Senior: North Dakota State’s Rocky Kreuser is this week’s Summit Senior Player of the Week. Kreuser had a couple of double-double performances against Omaha this weekend and helped the Bison sweep the two-game set at home. Rocky scored 19 points in each game while grabbing 11 and 12 rebounds respectively. North Dakota State travels south to Fargo next weekend for the in-state rivalry against North Dakota.
Past winners
Week 1 Matt Pile, Omaha
Week 2 Stanley Umude, South Dakota
Week 3 Will Carius, Western Illinois
Week 4 Rocky Kreuser, North Dakota State
Week 5 Stanley Umude, South Dakota
Junior: Kevin Obanor; Oral Roberts. ORU split its two games last weekend against North Dakota, but it was not because Kevin Obanor had an off weekend. The junior scored 21 points, grabbed 18 rebounds, blocked two shots, and had a steal in Friday’s 72-71 loss to the Fighting Hawks. On Saturday, ORU bounced back, winning 74-57.
Obanor had another double-double, scoring 14 points while grabbing 10 rebounds.
Week 1 Kevin Obanor, Oral Roberts
Week 2 Alex Arians, South Dakota State
Week 3 Wanyang Tut, Omaha
Week 4 Kevin Obanor, Oral Roberts
Week 5 Kevin Obanor, Oral Roberts
Sophomore: For the 2nd week in a row our sophomore of the week goes to A.J. Plitzuweit. A.J. has really come on strong in league play and just continues to fill the stat sheet and impact the game in a variety of ways. Over the weekend in the two games at UMKC Plitzuweit averaged 16.5 points, 5.5 rebounds, 4 assists, and 1.5 steals. The biggest note for this weekend was in Friday’s game he struggled to get his shots to fall going just 2-11 from the field but got himself to the free-throw line and went 9-9 from there. Good players find a way to impact the game even when things aren’t going their way and USD seems to have found themselves a good one.
Past Winners
Week 1 Max Abmas, Oral Roberts
Week 2 Baylor Scheierman, South Dakota State
Week 3 Max Abmas, Oral Roberts
Week 4 Jarius Cook, North Dakota State
Week 5 A.J. Plitzuweit, South Dakota
Freshmen: NDSU’s Grant Nelson earns the Summit Podcast Freshman Player of the week. One of the top recruits brought in for the Bison this season is hitting on all cylinders coming off the bench since the new year started. This weekend the Devils Lake native averaged 9.5 ppg/4.5 RPG in two wins over visiting Omaha. He should continue to improve and has the potential to be one of the top Summit players in the years ahead.
Past Winners
Week 1 Tyree Ihenacho, North Dakota
Week 2 Tyree Ihenacho, North Dakota
Week 3 Sam Hines, Denver
Week 4 Grant Nelson, North Dakota State
Week 5 La’Mel Robinson, Omaha
Bench Player: There were plenty of student-athletes worthy of this award this week but I’m going to stick with a player that came off the bench in both their games this weekend. Western Illinois junior Adam Anhold had a strong outing in two games against South Dakota State on Friday and Saturday. The 6-foot-8 forward scored a career-high 16 points on 6-of-11 shooting and hauled down a career-high nine rebounds in WIU’s 83-77 loss to the Jackrabbits inside Frost Arena on Friday. The Leathernecks ran out of energy on the back-to-back and fell 92-63 on Sunday but Anhold had another solid performance with 11 points and seven rebounds in 23 minutes of play for WIU. The first-year WIU player has played in four games this season and is averaging nine points and five rebounds per game. He had knee surgery in early November after tearing his meniscus at practice on Halloween.
Past Winners
Week 1 Marlon Ruffin, Omaha
Week 2 Sam Hines, Denver
Week 3 Gertautas Urbonavicius, North Dakota
Week 4 Gertautas Urbonavicius, North Dakota
Week 5 Mitchell Sueker, North Dakota
Defense: There were many jokes on Twitter this week asking if Kansas City is playing football or basketball. These jokes are understandable as there is no denying that the Roos play an incredibly physical brand of basketball. After averaging 86 points in two games the weekend before, South Dakota went to KC and averaged 67 points per game. It was two losses for the Roos but that was not due to their lack of impacting South Dakota with their defense. The Yotes shot 40% from the field in game 1 and 42% in game 2. One of the things that makes USD a tough matchup for the Roos is they don’t turn the ball over. Even with 2 losses, the Kansas City Defense deserves a tip of the cap one more time.
Past winners
Week 1 North Dakota State
Week 2 North Dakota
Week 3 Western Illinois
Week 4 Denver
Week 5 Kansas City