The NEW Official Thread of the Augustana Vikings

[MrAugustana]

Re: The NEW Official Thread of the Augustana Vikings

Cool story on the family of Augie freshman AJ Plitzuweit and the many ways basketball has influenced all of their lives.

https://www.argusleader.com/story/sp...SMAsLubOTfzcsw

[MrAugustana]

Re: The NEW Official Thread of the Augustana Vikings

My freshman of the year is Ethan Schuemer from SCSU. He may spell it wrong, but best last name in the league in my opinion. And fairly ironic, that at SCSU home games, he's the one who reads the sportsmanship pledge. :)

Reimerthaler must have a pretty good sense of humor.

[simple as a $3 bill]

Re: The NEW Official Thread of the Augustana Vikings

My freshman of the year is Ethan Schuemer from SCSU. He may spell it wrong, but best last name in the league in my opinion. And fairly ironic, that at SCSU home games, he's the one who reads the sportsmanship pledge. :)

[NSU4LIFE]

Re: The NEW Official Thread of the Augustana Vikings

Nice work here MrAugustana. "The committee will hopefully see the heart that Parker Fox plays with. Whether on the bench or on the court, playing a position unknown to him until this season he bring a fire and passion for the game and his teammates. This kid really is coachable and has a high motor. Speaking of high, have you seen this kid get up? On offense and on defense this kid can jump out of the gym and one can only hope the committee see these block and dunk numbers and of course the measurement of vertical and 'Mean Mugging' and give this kid the award he desevers."

Best coach Calipari impersonation I can do.

[MrAugustana]

Re: The NEW Official Thread of the Augustana Vikings

Would also give some recognition to chase grinde from USF and drake jeffries from minot state, both unlikely to have shot at freshman of year award, but good players with bight futures.

Yeah, I'm not trying to ignore decent freshmen across the league, more just looking at any that would even be realistically considered in the Freshman of the Year discussion, primarily from a statistical standpoint.

So any of you freshmen who read this board regularly and whose names I didn't mention, please don't go and hang 25 on Augie in vengeance anytime soon.

[Moorhead123]

Re: The NEW Official Thread of the Augustana Vikings

Would also give some recognition to chase grinde from USF and drake jeffries from minot state, both unlikely to have shot at freshman of year award, but good players with bight futures.

[MrAugustana]

Re: The NEW Official Thread of the Augustana Vikings

Three frosh averaging double figures is pretty impressive.

Technically they also have another true freshman, Trevor Hanson, averaging 9.3 points and 4 rebounds per game. But I figured he wasn't any more likely to get it than the other three I listed.

[MrAugustana]

Re: The NEW Official Thread of the Augustana Vikings

You are absolutely right on Fox, and I have adjusted my original post accordingly. Either their website didn't sort the players by class correctly, or I completely overlooked it.

Like you, I don't believe it differentiates between redshirt freshman or true freshman.

[GrifFan]

Re: The NEW Official Thread of the Augustana Vikings

Three frosh averaging double figures is pretty impressive.

[Moorhead123]

Re: The NEW Official Thread of the Augustana Vikings

I was reflecting on one of my predictions from the preseason (I did mention I was kidding about the Sharpie part in my full post, but I'll just go with the abbreviated post for everyone's sake):



...and it made me realize that I didn't have any idea which other teams have solid freshmen, so I wanted to look into it.

There's always a high likelihood that I missed a kid or two in my research, but here's what I came up with so far. I basically just checked on freshmen who had noteworthy stats to a degree that they could potentially be in the running or close to in the running for NSIC FoY this season.

Augie
AJ Plitzuweit - 14 ppg, 4 apg, 4 rpg
Michael Schaefer - 12 ppg, 6 rpg
Dylan LeBrun - 10ppg, 6 rpg, 2 apg

SMSU - No one

Moorhead
Baumgartner - 16 ppg, 5 rpg, 2.1 apg
Irsfeld - 10 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 3.2 apg

Bemidji - No one

USF - No one

Mankato
Baumgardner - 13 ppg, 2 rpg, 3.1 apg

Duluth - No one

St. Cloud - No one

Minot - No one

Northern - No one

Mary - No one

UIU
Joens - 8ppg but almost 0 in rpg and apg

Winona - No one

Wayne
Jordan Jannsen - 10.3 rpg, 7 rpg, 1 apg
Ferrarini - 9ppg, 3.4 rpg, 1apg

Crookston - No one

CSP
Baughman - 8.1ppg, 3.4 rpg, 1.2 apg

In spite of the fact that I think there's a noticeable difference between a freshman and a redshirt freshman (seeing as they have an entire year to practice, get used to road trips, get comfortable with teammates, etc.), statistically it's looking like Moorhead123's shining star, Gavin Baumgartner, is the frontrunner. The one that surprised me was Mankato's similarly-but-not-exactly-named Baumgardner, who is having a solid statistical season as a freshman for the Mavs.

I think Plitzuweit having to miss 4 games with a lingering back injury probably hasn't helped him, but he has definitely come on stronger in the past 3 weekends or so as he has gotten more and more comfortable and is getting consistent minutes again. If he puts together a few more 20-25 point games to finish out the year, he might be able to work his way up to the top of the list in the freshman category, but it would also take a bit of an unlikely slide from Baumgartner at Moorhead in particular, and statistically he is slightly stronger, particularly with his 55% 3-point shooting.

