The Omaha Mavericks are coming off a disappointing 2025-2026 campaign with an overall losing record of 16-17 losing in the Summit League Semifinals to eventual Summit League Champions North Dakota State Bison 50-74. During the offseason, a new NCAA rule was put in place starting with the high school class of 2023 allowing athletes a 5th year of eligibility of playing college sports with no redshirting and must be done with college in five academic years. There was suing with the class of 2022 and below but only certain players got a 5th year due to injury, COVID, and other related issues such as junior college. This caused many of the seniors from last season such as Tony Osburn, Lance Waddles, and Ja’Sean Glover not to play college basketball despite some of them wanting to enter the transfer portal pending lawsuit for a 5th year. The only exception was Isaac Ondekane who missed all of last season due to an ankle injury coming back for one more year. Ondekane was a key piece in the 2024-2025 Summit League Championship team especially on defense.
The transfer portal also took away several underclassmen such as Paul Djobet. The returning players to this Omaha roster besides Ondekane are Brock Scholl, Aidan Skradis, and the lone 4th year senior who has played for Omaha all four years Grant Stubblefield. Some freshman to this roster includes Ethan Sheets from Denton, Texas, Jonny Jordan Jr. from St. Louis, and Gavin Baker from Fremont Bergan Catholic High School. A few of the transfer portal players coming to Omaha are Deke Thompson from Texas State, Justin Bolis from UNL, Dace Pleasant from Howard, Cahmai Crosby from North Texas, Chris Dockery and Cory Curtis Jr. both from UMKC.
This seasons conference schedule will feature everyone’s most hated format “Mirrored Scheduling” which does not grow the game of basketball especially on the women’s side which ruins it and hard to watch and go to certain basketball games. Some notable nonconference games include going to Utah and facing BYU and Utah State November 6th and 7th, a double home and home against Lindenwood in Omaha on November 13th and at St. Charles December 5th, a return home and home against Lamar in Omaha November 17th, the Las Vegas Resorts World Classic during “FEAST WEEK,” and the Don Haskins Invitational in El Paso, Texas before conference play begins in January.
This season I predict Omaha to finish 3rd out of 8th in the Summit League behind South Dakota State and St. Thomas. Teams finishing right behind Omaha are North Dakota State, South Dakota, Kansas City, North Dakota, and Oral Roberts. Be ready for chaos as the Summit League is once again a wide open conference. Also be ready for the Summit League pickem with the spread and over/under, burner accounts on twitter reporting news, cannons getting fired in the Reaching Summit Podcast group chats, refball from Kelly Pfiefer and other Summit League refs, the two Sharps for UNO me and Gary Sharp (not related by the way), and of course HECKLE GUY!!! For those of you who does not know who Heckle Guy is, he is someone who goes to Omaha Mavericks athletics events and know all the chants inside and out and distracts opposing teams from doing well. This includes at basketball games yelling random things when opposing teams are shooting free throws causing them to miss.
Omaha is also one of 8 cities hosting the first and second rounds of NCAA March Madness this season and never know which teams appear in Omaha such as a Summit League Team. The NCAA also expanded the tournament from 68 to 76 teams allowing more at large bids to be in NCAA March Madness. Other postseason tournaments such as the NIT and Crown Tournaments will take place but scaled back due to the expansion. Get ready for some upsets, late game drama, and of course Buffalo Wild Wings forcing games to go into overtime this season!!!