Men's Basketball Ranked Ninth in GPAC Preseason Poll
(Sioux City, IA) – The results are in from the Great Plains Athletic Conference with their Men’s Basketball preseason poll, where Hastings College was voted to finish ninth.
(Sioux City, IA) – The results are in from the Great Plains Athletic Conference with their Men's Basketball preseason poll, where Hastings College was voted to finish ninth.
Northwestern led the way with 100 points, including 10 first-place votes. Morningside was second with 86 points. Concordia and Dordt were tied for third with 78 points, with Dordt receiving the one other first-place vote. The Broncos, who had 33 points, were three points behind eighth place Mount Marty.
The Broncos finished last season with a 4-16 conference record and 5-22 overall under head coach Todd Raridon, but had some success late in the season by winning their last two games. In those games, they won 69-68 at Midland and finished with a 70-58 victory at Doane, making a combined 19 threes and holding the two teams to a combined 4-31 from behind the arc.
Hastings returns their main backcourt players from a year ago, including their top scorer, senior DaRon Hall, who averaged 13.1 points and 3.8 rebounds. Sharpshooting sophomore guard Maverick Binder returns after averaging 12.2 points on 50 percent shooting from the field and from three-point range, drilling 2.9 threes per game last year. Junior guard Ben Boudreau ran point last year, contributing 11.9 points, 3.4 assists, and 3.3 rebounds.
On the interior, Hastings returns senior forward Myles Simon, who started in 13 of the 27 games last year, averaging 5.8 points and 2.8 rebounds per game. Senior forward Christian Pujals had success shooting the ball last year, scoring 6.8 points per game on 51.5 percent shooting from the field and 43.1 percent from three.
Other returning rotation players include senior forward Cameron Coraggio became a rotation regular late in the year, playing in 17 games and starting four of them, scoring 2.2 points per game and shooting 40.9 percent from three. Sophomore guard Eli Podoll appeared in 21 games last season and averaged 1.3 points per game.
The Broncos brought in several transfers to contribute in the post, with redshirt-junior Owen Wright, a 6-7 forward, who comes in from Northeastern Junior College, and redshirt-sophomore Predrag Savic, a 6-9 forward, who transfers in from Western Wyoming Community College.
Hastings will begin their season in Bellevue, NE on Friday, Oct. 24 against Central Methodist at 5pm, then will play Bellevue the following day at 4:30pm.
