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MEDIA DAY PRESEASON POLL:
- South Dakota State
- Oral Roberts
- North Dakota State
- Omaha
- South Dakota
- North Dakota
- Kansas City
- Denver
- Western Illinois
MEDIA DAY PRESEASON 1ST TEAM ALL CONFERENCE:
-Noah Freidel – SO, G – South Dakota State
-Kevin Obanor – JR, F – Oral Roberts
-Matt Pile – SR, F – Omaha
-Filip Rebracka – JR, F – North Dakota
-Stanley Umude – SR, F – South Dakota
-Douglas Wilson – SR, F – South Dakota State
MEDIA DAY PRESEASON 2ND TEAM ALL CONFERENCE:
-Max Abmas – SO, G – Oral Roberts
-Matt Dentlinger – JR, F – South Dakota State
-Rocky Kreuser – SR, F – North Dakota State
-Marlon Ruffin – JR, G/F – Omaha
-Jase Townsend – JR, G – Denver
NOTES FROM DAVID:
-South Dakota State is the consensus pick to win the league, and a team that we will likely see In the UTR Top Ten for most of the season. All five starters are back from a team that finished in first place a year ago and won 22 games. They were bounced early on in the Summit League quarterfinals (which seems to happen often to the top teams in this league), but that hardly takes away from what their potential is for this season. They haven an amazing front court player in Douglass Wilson and have a balanced attack overall with quite a bit of depth. It will be fun seeing how far they can go this year.
-Oral Roberts is another team that got quite a bit of preseason love. They did see quite a bit of improvement last season after four straight losing seasons prior to that, and they do have some good pieces back that are joined by some good looking transfer players.
-North Dakota State has been amongst the class of the league in recent years, and while they probably aren’t going to be considered first place contenders this year they still have a really good looking team. They will be relying on some new freshmen and JUCO transfers along with their two returning starters this year.
-Summit League newcomers Kansas City have four starters back from a team that was playing pretty well down the stretch. I don’t think they’ll be in the mix to finish in first place, but I do think they can make a pretty big splash in their first year in the conference. I’m a little surprised that they received so little preseason love.
-Omaha returns two starters, but lost quite a bit from last year and appears to be rebuilding this year.
-South Dakota was a lot of fun to watch last year, but with just two starters back they also appear to be rebuilding.
-North Dakota is also going through a rebuilding process and will likely struggle to finish in the top half of the league.
-Denver and Western Illinois (who has one of the greatest nicknames in all of college basketball!) will probably be fighting it out for 8th place and the final spot in the Summit League Tournament this year.