Best Win | Cumberlands (KY)
Cumberlands enjoyed a BIG week as they got the season sweep over No. 4 Freed-Hardeman. That win would prove big as the Patriots would go on to knock off Bethel (TN) and Freed beat Georgetown, which would give Cumberlands the Mid-South Title and they will be the 1-seed in the MSC Tournament!
Upset | LSU Shreveport
A big rivalry upset for LSU Shreveport as they took down No. 1 LSU Alexandria! The Dock was rocking and Shreveport led by as much as 18pts midway thru the 2nd half! The Pilots got their big resume boost and now turn their eyes to the RRAC Tournament! Tahjae Hill was magnificent off the bench as he went for 27pts, 5rebs, 3assts. Trey Boston chipped in 18pts, 7rebs and 3assts while Taj Anderson had 17pts in the win!
Offense | Dalton State (GA)
Dalton State turned up the offense on their way to winning the SSAC Regular Season Title!
vs Point (GA) | 106pts (55.7%FG,38.5%3FG), 20 assists on just 6 turnovers.
vs RV Life (GA) | 97pts (57.4%FG, 41.9%3FG) 20 assists
Defense | Montana Tech
Montana Tech, with all of their injuries, had opened the door for Providence to win the Frontier Conference Title. However, the Orediggers really buckled down defensively this week to go 2-0 and knock off Providence to win the Regular Season Title and 1-seed in the tournament. This past week they allowed just 56.5ppg as they gave up 61pts to Montana Western and then held UP to just 52pts.
vs Montana Western | 61pts (33.9%FG, 33%3FG), forced 11 turnovers on 5 steals and 6 blocked shots.
vs Providence | 52pts (31.1%FG, 17.2%3FG), forced 7 turnovers on 3 steals and 5 blocked shots.
Coach of the Week| Marcus “Chief” Bryant, Keiser (FL)
Coach Chief Bryant has Keiser sitting at 24-4 on the season after knocking off No. 20 Florida Memorial on the road and then following that up with a win vs Coastal Georgia to lock up the SUN Conference Regular Season Title! The win over FloMo was their 2nd Top 25 win in a row as they had previously knocked off No. 16 Ave Maria on Saturday of last week. Those two, back-to-back wins, helped secure the overall No. 1 seed in the SUN Conference Tournament this week!
Stock Up | Spring Arbor (MI)
We had them as our defensive team of the week last week and the Cougars could have been in that category again this week as they went 2-0 by holding Saint Francis to 57pts on just 37% shooting from the field. They also held No. 10 Bethel (IN) to just 72pts. The two wins helped Spring Arbor lock up the 4-seed in the Crossroads League Tournament!
Stock Up | Saint Xavier (IL)
Saint Xavier has won 3-straight games including knocking off CCAC Champs, St. Francis (IL) in the last game of the regular season. The metrics aren’t great for SXU, so they have some work to do yet, but the Cougars are talented and can really score the ball. The CCAC Tourney is wide open and they are certainly a team that can win it to lock up the 2nd CCAC auto-bid!
Stock Falling | Rio Grande (OH)
Rio has had an up and down season. However, even up until this past week, they held the cards to lock up the RSC East title. They were also a bubble team who had work to do, so Saturday’s loss to IU East will sting even more when you see that they were up by 2, with 3 seconds left and fouled the shooter at half court. IU East went on to make ALL 3 FT’s to win the game. The loss moves them to the 3-seed in the East and instead of hosting a tournament game, the Red Storm now have to head to IU Kokomo, where IUK is 10-2 on the season. One of those losses, though, was to Rio!
Game of the Week | LSU Shreveport knocks off rival and No.1 LSU Alexandria
For those that don’t know, the Shreveport/Alexandria game is always a HUGE rivalry game. They generally are the two top teams in the league and are usually fighting for a league title. For this game, LSUA had already locked up the RRAC Title. Shreveport , even after the win, is the 5-seed. However, this game had the “old school” rivalry feel of the “we don’t like you” mantra! This game was chirpy, this game was chippy, this game was chaotic. This game saw some big runs by LSUA and this game had big play after big play from both teams. Shreveport held an 18pt lead with 10 minutes to go, but LSUA would close it down to 1. They ran out of gas at that point and Shreveport came away with the big win to upset No. 1 LSU Alexandria, 101-96!
Onions | Drew Goodline, Huntington
Drew is going to become the first “Onions” winner with two clutch shots in the final 5 seconds of regulation as this was a complete sequence of events as Huntington was down 5pts with 3 seconds left to go into OT and win the game 92-84! One of the more fun sequences of the season!
Player of the Week | Hayden Diekhans, Montana Tech
Diekhans, a 6’6 Junior, came up big in two big wins for Tech as they locked up the Frontier Conference Title. Tech, who has been a bit injury plagued down the stretch, got 18.5ppg, while shooting 71% from the field from Hayden. He also averaged 11ppg, 4apg, 2bpg and 1spg in the two wins!
vs Montana Western | 25pts (11-16FG), 11rebs, 1asst, 2blks
vs Providence | 12pts, 11rebs, 7assts, 2blks
Defensively Player of the Week | Vincent Miszkiewicz, Keiser (FL)
Vincent may just be the NAIA Defensive Player of the Year! He continues to be a real force on the glass and at the rim. This past week, in two big games to win a league title, Vincent had 12 rebounds, 7blks and 2 steals vs No. 20 Florida Memorial. Then, in just 26 minutes, he had 9 rebounds, 2blks and 2stls in the blowout win vs Coastal Georgia!
Rodman | Jayme Peay, Milligan (TN)
The Sophomore was a BEAST on the glass this past week as he grabbed 17 rebounds, 16 of them coming on the defensive end! Peay also added in 8pts and 2stls off the bench for Milligan!
Sophomore | Ian Raasch, Grace (IN)
Ian Raasch has really been fun to watch in his Sophomore season. He has been a big part of Grace’s 3rd straight Crossroads League Title! This past week he had two more good games to add to his fantastic Sophomore season where he is averaging 15.8ppg, 5.3rpg and 2.5apg!
vs St. Francis (IN) | 12pts, 6rebs, 5assts
vs MVNU (OH) | 21pts, 5rebs, 2assts
Freshman | Isaiah Crane, Carroll (MT)
Carroll Freshman, Isaiah Crane, went for 38pts vs Rocky Mountain on Thursday night. It’s the most points in a game by any Frontier Conference player since 2016! Crane followed that up with a 16pt outing vs Montana State-Northern. However, in that game, Crane took over the game late as he scored the final 8pts of the game to bring Carroll all the way back for the win! He currently leads the entire FC in scoring at 18.4ppg.
Dunk | Brasen James, Reinhardt
Brasen was back at it this week as the 6’3 guard caught another body in what was a POWERFUL dunk off the back door!
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