The 2020-21 season is on the horizon

The Bison men’s basketball team was picked to finish third in the Summit League heading into the 2020-2021 season. The defending Summit League regular season and tournament champions were unable to go dancing this past March (thanks 2020) but are slotted to be Summit League contenders once again.

SDSU received 33 out of 36 first-place votes (the remaining three first-place votes went to the Bison) as the Jackrabbits look to clinch their first NCAA Tournament Birth since 2018.

NDSU and SDSU have combined to win the last eight Summit League tournament titles.

Rocky Kreuser, NDSU’s top returning scorer, was voted to the preseason All-Summit League second team.

Krueser, along with juniors Sam Griesel and Tyree Eady, are the three returning starters for the Herd this season with Vinnie Shahid and Tyson Ward having graduated.

The Bison will begin playing on Nov. 27-29 with a four-team round-robin in Milwaukee. Joining the Herd will be Southern Miss, Ball State and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

A week later the Bison will head down to Lawerence, Kansas to take on the Jayhawks at KU. The herd should have their hands full in ‘Rock Chaulk’ land as the perennial powerhouse Jayhawks are once again expected to be amongst college basketball’s elite.

A couple of weeks later the Herd will visit the Horned Frogs of TCU in Fort Worth.

The full conference schedule for the Bison is still set to be released, with the question of fan attendance still to be determined

What’s known is the schedule will be 16 games, with each team playing each other twice on back-to-back days.

With everything that’s happened in 2020, college basketball in any capacity will be more than welcomed.