All your favorite teams and sources in one place

Build your feed

Your Teams.
All Sources.

Build your feed

© 2024 BVM Sports. Best Version Media, LLC.

No results found.
Northern State Wolves preparing for unprecedented season
The Wolves are going for their fourth straight NSIC Championships as well as a second straight appearance in the NCAA Central Region tournament. (Photo Credit: SPX Sports)

Northern State Wolves preparing for unprecedented season

ABERDEEN, S.D. (BVM) — The Northern State University men’s basketball team resumed practice recently to prepare for the 2020-2021 season that is slated to start Jan. 2. 

They have begun to prepare for an historical season that has been and will continue to be affected by COVID-19. The preseason No. 8-ranked team in the nation for Division II has had to push past how COVID-19 ended last season early. The Wolves had just won their third straight Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference tournament and were on their way to play Missouri Southern in the NCAA Central Regional when the news started to break. 

“It seemed like every half hour or every hour somebody else would announce that another thing was getting closed down. There was a definite slow feeling of dread creeping into the bus,” NSU head coach Saul Phillips said about the bus drive down to Missouri. “There are scars that come from that whenever anything goes wrong nationally, right now it’s natural for your kids to throw their hands up in the air and say, ‘Here we go again.’ … We have to fight that.”

One thing that has helped the Wolves combat those feelings of despair is to look at a picture of an old NSU football team. This football team consisted of women who played in place of the men who were off fighting in World War II. These women stepped up and the Wolves were able to have a homecoming game during the war.

“They found a way and they made it work well if they can do that we can do that,” Phillips said.

Not that it has been easy, but the Wolves have shown progress in their initial practices. 

“I am excited about how our team is coming together at this point and I’m excited about our opportunities to get out there and compete,” Phillips said.

Only about a week into practice and the Wolves have been able to pick up almost

One key returning player for the Wolves is sophomore guard Tommy Chatman who started last season as a freshman.(Photo Credit: SPX Sports)

exactly where they left off last year. This is impressive when you consider the fact that the team has not been able to work together in the offseason like they normally do.

“When they came back they were in as good of condition as you could be given the quarantine conditions and the constraints,” Phillips said. “They found ways to get it done. I didn’t do nearly as much worrying about what my guys would come back looking like as probably other coaches had to because our guys were going to find ways to develop one way or another.”

This has allowed Phillips to focus more on the team aspects of practice rather than just conditioning. Although condition will still be important this year it will be the little details that push one team ahead of another because of the lack of offseason team practices.

“Regardless of how hard a kid worked over the summer, they probably didn’t work on their ball screen hedges that much,” Phillips said.

Luckily for Phillips, he is returning much of his roster from last year as well as four of his five starters. It’s a large reason as to why the Wolves are ranked eighth heading into the season and why many are expecting the team to pick up right where they left off.

Amongst those returning is Andrew Kallman who led the team in assists last year and was tied for first on the team in steals. Mason Stark is also back as the team’s second-leading scorer and one of three Wolves named to the NSIC all-tournament team. Also returning is Parker Fox, who leads the team in points, rebounds, blocks and is tied with Kallman for steals. Fox was also the NSIC Defensive Player of the Year as well as NSIC Tournament MVP.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to be around teams that I thought were pretty good going into the year and this feels a lot like that,” Phillips said. “There is an underlying confidence in all of us.”

The talent, the attention to detail and the confidence will all be vital in a season unlike any other. Especially because of the lack of fans. 

A staple of college sports this year, fan attendance is in question. Phillips has said that he has talked to some of his colleagues who have already started their seasons and “all of them to a man say it’s just weird.”

No fans will be a huge shock for a team that regularly plays in front of more than 5,000 fans at the Wachs Arena. NSU just last year beat over 200 Division I colleges in attendance and has led the nation in attendance for over a decade.

“It’s fun to play in front of fans even if they’re not cheering for you and we’re just dying to get them back,” Phillips said.

The energy that can be fed to a team through the fans will have to come from the team itself. It also amplifies the need to execute gameplans flawlessly because homecourt advantage will basically be negated.

“We go through situations; we go through little things,” Phillips said. “We’ve got to make sure we’re practicing that stuff and not neglecting it. That’s hard to do when you’ve had a condensed offseason but you have to make time for it.”

Only a month away from their season opener against Wayne State, there is still a lot of work to do, but it’s work that the Wolves are happy to do. For months, they have been preparing by themselves for a season they all know could end at any minute.

Now that they are back practicing together and are so close to the goal, it’s all they can think about. Once they get to that moment where the tip off is about to happen and the season they have been dreaming of finally begins Phillips just had this to say.

“Let’s just crank this up and see how many dunks we can get this year.”