Submitted Photo The 2024-2025 MSU Men’s Basketball team is prepared for another strong season under new team leadership.

The Minot State University men’s basketball head coach, Matt Murken, is entering his baker’s dozen season with the Beavers. He, and his team, are poised for a follow up to last year’s solid performance.

The Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC) coaches poll is less impressed with what the Beavers may have in store for the rest of the conference. The NSIC poll has MSU at ten in the preseason polls.

“We are certainly coming off a great year with 20 wins and being nationally ranked for a large portion of the season,” said Murken. “But a lot of the guys that people know from that team have graduated and moved on. We have a lot of really good players returning that people don’t know yet. We added some really talented players as well. I know we will play hard and keep getting better so I’m excited to see how high we can climb.”

The 2023-2024 team was heavily senior loaded with five players in their senior or graduate student season. The 2024-2025 team has three senior or graduate student-athletes.

“”We have a ton of returning experience with Jaxon Gunville and Jalen Cook. They have been a huge part of our team for 5 and 4 years respectively,” said Murken. “They are good players and great leaders. Adding Daryl as a graduate transfer was also important for us. He was the student-athlete of the year at his university last year. He is an elite person with tremendous energy and leadership.”

The preseason polls and the new look roster of youth versus senior depth are questions that do not seriously affect the thought process of preparations for the Beavers.

“I honestly don’t look that closely at outside opinions. I care about the guys on our team and what we can control,” said Murken. “We can have elite effort, we can execute better than the opponent, we can have a closer locker room than they do. All those things win games and those are the things we talk about on a daily basis.”

One of the fun and unique aspects of the MSU men’s team is the international makeup of the roster with three athletes from Australia.

“We’ve had a lot of success with the Aussie guys in our program. They love the game, they are tough, they compete, they embrace the whole team culture because they are far from home,” said Murken. “Caleb, Braelyn and Max fit that mold. They all have unique stories and literally ties to people around the world. We are glad they are in our program.”

The Beavers start play on Friday, November 8, at the Minnesota University, Duluth at the ‘Conference Challenge’ where they play East Central University followed by Southeastern Oklahoma State University on Saturday, November 9.

The team then heads south to the Puerto Rico Classic from Thursday, November 14, thru Saturday, November 16, before returning to Minot to host the University of Jamestown on Wednesday, November 20, to start the year.

MSU has 31 games to get ready for the first round of the NSIC Tournament on Wednesday, February 26, and the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals held Saturday, March 1, thru Tuesday, March 4, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

The good news for the Beavers is that the first round of NSIC play is at the MSU Dome.

“Last year we had a bye in the first round. It’s important to get that or to at least get a home game. Our conference tournament is a battle,” said Murken. “In one power ranking last year the NSIC had seven of the top 20 teams in the nation. That’s some good basketball and man are there some good coaches and players. It makes it fun!”