Senior: When you win player of the week in the Summit League, it’s hard not to win the Reaching the Summit award. Our senior of the week is South Dakota’s Stanley Umude. Umude averaged 28 points, 6.5 rebounds, and 3.5 assists in the weekend sweep of Omaha, which kept USD undefeated in Summit League play. Umude is positioning himself for a potential player of the year honor if he keeps up this pace.
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
Week 6 Rocky Kreuser, North Dakota State
Week 7 Rocky Kreuser, North Dakota State
Week 8 Brandon McKissic, Kansas City
Junior: This week it was tough to decide who should be named Reaching the Summit Podcast’s Junior Player of the Week. Western Illinois junior Colton Sandage had two great games inside the Betty Engelstad Sioux Center, however, North Dakota junior Filip Rebraca gets the Player of the Week nod this week. Rebraca scored a total of 49 points in two games against the Leathernecks and shot 57.7 percent (15-of-26) from the floor. The Sombor, Serbia native also connected on 19-of-22 from the charity stripe and hauled down 20 total rebounds in 61 minutes. He also added four assists, one block, and one steal in UND’s 83-81 on Friday night.
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
Week 6 Kevin Obanor, Oral Roberts
Week 7 Jase Townsend, Denver
Week 8 Tyree Eady, North Dakota State
Sophomore: Sometimes you win the award due to one game. In the second game against Omaha, AJ Plitzuweit was unstoppable. Plitzuweit scored 37 points, added in 8 assists, and 3 rebounds. You could call Plitzuweit Robin to Umude’s Batman, but maybe South Dakota just has two Batman’s.
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
Week 6 A.J. Plitzuweit, South Dakota
Week 7 Max Abmas, Oral Roberts
Week 8 Tasos Kamateros, South Dakota
Freshmen: The freshman of the week honor this week goes to Kansas City Roo’s guard Jacob Johnson. An undermanned Roo’s team managed to earn a split this weekend in Fargo and Johnson had a pair of double-figure point games to show for his efforts while playing over 36 minutes in each contest. KC gets the bye this week before hosting Omaha on February 12th.
Week 1 Tyree Ihenacho, North Dakota
Week 2 Tyree Ihenacho, North Dakota
Week 3 Sam Hines Jr, Denver
Week 4 Grant Nelson, North Dakota State
Week 5 La’Mel Robinson, Omaha
Week 6 Grant Nelson, North Dakota State
Week 7 Sam Hines Jr, Denver
Week 8 Tyree Ihenacho, North Dakota
Bench: Caleb Nero, North Dakota; Nero had a pair of good games for the Fighting Hawks last weekend as North Dakota split with Western Illinois. In UND’s 83-81 comeback win, Nero came off the bench to score 12 points. Nero played 28 minutes in the victory, playing strong defense, especially in the second half. In Saturday’s 99-87 defeat, Nero had nine points off the bench on 4-7 shooting.
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
Week 6 Adam Anhold, Western Illinois
Week 7 Eric Moenkhaus, Denver and Mitchell Sueker, North Dakota
Week 8 Caleb Nero, North Dakota
Defense: This week’s defensive team of the week has become the team to beat in this category, the Kansas City Roos. Over the weekend they forced 28 turnovers against NDSU, had 14 steals, and blocked 5 shots on Saturday in holding the Bison to just 47 points and earning themselves the series split. The back to back format seems to favor their style of aggressive defense as all 3 of their wins in league play have now come on the second game of the series.
Week 1 North Dakota State
Week 2 North Dakota
Week 3 Western Illinois
Week 4 Denver
Week 5 Kansas City
Week 6 Kansas City
Week 7 Kansas City
Week 8 Kansas City