNO basketball is to be on the same playing ground as them someday.  We are far from it right now.  The Mavs only graduate two players and so do the Jackrabbits, all four players that graduate from the two teams are key players, but maybe we should expect the same next season.  Patterson was able to defend George Marshall better this game and hold him to two points, but a combined 14-15 with 8-8 threes from junior guards Jake Bittle and Deondre Parks is clearly not good.  The Mavs need to figure out this perimeter defense thing.

The bench was no where to be found, but I must say that the Mavs bench put up some good numbers against Denver.  We need more of that every game.  I was out of the country for the Denver game, maybe I need to go the Caribbean for every game…

 

Hey North Dakota Hockey, screw you, I mean, let me take that back

I wish I knew more about hockey to say more than six words about it.  I love going to UNO hockey games.  I barely knew what hockey was before becoming a UNO student.  I saw it was free to go to the games and I did not want to be that guy that never took advantage of something like that.  That reminds me, I did not realize that Creighton only had 30 fans that cared about the basketball team until the other night against St. Johns.  Must be pretty hard to pretend you go to Duke when your basketball team is on an 8 game losing streak…

I have learned the rules of hockey, but I still have no idea what makes a good pass a good pass, and anything about any form of strategy.  If I had a kid that was in hockey and I was coaching the team, I would just say, “piss off the other kids until they fight you or do something else stupid so we can have more players than them for a few minutes.“

I do know this, I can hate North Dakota, but I have to respect North Dakota.  Have you ever been to North Dakota while a Sioux game was on?  You can not do anything else.  My father-in-law has a farm in Minot and my wife and I go see him from time to time.  Usually when we stop somewhere, the place is decked out in North Dakota and North Dakota State flags, if there is a hockey game on then ALL televisions are on that North Dakota game, any other time of the year then it seems there is always one television that is devoted to playing reruns of hockey.  The NoDakians know their hockey, and I love going to UND-UNO hockey, there are more people in green, more people in red/black show up to show their support, it is a great experience.

I hate University of Missouri sports fans more than I hate any other fan base.  Their fans make literally no sense, and most are addicted to something incredibly bad for them.  When their football team became good, their fans did not know what was going on.  All they knew was, BALL GO PAST LINE, WE GOOD, then they cheered to the look of the Missouri players looking happy.  Last year when UNO played UND in hockey at CenturyLink, that is when I realized that I actually know very little about hockey.  I do not remember the exact situation, but UNO looked like they scored a goal and they started to cheer, but the people in green started to cheer as well.  The Mav population looked instantly confused when the Sioux faithful started to cheer.  The goal was called off due to a penalty, and all of the people in green knew it before it was even announced.  The Mav population just reacted to what they did not even understand what was fully going on, the NoDakians knew what was happening before the arena staff knew what was going on.

I am not saying we have to like them, but we need to respect them, but when basketball comes around they can screw off.  I just bring it up because I have seen some hate filled tweets on the Twitter machine, which I realize are in good fun, but college hockey is as important to these people as college football is to Nebraskans.  I would not want to piss off their fans to fuel the fire of their players, even though that is kind of the thrill of a rivalry.  Plus North Dakotans drink A LOT, so if they made the trip, lets just butter them up a tiny bit so they can pump a bunch of money into Omaha bars and hotels.

IPFW

The Mastadons were picked as the preseason favorite of the league. but now they are sitting at 6th in the League with a 3-5 record in the conference.

The ‘Dons beat the Mavericks in both meetings last season, but by a total of 5 points.  Do you remember the last game they played?  It was senior day for the Mavericks.  IPFW was one of the top teams in the league and really the only one fans thought could contend with North Dakota State for the championship. The game was forced to overtime, it was close in the entire overtime period.  There were some miscues from each side that had you sitting at the edge of the seat screaming What The Hell?!

