Checking In On… the Summit League
Posted by jstevrtc on December 4th, 2009
Eli Linton is the RTC correspondent for the Summit League.
Current Standings (Overall Record/League Record):
- IUPUI (6-2/1-0)
- Centenary (4-2/1-0)
- Oral Roberts (4-4/1-0)
- North Dakota State (3-3/1-0)
- Oakland (3-4/0-0)
- IPFW (2-3/0-0)
- UMKC (3-3/0-1)
- Western Illinois (3-4/0-1)
- Southern Utah (3-5/0-1)
- South Dakota State (2-5/0-1)
Top Storylines:
- Whatever could go wrong has gone wrong for Oral Roberts University to start this season. After getting an emotional win against Stanford, everything came crashing down to earth when they discovered that their junior point guard Rod Pearson became the third player THIS YEAR to suffer a season-ending ACL tear. To make matters worse, the third string point guard, sophomore Beloved Rodgers, quit the team last week as well. Apparently he was not happy with the minutes he was seeing. So Scott Sutton was forced to activate his fourth-string emergency guard, redshirt freshman Mikey Mangum. Who knew the most valuable player of the Golden Eagles season would not be a player at all, but the personal trainer? Here is a suggestion: stretch before games.
- Oakland continues to roll, with Keith Benson earning player of the week honors, averaging 20/11/5 blocks in three games last week. Also, Oakland guard Jonathan Jones became the conference’s all-time assist leader when he dished out 11 in a win over Central Arkansas on November 28; he now has 639 for his career. The previous record holder was Valparaiso legend Bryce Drew (626).
- The non-conference schedule is wrapping up for most of the Summit League, with only IUPUI, Centenary, and UMKC coming out on top with winning records. Oral Roberts and Oakland remain neck and neck according to their records, but in reality, Oral Roberts has fallen back even further with the loss of four key players. It’s never good when your second-string shooting guard, Kyron Stokes, now becomes your first-string point guard. The Summit is still the 20th or 21st best conference in the country, so the one coveted bid will hinge on the conference play. Anything can happen at this point, and this week will be a good indicator as to who are the true contenders.
