College basketball starts in less than a month.
The Summit League basketball coaches and media held their basketball media day on Tuesday this week. During the annual event, the conference unveiled their preseason coaches and media poll. Despite falling in the Summit League championship game a year ago and landing an impressive recruiting class, the Pioneers were picked to finish ninth out of nine men’s Summit League men’s basketball teams. Other rating ‘experts’ are likely to rank Denver accordingly but is their crystal ball right?
Denver was picked to finish last place in the poll while the UMKC Roos were named the pre-conference favorite, mostly due to a host of returning players. The entire Summit League Conference was gutted by defections and graduation following the conclusion of last season. That makes Denver and many other conference members a bit of a mystery heading into a new season.
The conference champion for 2024-25 will ultimately have a quality coaching staff who can find new players, develop existing players, quickly create an identity, and peak during the Summit League Tournament. In this regard, DU may have the deepest and most experienced coaching staff in the Summit League.
Denver lost the nation’s regular season scoring champion Tommy Bruner who averaged 24 points per game last year and over 50% of last season’s scoring due to transfer and graduation. However, DU’s Chicago-born point guard DeAndre Craig was named to the Preseason All-Summit League Second Team. DU also added six intriguing newcomers and retained nine players from last season’s team.
Here are this season’s preseason All-Summit League teams.
Which Summit League team will own the regular season and, more importantly, win the Summit League Tournament? Is there enough information to make an informed preseason prediction, especially in the NIL/transfer portal era? Finally, what all Pioneers fans want to know – can Denver compete for a conference championship and that elusive first-ever NCAA Tournament bid?
When developing our season preview which will be coming soon, we took off our crimson-colored glasses, interviewed staff, and went to team practices to get a feel for this season’s squad. We also looked around the Summit League conference to determine Denver’s prospects.
An early view tells us that this could be the most unpredictable season ever, especially for mid-major basketball programs.
Stay tuned.
Dunker thinks those who pick us 9th are idiots. This could be our best team in many years. We have enough experience, some recruits will shine, good athleticism, twin towers, defensive stoppers, and depth at every position. Those who vote only casually check out rosters to see what will probably happen. It not like the league is full of talented teams. Our overall roster might be the most talented. Come Summit Tournament time, we should be poised with every player knowing his role. Prove me right.
I put no stock in that ranking, given the high player turnover among most of the teams in the league. DU could be a contender, a laggard or somewhere in between. We just don’t know, and neither do DU’s opponents.
Welbrun has done pretty well so far in his tenure, given that he has virtually a whole new team each year to teach and new assistant coaches this year too, as he also deals with a tough financial picture, too.
DU hast lost a lot of offense with Bruner, Tainamo and Brenchley gone – no doubt about that. But with with two seven footers now, DU should now have a post game to go along with some good outside shooters. The bigger question to me is the level of defensive performance improvement we hope to see – It needs to be much better than it was last year…
Tommy was great, but let’s be real, there were times when he needed to pass the ball, and not be so focused on scoring points to be the nation’s leading point scorer. With him gone, it will allow Deandre and everyone else to play much more freely. It seems like the new coaching staff bring experience that DU has never had before, and with some solid new talent, it could lead to a record setting year. Let’s hope so!
With the season starting (at Stanford) on Monday, 11/4… do you know if we’ll get a men’s bball season preview over the weekend? Go Pioneers!!!
Going up later today. Thx!