Summit League Basketball: Ranking of 25 best players from last decade (2013-23)

No season of college basketball passes without telling a myriad of stories to the world. We’re talking about the buzzer beaters and the major upsets and all the popular players and coaches who make their impact. We’re also talking about some of the lesser-known stories; the walk-ons who turn into stars or the small programs doing all they can to win games.

Each story deserves to be told and we’ve been spinning a few of those yarns in this long-running series. We’ve been looking at each conference’s best players of the last ten years, which in itself is quite a massive undertaking. Many of the faces in the ACC, Big Ten, or other power conferences were already known by most hardcore fans, but many mid-major names fly under the radar. Today’s focus is on another mid-major league, albeit with a few players who certainly made their names known.

It’s the Summit League that gets our attention today. It’s a conference that’s shifted several times in its history but has mostly been dominated by North Dakota State, Oral Roberts, and South Dakota State in recent years. More than half the players on today’s list come from these three schools, which have won every Summit League Basketball Tournament since 2012, but the stories from today come from various schools in this conference.

Remember that this piece is only looking at the best players of the last decade. It would look very different if we extended back a few years, but we’re only including play back through 2013. A player whose career started before then can certainly still qualify based on the later years in his career. Likewise, someone who spends time outside of the Summit at another school can be in these rankings, though those other seasons won’t be considered. Let’s get right into the list, knowing there are some really special names to cap things off today.