RILEY HAAS | SPORTS CORRESPONDENT
*Author’s note: Since I am part of the Men’s Basketball team, I use ‘we’ and ‘our’ more often than normal throughout the article*
The St. Norbert Men’s Basketball team got their 2018-19 campaign underway on Monday, October 15th, the first day they were eligible to practice. The gym was electric and we had a lot of energy going but now the key will be to continue that energy as we progress through the first few weeks of practice. It was a bit of a disappointing finish to our season last year as we made the conference tournament but were bounced in the first round by rival Ripon College. This season, we are hoping for a different result.
“It’s a ways off into the future but one of our team goals is to get back to hosting and winning the conference tournament this year,” said junior co-captain Jordan Newman ’20. St. Norbert has not hosted the Midwest Conference Men’s Basketball Tournament since 2016. “Right now we’re just focused on coming to practice every day with that competitive edge and pushing each other to get better.”
The Green Knights graduated three seniors last year and two more will graduate at the semester break this year opening up a lot of new opportunities for leadership and playing time. In addition, the basketball team takes a trip overseas every four years to play some games and tour around a country. We happened to take our trip to Germany immediately after school got out last spring.
“The Germany trip really brought our team together and helped develop our chemistry. We were with each other for about 10 days straight and had a lot of fun,” Newman explained. “We also have some real solid younger guys who could make a push for playing time throughout the season,” Newman added.
When asked about his leadership role as a captain, Newman said he has learned from others but is trying to put his own spin on it as well.
“I learned from the captains before me for my first couple years in the program so I kind of had an idea of how things should go. However, I really have tried to add new things to the team as far as leadership goes as well,” said Newman.
The team has had a great offseason and preseason and is ready to tip off the regular season. Over the past couple years, St. Norbert has tested themselves early in the season with some tough non-conference games and this year is no different. The Green Knights will travel to the University of Northwestern in St. Paul, Minn., UW-Eau Claire, and UW-Oshkosh all before Christmas break and face off against Nebraska Wesleyan, last year’s National Champions, in a tournament at Carroll University in November.
“Our mindset is to take it one day at a time and one game at a time without looking too far into the future. However, we’re really looking forward to these challenging non-conference games as well as our matchups against Ripon and Monmouth, the two teams that beat us multiple times last season,” said Newman.
The Green Knights start their season on Nov. 10 at the University of Northwestern and will have their first home game against Monmouth College on Nov. 30 at 7:30 p.m.
St. Norbert Times 