IPFW gets the ball and in a last ditch effort, IPFW’s Steve Forbes puts up a three (he has never officially made or attempted a three so far at IPFW), the shot is a miss, but the official blows his whistle.  A foul on John Karhoff.  The Hoff looks at the ref like he is going to murder him right there with 1000+ witnesses and not even care.  Boos come from everywhere in the arena.  The referees have to go to the monitor to, I assume, check to see if it was a two point or three point attempt.

I am still not sure if anyone has ever said that foul was legit or not, but it was called a foul.  While the refs were checking the monitor, the body language was not good like – oh shit, what did we do?  An official can never really say yeah I screwed up, my bad, I am sorry.  They always say, I called it as I saw it.  The only time in recent memory that I can think of a ref admitting fault is when the first base umpire made a terrible call to screw up a perfect game for Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga.  Hey, at least Galaraga still got a sweet car out of the deal.  And the officials can look at the monitor and realize they made a mistake, but they cannot wave off the foul, so while I was watching those officials at the monitor, their body language was the body language of a couple dudes that realized that they are bad at their job.  It is not like I am mad at Steve Forbes, he did not make the call, but I do not recognize sports officials by name, so I just need a scapegoat.

A win probably would of had that big of an impact on the Mavs season.  After Forbes hit the free throws to give IPFW the win, I was thinking that the chances of going to the CIT were over.  I thought it was done, IPFW took away the positive feelings at the end of the year.  Thankfully, it did not eliminate UNO from postseason play and the Mavs could pick up their first post season win a few weeks later.  But still, the Mavs felt stripped of a win on senior day.  Karhoff, Matt Hagerbaumer, Justin Simmons, Alex Phillips, and Caleb Steffensmeier did a lot for the basketball program, they all played great on their senior day, but were screwed out of a win we felt.  And this is the IPFW team that went on to beat South Dakota State, and then only lose by three to conference champion North Dakota State.  I will say that is the first time I have seen Mav basketball fans boo out the refs, so perhaps it was a bonding experience for Mav fans.  I almost feel like we need to avenge that Karhoff’s foul*.  #win4theHoff

*I still do not believe that was a foul.  John Karhoff could walk up to me and say that it was indeed a foul, and I would not believe him.  I would think IPFW employed The Madhatter to put a mind controlling device on John Karhoff to say what they wanted him to say.  That’s a Batman reference.

UNO and IPFW are actually pretty similar teams on paper.  They have both lost to IUPUI, South Dakota State by a bunch, Western Illinois, Oral Roberts, and beaten Oral Roberts and won at South Dakota.  Their back court is roughly the same size at UNOs with Isaiah McCray at 6’0″, 6’2″ Max Landis, and 6’0″ Mo Evans.  They have been playing a little bit of small ball with 6’5″ Joe Edwards at the “four”.  Really it seems the plan is to stretch the floor with their four guards and then swing the ball around so they can work to get the ball into Steve Forbes in the post.  I based this off of the little bit of what I watched from IPFW at South Dakota last night, and also a little bit of nothing.

Something I did notice is that when South Dakota would run the crap out of the ball, it was difficult for IPFW and mainly Steve Forbes to keep up.  Steve Forbes probably does not look forward to a team that plays the pace of the Mavs.  It would be like a English bulldog with a stupid look on his face trying to chase down a black lab.**  When South Dakota would have to get into a half court offense, they were more successful when they got the ball inside to a post player who could put the ball to the floor and basically run around Forbes.  So what sounds good against something like that?  Tre’Shawn Thurman and/or Jake White?  This looks like it could be another close game between the Dons and Mavs.

**This may be kind of a fat joke, but I do not like making fat jokes.  I find them to be uncreative, and someone can always lose weight and you will just look like an asshole for making fun of them a while ago.  And Steve Forbes could beat me up at recess if he wanted.

