Summit League Basketball: Who is the 2017-18 star on each team?
By Bryan Mauro
Summit League basketball might be a one-bid conference, but there are still several stars to watch out for. Let’s take a look at each team’s star player.
When you are part of a mid-major conference, making the NCAA Tournament is hard enough. When you are a mid-major like the Summit League your tournament dreams lie in winning the league’s auto bid through the conference tournament. Some of the Summit teams will pose a challenge to a lot of teams, though. These teams are well-coached and run wide-open offenses in which they score a ton of points.
Summit League teams have wins over Iowa, Minnesota, Indiana, and Oklahoma in the last few years. The win over Oklahoma was in the NCAA Tournament by North Dakota State and was one of the biggest wins for the conference in recent memory. The Summit league teams are not afraid of any team. They will schedule anyone and play them on any court.
The Summit league is not short on talent either. Some of the best under-the-radar talents play in this conference. Mike Daum of South Dakota State scored 51 points in a game last year. South Dakota and Omaha have many players that not many people have heard of, but they all play as a team and a few of their players stand out.
The Summit League as it is currently constructed only has one NCAA Tournament win, though. It always seems that these teams are a tough out in the tournament and are always going to give you their best shot. If this keeps up, Summit league teams are going to find it awful hard to schedule certain teams, as no power-5 wants to lose a non-conference home game. Especially not to a team that most power-5 schools had to pay an exorbitant amount of money to play.