South Dakota State and North Dakota State swept the major awards in basketball from the Summit League Thursday.
North Dakota State’s Lawrence Alexander was selected as The Summit League Men’s Basketball Player of the Year in a vote of the league’s nine head coaches, sports information directors and select media members. The league’s two co-champions, North Dakota State and South Dakota State, accounted for all five individual awards.
SDSU claimed the Newcomer of the Year honor, awarded to Deondre Parks, and Defensive Player of the Year, which went to Cody Larson. Sixth Man of the Year went to NDSU’s Dexter Werner while head coach David Richman was named Coach of the Year.
Alexander, NDSU’s third Player of the Year selection and second in a row (2009 Ben Woodside and 2014 Taylor Braun), leads The Summit League in scoring, three-point field goals made and minutes played. His 20.8 points per game is over a full point better than the second-highest average while his 54 three-pointers are 1.0 per game more than the rest of the league. A three-time Player of the Week, Alexander averaged 39.1 minutes per league contest and compiled 13 20-point games, including a pair of 30-point outbursts, during the full season to date.
Parks led all Summit League newcomers in scoring and ranked eighth overall with a team-best 14.2 points per game for the league co-champions. The junior college transfer made 2.2 three-point field goals per league contest, which tied him for fifth most in The Summit League.
Larson recorded a league-best 5.8 defensive rebounds and ranked third with 1.0 blocked shots per league contest. He helped SDSU lead the league in field goal percentage defense and tie for the league’s best scoring defense.
Werner was NDSU’s third-leading scorer (7.6 ppg) and averaged 4.5 rebounds in 18.5 minutes while coming off the bench in all 16 league contests for the co-champions.
Richman is the first rookie coach since 1983-84 to earn Summit League Coach of the Year honors. Despite being picked fifth in the league’s preseason poll, the Bison compiled a 12-4 league record as regular season co-champions, and earned their second straight title. Richman’s squad extended its home court win streak to 25 games, third-best in Summit League history, through the season.
Joining Alexander, Larson and Parks as first team All-Summit selections are Oral Roberts’ Obi Emegano, the league’s second-leader scorer at 19.4 points per game, Fort Wayne’s leading scorer and rebounder Steve Forbes (13.3 ppg and 5.9 rpg)and South Dakota’s leading scorer and the league’s fourth-leading rebounder Tyler Larson (13.1ppg, 7.4 rpg).
Five different teams are represented on both the second team and honorable mention. Second-team honors went to Oral Roberts’ Korey Billbury, Omaha’s CJ Carter, Western Illinois’ Garret Covington, South Dakota State’s George Marshall and Denver’s Brett Olson. Honorable mention included IUPUI’s Marceullus Barksdale, South Dakota State’s Jake Bittle, Fort Wayne’s Joe Edwards, North Dakota State’s A.J. Jacobson and Omaha’s Mike Rostampour.
The Summit League’s All-Newcomer team features Jacobson, Marshall and Parks along with South Dakota’s Tre Burnette and Fort Wayne’s Max Landis.
The Summit League Tournament begins Saturday, March 7, at the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center in Sioux Falls, S.D., and will be available across multiple platforms on Midco Sports Network and ESPN3. Eight teams will vie for the NCAA Tournament automatic bid, which goes to the winner of the championship game on Tuesday, March 10, on ESPN2 at 8 p.m. (CT).