This is a match up of two teams that have been underachieving in what has been an awkward year for the Summit League.  Something that was brought to my attention when I was listening to UNO-South Dakota State on the radio on Wednesday night is that most teams in this conference are not losing much to graduation. South Dakota State is graduating two players, North Dakota State is only graduating one player, Denver is graduating two.  IPFW and South Dakota each have three seniors in their rotations.  This season should mean more to them, they have the most to lose.  Most other teams are trying to build onto something for the next year or two.  It will probably be more tough to pick up conference wins next season with most teams seeming to be loaded with juniors.  IPFW does have four juniors in their rotation, but no other team has as many minutes from seniors as the Mastadons, they need this more.  The time is definitely now for them, but would that mean that there is more pressure on them to win this game?

Some thoughts:

UNO and Creighton play at the same time on Saturday, what a bum deal.  The CenturyLink gets a Jays Basketball-UNO Hockey double header.  I really cannot wait until next year when we can host UNO Basketball-Hockey double headers in Aksarben.

If neither UNO and Creighton make the post season, is it against the rules to schedule them to play?  Like an Omaha Mega Bowl?

Some milestone notes:

  • Mike Rostampour is 10 rebounds away from tying Matt Hagerbaumer for most rebounds by a Mav since transition.
  • Devin Patterson is 1 assist away from his 100th career steal as a Maverick.
  • Marcus Tyus is 1 steal away from tying Caleb Steffensmeier for 3rd most steals by a Mav since transition.
  • In his last game, Tre’Shawn Thurman passed Marcus Tyus for 2nd most points by a freshman since transition.

 

A pretty bias view of the Summit League

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I think it’s pretty pointless to create preseason rankings and predictions before the non conference schedule.  They never really take transfers, junior college players, or freshmen into account.  Just:  This team has this returning, so screw it, we’ll pick them as number one. The non conference schedule is over now (well UNO has North Dakota at the end of the year), so maybe it’s time to start with some predictions?

There is not really a team that is far out ahead of the rest of the conference this year as compared to North Dakota State last year, or South Dakota State in 2012-2013.  There is not a Nate Wolters caliber player really, or even a Taylor Braun.  There isn’t really a large amount of great post players in the Summit this season, but there are a lot of great players at the wing position.  So how do I think it could end up?

1. South Dakota State  9-5  RPI:  141

Before the year started, I thought that South Dakota State would be the best team in league.  In my opinion, they have the league’s best post player Cody Larson, please don’t mistake me for thinking of him as the best post player in the league for me liking him as a person though.  Between watching on tv and in person, I’ve only seen Cody Larson play in five games, and he was kind of a whiny guy when I saw him in person…granted who knows what Mike Rostampour was doing on the floor to get him in a bad mood.  He sure is consistent though.  He averaged 13 points per game, 7 rebounds, and 2 assists last season, and he is doing the exact same thing through 14 games this season.

At the beginning of the year I wrote out some random and awful notes about each team’s roster and miscellaneous stuff.   My notes for SDSU:  Best post player, 2 seniors, 5 juniors, best coach in the league, big team, lots of size, Wisconsin transfer (George Marshall)…

Any time you have a former SEC and a former Big 10 player on the same team in a conference like the Summit League, you’re going to have some success.

2. IPFW  7-6  RPI: 262

The Summit League picked IPFW to win the conference, and it makes a lot of sense.  The Mastadons have size, experience, and really a good all around roster.

Steve Forbes missed 3 games due to an injury, but once he’s back to his regular Hulk like strength, the ‘dons will get on a roll going into conference play.  He returned against Cal Poly and picked up 12 points on 4-12 shooting and only had 2 rebounds.  He’s not going to stay at that poor shooting and that little amount of rebounds forever.  When you first see Forbes you instantly make fun of him.  How could that 300 pound guy run?  Does IPFW have a football team?  Then he starts posting up, and you realize it creates several problems for your teams post players.  It can create a lot of fouls on your team trying to keep him out of the paint.  Out of the 10 games that Forbes has played in, he has had 4 double-doubles, yeah one was against Michigan-Dearborn, but another was against Georgia Tech.

