2021 Frontier Conference Tournament Bracket
Quarterfinals
February 25th
No. 6 Rocky Mountain at No. 3 Montana Tech
No. 5 Montana Western at No. 4 MSU-Northern
Semifinals
February 27th
No. 4 MSU – Northern @ No. 1 Providence
No. 3 Montana Tech at No. 2 Carroll College 67-62
League Notes:
The top seed: #10 Providence
NAIA Locks: Providence
NAIA Bubble Teams: Carroll
Best chances to win this tournament: Providence, Carroll
Possible sleeper: Montana Tech
KEY PLAYERS:
Zaccheus Darko-Kelly – Providence: 18.7ppg, 8.9rpg, 5.8apg
One of the NAIA’s best players. ZDK will flirt with a triple-double on almost every night. Late in games they use him a lot as the primary ball handler and he’s such a great playmaker for himself and others. Leads his team in every major statistical category.
Jovan Sljivancan – Carroll: 18.8ppg, 9.5rpg, 3.3apg
Jovan burst onto the scene as a Freshman when Carroll made a big run at the NAIA D1 National Tournament. He’s a tough matchup at 6’5 and is such a smart/headsy player.
KEY TEAMS:
#1 Providence – The heavy favorite to win the Tournament. ZDK and Marcus Stephens provide Providence with a ton of punch. ZDK is one of the best players in the NAIA and is so fun to watch.
#2Carroll – One of the best shooting teams in the NAIA. When they get hot they are tough to beat. Jovan Sljivancan has been so fun to watch over the past few years. His Carroll team has won
UPSET SPECIAL:
#3 Montana Tech – Eliminated in Semifinals
Championship Game Notes:
#2 Carroll @ #1 Providence 7pm MT Live Video
Providence 3-1
Another game in which bubble teams will be watching intently. Although we believe that Carroll has done enough late in the season to get in win or lose. Zachheus Darko-Kelly has once again proven that he is amongst the NAIA’s best. The best thing is that he can do it without scoring as well. He impacts the game on so many different levels. We can still remember watching him burst onto the scene as a Freshman at Montana Western and have enjoyed watching him grow these past few years. Same with Jovan Sljivancan, two kids who have been on the NAIA big stage and performed well. Going to be fun watching these two go at it again!
OTHER NOTES:
The Frontier is a (1) auto-bids league. The winner of the FC Tourney will get the auto-bid.
Our Pick To Win It: Montana Tech – Why not, Providence is so talented and really good, but it’s tournament time and we are going to ride out Sindou Diallo. A player we have talked about quite a bit over the past two seasons.
NAIA Hoops Report top 25
Not that our Top 25 was ever more than a fun thing to look at anyway, but just wanted to reemphasize that this is NOT
NAIA Top Non-Conf Games
One of the articles that, unfortunately, was pulled from this year’s magazine was the Non-Conference games that we have circled to watch! These are simply
NAIA Hoops Report Preseason Magazine
Sorry again for the delay on getting this out! I want to thank you all for your patience as we worked through getting this out
the narrative is changing…
There is still plenty of work to be done, but this offseason certainly has a different feel to it. Division 1’s hitting us up asking
NAIA to D1 – Elijah Malone Sets 1st round of Visits
Every year we see a handful of NAIA players who transfer to NCAA D1 programs. We have actually seen quite a few in the past
NAIA FAB FOUR PREVIEW
And then…there were four. A Fab Four, to say the least, as we have all four 1-seeds making it to the NAIA semifinals for the