WBB: Addicted to winning
One thing the Summit is not short on at the moment? Winning streaks. 
 
South Dakota currently has the longest winning streak in the country on the women’s side, wearing a crown with a glittering “14” emblazoned across it. The two most recent wins, like they have all conference season, came by large margins. With how dominating the Coyotes have been, it may well be easy to lose sight of their transcendence since league play started. Despite starting off cold from the field, USD’s 70-43 win over St. Thomas bumped its average margin of victory in Summit games to a whopping 25 points per game.
 
Even more, on the season the Coyotes have outscored their opponents by nearly 13 points per game, which brings into the equation what was one of the toughest non-conference slates in the country. Dawn Plitzuweit was asked what goes into her team’s flying play at home, where the Coyotes have not lost a Summit game in nearly five years. 
 
“This group certainly appreciates our fans at a very high level,” she said after the win over the Tommies. “I think they bring a great deal of energy and enthusiasm to our team, and I think our team has a lot of fun with that.”
 
Those fans will not be with the Coyotes this upcoming week – at least not in the same numbers – as they make the two-game road swing through North Dakota. The second leg of that trip could see them run into another streak that has become impressive in its own right. 
 
The Fighting Hawks have now won six-straight games after blowing out then-surging Oral Roberts and then keeping Kansas City at arms length last Saturday. As of this writing, only 18 teams (including, of course, USD) had won more consecutive games than UND, a mark that may have seemed unattainable during last year’s 2-19 campaign. The impressive turnaround by Mallory Bernhard, two-time Summit Player of the Week Kacie Borowicz and Co. gets its stiffest test with the South Dakota schools coming to Grand Forks this weekend.
 
MBB: Talk about this man’s candidacy
There are plenty of early cases to be made for Coach of the Year on the men’s side. Eric Henderson would seem to be the early front-runner as the Jackrabbits rain points on the league, and Paul Mills encore tour with a resurgent defense may well end having a strong case when the dust settles. 
 
But if things keep going as they are in the Mile High City, Jeff Wulbrun will be more than deserving of a close look as well. 
 
The longtime assistant has made strides at Denver faster than many likely expected in his first year. A perfect week saw the Pioneers move to 4-5, topping their total league win total from each of the past three seasons, and equaling the amount of Summit wins they had gotten over the past two years combined. 
 
The win at Kansas City last Monday was one of the more underappreciated victories of the league season. The Roos had momentum, going 3-1 over the four games leading into the matchup, and did their thing in forcing 26 turnovers. Wulbrun’s team overcame that between their stifling defensive effort and a career night from Tevin Smith, and in the process earned their first road league win since February 2018. 
 
It’s also worth keeping the past two wins over the Roos and Omaha (in Denver) in perspective. The Pioneers closed out last season with four straight losses to those two teams in the same venues that they beat them in last week. The 31-point win over the Mavs was already their second double digit league win of the year, a margin they had not laid on a Summit opponent since January 2020 – a time which feels particularly long ago, for obvious reasons.
 
The way Wulbrun built his first DU team should also have Pios’ fans especially excited. Besides Michael Henn, all significant contributors will have the opportunity to return next season, highlighted by three freshmen playing 20 minutes per game or more: Touko Tainamo, Coban Porter and Smith, the reigning league Player of the Week. 
 
There’s a lot of season left, but Wulbrun has already made a strong case.
 
WBB: South Dakota State simply cannot miss
Tucked under the Coyotes’ world-beating start is South Dakota State, quietly sitting just a game back at 8-1. Then again, it might not be so quiet after all. 
 
The Jackrabbits have been on fire lately, shooting the ball at nearly unprecedented rates. Last Saturday’s 114-50 win over Western Illinois saw SDSU equal its highest single-game point total in program history, and do so by shooting 64.3 percent from the field. That would be eye-popping, but for the Jackrabbits having shot 65.5 percent in a 41-point win over St. Thomas the game before. 
 
SDSU has continued to hammer in its offensively balanced identity, with each of the five starters capable of playing a lead scoring role on any given night. Over half the regular rotation is shooting over 37 percent from three and, according to HerHoopStats.com, the Jackrabbits are the fourth-best shooting team in the country against Division I opposition this season. That offensive prowess would seem to be the potential route into continuing to win games and, ultimately, face down USD’s stout defense in their Feb. 5 rematch in Frost Arena. 
 
MBB: The jumbled, exciting race for third 
The middle of the Summit is knotted on the men’s side. 
 
Four teams currently have four wins, Western Illinois isn’t far back at 3-5 and St. Thomas (2-4) hits the road after a difficult three-game home stretch. That entire group all have optimistic threads to pull at in recent weeks. 
 
South Dakota has seen Mason Archambault develop into one of the best scorers in the conference as the Coyotes have won five straight, of which by scoring 80 or more points. North Dakota State may well have just had a season-altering win as Sam Griesel sank Oral Roberts in Tulsa, but then again that followed a loss at Kansas City, which was the Roos’ best of the early conference slate. 
 
As mentioned above, Denver has not been an easy out and the Tommies gave both South Dakota schools tough games before fading late. The high-scoring Jackrabbits and Golden Eagles have been the toast of the league thus far, but there is plenty of heft behind them jockeying for position. 
 
Number of the Week: 30. The big 3-0 has been something of a magic number for the Roos this season. When Evan Gilyard goes for 30 points, Billy Donlon’s team is unbeatable. At least to this point, as the Roos have gone 3-0 when the New Mexico State transfer guard has put on a scoring show, as he did the last time out against North Dakota (30 points, 9-20 FG). 
 
That may not be surprising, since the Roos’ disruptive defense paired with a dynamic individual offensive performance become hard to beat. That number does also carry program-level significance, as Gilyard’s three 30-point outings tie him with Jay Couisnard as the only other Roo to have that many 30-point or more outbursts in the past 10 years.

Game of the Week: North Dakota at South Dakota State (WBB), Thursday, Jan. 27, 7:00 PM CT. The Fighting Hawks get the Game of the Week nod for the second straight week, such has been the run they are on. Their winning streak gets its stiffest test to date against the net-scorching Jackrabbits, a team UND has not beaten since back in their respective Division II days in 2004.