Alongside Forbes the ‘dons have Joe Reed at 6’8″ who is capable of getting 10 points a game.  IPFW also has Isaiah McCray, Mo Evans, and Joe Edwards who all score in double figures.  They have several weapons, it’s true.

Yet despite having a well balanced lineup, IPFW best win from an RPI stand point is over Miami (OH) at 297.  The ‘dons do beat the teams they are supposed to beat, so when they’re picked to win the Summit, maybe they will win the conference they are supposed to win.

3. Denver  6-7  RPI: 228

The Pioneers don’t score a lot of points, they don’t rebound the ball very well, but they play the Princeton offense and they do it well.  As a team the Pioneers shoot 49% from the field, 73% from the line, and 39% on threes, and they only turn the ball over 11 times a game.  Sure their games may be boring and no they haven’t won consecutive games yet this year, but they’re a tough play.  Only 3 of their losses have been rough.  The Pioneers lost by one to undefeated Colorado State, by two to Bryant, by six to Stanford in Palo Alto, and by ten to ranked Northern Iowa.

Denver only has 2 seniors and 4 juniors, but they’re all good and all essential to the operation of the team.  Senior wings Cam Griffin and Brett Olson lead the show and are enough for the Pioneers to pick up wins.  The Pioneers don’t really have much size with only two players that are 6’7″ or taller, but you don’t really need much of a post game when you’re running the Princeton offense.

4. Oral Roberts  6-7  RPI:  210

Coming back the Summit League, Oral Roberts had a tough non conference schedule, but Oral Roberts has always been cool with that.  They feel it makes them a better team by the time non conference comes, and that’s probably true.  They were able to pick up a win against city rival Tulsa who is currently sitting at 61 in RPI.

Scott Sutton is a good coach, he’ll have his team ready.  By the way when I started this I was mixing his name up with Sean Sutton…absolutely the wrong person to mix him up with.  Scott Sutton is rumored for a job at a bigger conference school every year and it never happens.  When ORU Athletic Director is contacted for a reference I find myself wondering if it’s like on The Office when Will Ferrell is giving Ed Helms a reference but is constantly referring to him as completely average.  If you want someone to go above and beyond, then yes, he’s probably not your guy.  Though if you want someone, who will do just enough to keep you happy, then yes Andy Bernard is the guy for you.

Oral Roberts is led by possibly the toughest 1-2 punch at the wing position in the Summit with junior wings Korey Billbury and Obi Emegano who lead the team in scoring and in rebounding.  Again not much size to this team with only 3 players at 6’7″ or taller, but Oral Roberts has a good history in the Summit.

5. Omaha  6-6  RPI:  309

So clearly a blog called “Omavs Blog” is going to have more details on the Omaha Mavericks, but I’ll try to not talk about it too much because much of it has already been talked about.  We thought the win over Marquette was the biggest non conference win by a Summit League team, and it’s the biggest name that a Summit League team beat, but Oral Roberts has the best RPI win with their win over Tulsa.  Omaha also has the worst loss to Chicago State, and in my completely bias opinion, the Mavericks would’ve won that game with Devin Patterson and Jake White in the lineup.  They’re both incredibly important to the team.

If the Mavs continue to have injury problems, they will not finish in the top half of the league, but that’s true with anyone really.  There are still a lot of new faces for the Mavs and trying to figure out a rotation with Jake White and now Devin Patterson out of the lineup has created some issues of getting into a flow with the Mavericks.  The Mavs have size and balance on their roster for the first time, they just need to get it all out on the court for once for a few consecutive games.  The biggest problem for the Mavs is turnovers, too many damn turnovers.