Like I said, I think the redshirt freshman thing is different from true freshmen, but I'm sure others would argue that there's a big difference between practicing with the team for a year and actually playing a full season. Having played zero college basketball games in my life, I wouldn't know if that's accurate or not, but I'm willing to believe those who do know.

Won't surprise me if Baumgartner ends up as this year's Freshman of the Year, but I would love to see Plitzuweit continue his upward trajectory to close out the season, whether he wins it or not.

Side note: I think Dylan LeBrun is one of those sleeper type kids that is going to be really sneaky good in another year or two. You almost don't realize he's a freshman out there most of the time, but I think he's been overshadowed a bit by Cartwright, Plitzuweit, Schaefer, etc., in spite of his talent.

[MrAugustana]

Re: The NEW Official Thread of the Augustana Vikings

I was reflecting on one of my predictions from the preseason (I did mention I was kidding about the Sharpie part in my full post, but I'll just go with the abbreviated post for everyone's sake):

AJ Plitzuweit, NSIC Freshman of the Year 2018-19. Sharpie.

...and it made me realize that I didn't have any idea which other teams have solid freshmen, so I wanted to look into it.

There's always a high likelihood that I missed a kid or two in my research, but here's what I came up with so far. I basically just checked on freshmen who had noteworthy stats to a degree that they could potentially be in the running or close to in the running for NSIC FoY this season.

Augie
AJ Plitzuweit - 14 ppg, 4 apg, 4 rpg
Michael Schaefer - 12 ppg, 6 rpg
Dylan LeBrun - 10ppg, 6 rpg, 2 apg

SMSU - No one

Moorhead
Baumgartner - 16 ppg, 5 rpg, 2.1 apg
Irsfeld - 10 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 3.2 apg

Bemidji - No one

USF - No one

Mankato
Baumgardner - 13 ppg, 2 rpg, 3.1 apg

Duluth - No one

St. Cloud - No one

Minot - No one

Northern
Parker Fox - 11ppg, 6rpg, 1apg, 3dpg (dunks per game)

Mary - No one

UIU
Joens - 8ppg but almost 0 in rpg and apg

Winona - No one

Wayne
Jordan Jannsen - 10.3 rpg, 7 rpg, 1 apg
Ferrarini - 9ppg, 3.4 rpg, 1apg

Crookston - No one

CSP
Baughman - 8.1ppg, 3.4 rpg, 1.2 apg

In spite of the fact that I think there's a noticeable difference between a freshman and a redshirt freshman (seeing as they have an entire year to practice, get used to road trips, get comfortable with teammates, etc.), statistically it's looking like Moorhead123's shining star, Gavin Baumgartner, is the frontrunner. The one that surprised me was Mankato's similarly-but-not-exactly-named Baumgardner, who is having a solid statistical season as a freshman for the Mavs.

I think Plitzuweit having to miss 4 games with a lingering back injury probably hasn't helped him, but he has definitely come on stronger in the past 3 weekends or so as he has gotten more and more comfortable and is getting consistent minutes again. If he puts together a few more 20-25 point games to finish out the year, he might be able to work his way up to the top of the list in the freshman category, but it would also take a bit of an unlikely slide from Baumgartner at Moorhead in particular, and statistically he is slightly stronger, particularly with his 55% 3-point shooting.

Like I said, I think the redshirt freshman thing is different from true freshmen, but I'm sure others would argue that there's a big difference between practicing with the team for a year and actually playing a full season. Having played zero college basketball games in my life, I wouldn't know if that's accurate or not, but I'm willing to believe those who do know.

Won't surprise me if Baumgartner ends up as this year's Freshman of the Year, but I would love to see Plitzuweit continue his upward trajectory to close out the season, whether he wins it or not.

Side note: I think Dylan LeBrun is one of those sleeper type kids that is going to be really sneaky good in another year or two. You almost don't realize he's a freshman out there most of the time, but I think he's been overshadowed a bit by Cartwright, Plitzuweit, Schaefer, etc., in spite of his talent.

[laker]

Re: The NEW Official Thread of the Augustana Vikings

The world famous Sioux Falls Farm Show has the Arena from Wednesday through Friday.

I asked Matt about that on Saturday night. He would have preferred that the games been moved to the Elmen- which would have been very nostalgic- and played Friday/Saturday- but it was not to be.

[Augieholic]

Re: The NEW Official Thread of the Augustana Vikings

Why are Wayne and Augie playing a home set on Sat./Sun the weekend of the 26/27 instead of the usual Fri./Sat?

The world famous Sioux Falls Farm Show has the Arena from Wednesday through Friday.

[simple as a $3 bill]

Re: The NEW Official Thread of the Augustana Vikings

Why are Wayne and Augie playing a home set on Sat./Sun the weekend of the 26/27 instead of the usual Fri./Sat?

[MrAugustana]

Re: The NEW Official Thread of the Augustana Vikings

Augieholic already mentioned this in one of the other threads, but if you had told me Trevor Hanson could do this before I saw him do it, I might have been skeptical:

Drop the hammer @Trevorhans55G ?#BuildingChampions pic.twitter.com/OStZ6FSaES

— AugieMensBball (@AugieMensBball) January 12, 2019