DURANT, Okla. – Southeastern men's basketball team will open the 2017-18 season on Nov. 10-11 at the GAC/MIAA Crossover in Alva, Okla., and will tip off the home portion of the schedule on Nov. 13 at 7:30 p.m. in Bloomer Sullivan Arena against Austin College.
SE takes on Central Oklahoma at 5:30 p.m. on Friday and will face Northeastern State at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday.
"We hope to "take off" where we "left off" last season," said head coach
Kelly Green, "And be in a position to compete for a conference championship and a place in the GAC tournament in Bartlesville at the end of the season."
"We have many new faces," he continued, "To go along with our returnees, Jett Jobe, Kevin Buckingham,
James Donelan, Bobby Johnson, Anthony Palmer and Jose Libanio who played last season and gained experience throughout the season and were very important in us finishing last season on a 3 game winning streak."
The Storm missed out on postseason play a season ago after finishing the year 12-16 and 8-14 in league play, but did finish the season on a three-game winning streak by downing SWOSU, HU and ATU.
The Savage Storm was picked to finish 10
th in the Great American Conference preseason poll, narrowly behind Southwestern Oklahoma State in ninth place, but noticeably ahead of Northwestern Oklahoma State in 11
th and Oklahoma Baptist in 12th.
Arkansas Monticello was picked to win the league with 121 points and 11 first place votes, while Arkansas Tech was next up with 98 points and one first place vote, one point ahead of East Central in third.
SE will be looking to replace its top two scorers, including first team all-conference selection and 1,000-point career scorer
Anton Cook who averaged 19.6 ppg on the season.
The Storm does return its number three and four scorer in Kevin Buckingham and Jett Jobe.
Buckingham is the top returner in points and rebounds at 10.8 ppg and 5.5 rpg, while Jobe was averaging 8.4 ppg and dishing out 5.3 assists per outing.
"Four year college transfers, A'Torey Everett, Stefan Rosic, and local product Markell Henderson of Boswell," coach added, "Will be expected to provide valuable experience after transferring from respective NCAA Division I universities."
"Medical Redshirts DJ Henderson, achilles injury, Ziga Zategic, ACL injury, Ryan Scott-McGuire and Myles Nesbitt will give depth and add experience of being in the program for a year."
"We believe we were playing some of the best basketball in the conference at the conclusion of last season," said Green. "But we put ourselves in a difficult situation early by losing some very close games."
"It will be a challenge but we believe the pieces are here to reach those goals."