6. North Dakota State  8-5  RPI:  232

Yeah I went there.  I like North Dakota State, so it’s incredibly sad that I’m not entirely sold on them.  They lost a lot from their conference championship team last year.  Yes, they have the best player in the conference, Lawrence Alexander, and A.J. Jacobson is right up there with Tre’Shawn Thurman as contenders for Freshman of the Year, but they are quite young with only 3 upper classmen and have a new (but good) coach.  They don’t shoot all that well as a team at 40%, but they only turn the ball over 10 times a game.  NDSU also is quite big, their shortest player is only 6’2″.

There isn’t really a win that sticks out for the Bison as far as anything that should be shocking.  The Bison are another team that win the games they are supposed to win.  They did start the year out rough on the road against Texas and Iowa, losing both games by 30 plus.  The Mavs are 0-4 against North Dakota State since joining the Summit League, but could this be the year Omaha picks up a win against the Bison, or at least not get embarrassed?

7.  South Dakota  6-8  RPI:  284

Yes, I went there again.  Several people were down on the Coyotes before the season started, with good reason, but 6-8 in non conference for South Dakota is far above anyone’s expectations.  UNO beating Marquette was a big surprise for everyone, but South Dakota taking Creighton to two overtimes and only losing by 3?  That’s the biggest surprise in the Summit League in my opinion.

It’s been kind of a running theme that many of the teams around the conference are pretty young, but everyone in South Dakota’s rotation is a junior or senior, and they can shoot.  I probably sound like I am in love with experience or something, but in a conference like the Summit League, experience matters.  There was always that high school team that was never really had that great of a roster, but they were loaded with seniors, and those teams can surprise someone from time to time for an upset.

Has anyone noticed that 6’3″ Tyler Larson is averaging 16 points per game and 8 rebounds per game?  He’s also leading his team in assists with 3.6 per game.  Any team in the Summit would kill for that production.

8.  Western Illinois  5-6  RPI:  323

Garret Covington is a great player, but there is not much else going on with the Leathernecks.  As a team they only shoot 32% on threes, and 40% from the floor.  Ouch.  They have 5 wins, but two of them are against Anderson and Greenville, you probably haven’t heard of them… Another two of their wins were only by three points at home.

Junior College transfer JC Fuller has shown some promise and is starting to show some consistency scoring in double figures in their last 4 non conference games.  Fuller, to some extent, had some interest from Omaha.

9.  IUPUI  4-10  RPI:  293

Honestly, I’m surprised the Jaguars have four wins.  They don’t score many points, in fact, their leading scorer Marcellus Barksdale only averages 8.4 points per game.  They also don’t rebound that well, or shoot that well at 40% from the field.  Let’s just say this isn’t going to be their year.

But looking ahead, they have a brand new arena, and have you seen the dorms at IUPUI?  It’s like living in a 5 star hotel.  Matt O’Leary, Nick Osborne, Darell Combs, and Jordan Pickett are all sitting out due to transfer, and they’re all guys that would help this team out this year.  When you have a pretty young roster getting playing time and learning to play together, and then the next year you throw in some guys that have played and sat out a year to basically practice, you’re going to improve quickly when those transfer players get eligible next season.

All Summit League First Team

C  Steve Forbes  SR  IPFW

F  Cody Larson  SR  South Dakota State

G  Tyler Larson  SR  South Dakota

G  Lawrence Alexander  SR  North Dakota State

G  Devin Patterson  JR  Omaha

All Summit League Second Team  (Alphabetical Order)

G  Korey Billbury  JR  Oral Roberts

G  CJ Carter  SR  Omaha

G  Garret Covington  SO  Western Illinois

G  Obi Emegano  JR  Oral Roberts

G  Cam Griffin  SR  Denver

All Freshmen Team

G  Aaron Brennan  IUPUI

F  A.J. Jacobson  North Dakota State

G  Paul Miller  North Dakota State

G  Reed Tellinghuisen  South Dakota State

F  Tre’Shawn Thurman  Omaha