Summit League Preview

As seen on Rush the Court.

From Yours Truly:

Summit League 08/09

Predicted Order of Finish:

North Dakota State Bison (19-10, 13-5)
Oral Roberts Golden Eagles (20-10, 13-5)
Oakland Golden Grizzlies (18-13, 12-6)
IPFW Mastodons (16-13, 11-7)
IUPUI Jaguars (16-15, 9-9)
UMKC Kangaroos (14-17, 8-10)
Centenary College Gentlemen (11-19, 8-10)
South Dakota State Jackrabbits (13-18, 7-11)
Western Illinois Fighting Leathernecks (9-20, 6-12)
Southern Utah Thunderbirds (6-23, 3-15)

What you need to know.

22 out of 31- Conference RPI ranking for the Summit League in each of the last two seasons.

Oregon, Marquette, Oklahoma St., Kansas, Texas Tech, Utah- Casualties at the hands of Summit league teams throughout the past 2 seasons. Does beating Seton Hall count? What about Louisiana Tech, twice? Not bad, not bad. The Summit is not quite knocking on the door of the Missouri Valley in stature as of yet, but at least they’re in the neighborhood. Some will never be in the continent.

Guardplay- Guards rule this conference in more than one way. They not only light up the scoreboard from downtown, but they also grab more than their share of rebounds. Lots. Last season 6′5 Derick Nelson led the Oakland Grizzlies with 7.4, 6′6 Brett Winkelman led the North Dakota State Bison with 8.3, and 6′2 George Hill led IUPUI with 6.8. The big men you will find, and there are some actually, are your rudimentary mid-level giants who usually possess the muscle tone of Kevin Durant and the post-up game of Muggsy Bogues. Besides that, Summit league big men are studs.

Predicted Champion. North Dakota State (#14 NCAA). Coincidentally this happens to be the very first season in which the Bison are postseason-eligible. But the Bison seem to be the consensus these days. And for good reason. The three-headed monster returning for the Bison all redshirted their freshman year so that they would be able to have an opportunity like this. The littlest of the fifth year senior trio, Ben Woodside, scored over 20 ppg last season while also dishing out over 5 feeds. At 5′10, Woodside is a very creative attacker and gauging from the few times I have seen him play in person, he will hoist from anywhere, anytime. The giant of the group is Brett Winkelman, all 6′6 of him. While you already know he’s a terror on the glass, he’s also quite the assassin on the perimeter, hitting 43.8% of his threes last year. Winkleman is an efficient player and one not to shy away from the dirty work. He’d be in any team’s rotation. 6′4 Mike Nelson is the third head of this Bison monster. Often overlooked because of the other two, Nelson just goes about his business, you know, the usual 46.1% from downtown, 13.8 ppg, and 32 mpg. Not a shabby third option. All numbers aside, this Bison squad is downright hungry. They’re ready for the limelight, ready for the Summit league tourney.

Others considered. Oral Roberts, the Summit League representative in the tourney the previous three years, will always be in the discussion for the title. Oral Roberts consistently plays defense year in and year out the way it should be played: stay between your man and the basket. Alright, that may not be their textbook philosophy on defense, but a casual fan watching this team would probably not argue against it actually being THE PHILOSOPHY. Offensively speaking, combo guard Robert Jarvis and forward Marcus Lewis are the only returning players that averaged north of 5 ppg last season. Jarvis is a star though. He’s without a doubt the most streaky player in the conference (16.1 ppg in 29 mpg…off the bench). I’m not real sure Oral Roberts can survive the shoot first mentality of Jarvis as their point guard, but it sure looks like that will be their only chance to make it 4 straight tourney appearances.

Oakland finished third in the conference in 2008. They have one heck of an opening stretch of road games to begin the year. If they can come out of it with an upset or three, it might just be all the confidence this team needs to make a run. Scoring the ball is not a concern for head coach Greg Kampe. Guards Johnathon Jones, Erik Kangas and Derick Nelson all averaged over 14 ppg last season. Nelson has a tendency to try to do too much, but when he plays within himself, he can hurt you in a variety of ways, whether it’s on the offensive glass, in transition, or with an occasional trey. Defense and rebounding seem to be the problem for this team, especially up front. They can usually get away with lackluster defensive lapses against the weaker teams, but losing four out of five to last year’s strongholds IUPUI and Oral Roberts should be an indication of what Oakland must drastically improve on to legitimately be considered a threat . A pair of highly touted freshman (as opposed to lowly touted), 6′9 Jay Thames and 7′0 Ilija Milutinovic, hope to give this lacking front line a boost. Ilija, says coach Kampe, might be just what the doctor ordered: “There is a lot of hype with him and we have never had this much hype about a recruit before. He turned down six figures to play professionally in Serbia because he wants to go to the NBA.” Kampe later referred to Ilija as “very comparable” to Darko Milicic. I’m still not sure what to make of that.

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