But here’s Thursday’s quirky stat…

Ben Woodside of North Dakota State, arguably the best player in the Summit League and a guy who scored 60 earlier in the season, shot a perfect 0-12 from the field against Western Illinois. To Ben’s credit, he did have 6 assists and 3 steals, but that 0′fer is cooky.

Not even close to being cookier than Woodside’s “off” night was the final score, a 61-52 victory on the road for the North Dakota State Bison (17-5, 11-1), the favorites to represent the Summit league in the Big Dance.

Best player can’t hit a shot, no problem, the Bison are ready to bust your butt anyway.

Look out 12 and 13 seeds, you don’t want to face this group.

Post from: EveryJoe

STAT of the DAY (Feb. 5th)

1. Western Illinois (3-0, 6-8)
2. North Dakota State (3-1, 8-5)
3. Oakland (3-1, 10-7)
4. IUPUI (2-1, 9-5)
5. Oral Roberts (2-1, 4-11)
6. Southern Utah (2-2, 4-11)
7. IPFW (1-3, 6-9)
8. South Dakota State (1-3, 6-10)
9. UMKC (1-3, 5-12)
10. Centenary (0-3, 2-13)

Highlights

SDSU – 2 days before Christmas the Jackrabbits beat Iowa State on the road by 7. While the Cyclones are anything but a powerhouse team, props to SDSU for getting this win and holding Iowa State’s second leading scorer to 5 points on 2-12 shooting.

IPFW – The Mastodons finally broke through for a W in league play with a 100-66 smackdown of South Dakota State (Jan.2). Former Kansas St. forward Deilvez Yearby scored 19, grabbed 9 boards and swatted 5 shots. Former Oakland forward David Carson scored 24.

UMKC senior guard Dane Brumagin – he was named the conference player of the week for Dec.23- Dec.29 after averaging 30 points and 6 rebounds in 2 games.

IUPUI – Beat Southern Utah by 5 without getting a single field goal from star senior guard Gary Patterson (Jan 2). IUPUI got 21 points from their only 2 bench players to see action in the game, Robert Glenn (13) and John Ashworth (8). Back on December 20th IUPUI beat Seton Hall with a Leroy Nobles layup as time expired.

Western Illinois – Just as likely to be the last undefeated Summit league team left as Eric Gordon is to be the future of the NBA. Senior guard David Dubois doesn’t shoot the 3 ball real well, won’t wow you with his athleticism, gets in foul trouble too much, and probably dances like Elaine, but still manages to cram more than 17 ppg down team’s throat.

Lowlights

Centenary – Losers of 7 in a row, it’s not looking good for the Gentlemen, or for my prediction of Centenary winning 8 games in the league.

UMKC – After drawing their conference record to 1-1 with a 8 point win against IPFW early on in December, the Kangaroos have lost their last two league contests by a combined 6 points. In both of the losses UMKC has been down by double digits at the half.

Oakland senior guard Derick Nelson – Head coach Greg Kampe finally announced (Dec.30) Nelson would be redshirted (medical). Nelson tried to come back from a serious foot injury he suffered in practice the day before the season opener but just couldn’t do it.

Southern Utah got out of the gate quickly with 2 straight W’s but has since dropped 2 in a row. I said it wouldn’t last long.

NDSU @ Oakland (Jan.2)

I was fortunate enough to be in attendance as unarguably the two best teams in the league squared off. Neither team had more than an 8 point lead at any one time. I don’t think either coach sat down the entire game and I know neither was delighted with the officiating. NDSU guard Ben Woodside (23.5ppg) was held scoreless in the first half as was Oakland’s center Keith Benson (12.5ppg). Both stepped up their games in the second half but Keith Benson really woke up, scoring 17 (7-7 fts, 5-9 fg). The unequivocal iron man of the game was sickly 6′6 senior Brett Winkleman who only ate a piece of toast before the game because he was ill all day with a stomach virus. Brett not only played 32 minutes, but scored 33 points (6 treys) and had 3 steals. It was not enough.

Oakland’s Erik Kangas, bothered by a calf injury virtually throughout the whole game, drained a 3 pointer falling away with a little over 7 seconds left to give OU the lead by 1. It was his first 3 pointer of the game and it sent the O’Rena into a frenzy of sorts, yet seconds later Ben Woodside zigzagged his way down the court and got all the way to the hoop to attempt a wild (it was made wild by the stout defense supplied by Kangas, the only OU player who seemed to know the game wasn’t over yet) layup that just bounced off the back rim. If the game had been in NDSU’s place a foul would have been likely called in my opinion, as Kangas challenged him and probably got a little body, but Woodside was going at a hundred miles an hour ( just a tad out of control I’ll say). The refs got off the court in a hurry.

These teams meet again on the 29th of January in North Dakota.

I bet NDSU gets the call at the end. Or else head coach Saul Phillips will be right behind them like a hungry lion.

Post from: EveryJoe

Summit League Update

-2007/08 was the inaugural season for the Summit League.

-The league was called the Mid-Continent Conference from 1989-2007. From 1982-1989 it was called the Association of Mid-Continent Universities.

May 15th 2007

“Beginning June 1st, the Mid-Continent Conference will be known as the Summit League. The name change is part of the “Summit Plan” to try and turn the league into a premier academic and athletic mid-major conference. The Mid-Con has struggled in recent years to find an identity, as its schools are scattered throughout the country, and it has experienced turnover in member teams. Going forward, the league will consist of: Centenary College, IPFW, IUPUI, UMKC, North Dakota State, Oakland, Oral Roberts, South Dakota State, Southern Utah and Western Illinois. The new logo and name “summit” are meant to suggest the peak of excellence, and not have any association with being located around a mountainous region.”

Collegehoopsnet

-League consists of ten schools from nine different states. Travel budgets explode in this league.

-School enrollment’s range from a little over a 1,000 to more than 27,000.

-Western Illinois is the only member that has been in the conference from the beginning (1982).

-Valparaiso was a member of the conference as recently as 2006/2007. But Valpo apparently wanted to step their game up and arguably did so by escaping to the Horizon League.

-Oral Roberts has represented the league in the NCAA tourney for the past 3 years.

- Oral Roberts President Richard Roberts committed a couple of crimes and thought it would be all ok since God told him to do it.

-For the last two seasons the league has been nestled in the #22 slot (out of 30) in terms of conference RPI strength.

-Former IUPUI Jaguar George Hill chose to forego his senior year and it paid off big time. Selected in the first round of the 08 draft by the San Antonio Spurs.

-Not surprisingly the 08 Summit League’s Conference Player of the Year was George Hill.

-North Dakota State is somewhat of the favorite to take the regular season title and go into the conference tourney with a #1 seed. Collegehoopsnet.com believes they will come out of it with a NCAA berth. Oakland University is picked to be the Bison’s toughest challenger.

-This is the first season North Dakota State and South Dakota State are eligible for postseason play on the DI level.

-The conference tourney will be held in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in 2009. The top eight teams qualify.

Enlightened anyone?

Post from: EveryJoe

Getting to know the Summit League (II)