North Dakota State Bison men's basketball

North Dakota State won the regular season and tournament championship last year.

St. Thomas in its first year of eligibility, post-eligibility, made it all the way to the championship game once again, but fell to the Bison.

Those two feel like the top two.

South Dakota State also right there in the mix for me, as well as South Dakota.

Stanford, this is a loaded non-conference.

They're going to be challenging themselves a bunch before getting to Summit League play when they're going to have to match up with South Dakota State, North Dakota State.

Let's talk a little bit about the Bison because they won last year's regular season and tournament championship in without really any star player.

They had a bunch of guys who averaged between, I'd say five or six and like 10 points per game last year.

It is Summit League basketball media days here at the Denny Sanford Premier Center in Sioux Falls, and a guy who's genuinely glad to be here because the last time he was here, he was hoisting a trophy.

He's Dave Richmond, the head coach of the North Dakota State men, and you know, They typed this up for me today.

This is what I feel really good about.

It says here, four NCAA tournament berths, eight Summit League tournament championship games, the second fastest coach in NDSU history to reach 100 games, and the fastest in the Division I era.

And I think more than anything, it's the lessons that we get to teach with the platform that we have.

OK, I just want to make sure I got the years correct here.

OK, I mean, you've been obviously you're a student at North Dakota State and then you've been at the school starting as a G.A. in 2003.

For 23 years.