FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT Evan O’Kelly Director of Communications O: (406) 657-2130 E: evan.okelly@msubillings.edu Thursday, October 20, 2016 Yellowjacket men tabbed seventh in preseason coaches’ poll
Earning 63 points in the GNAC preseason coaches’ poll, MSUB’s men’s basketball team checks in at No. 7 in an announcement made Thursday. PORTLAND, Ore. – Earning 63 points in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference preseason coaches’ poll, the Montana State University Billings men’s basketball team checked in at No. 7 announced the conference office on Thursday. The Yellowjackets are coming off of an 11-17 record during the 2015-16 season, and finished just out of the conference tournament in eighth place with a league record of 8-12. “This is great motivation for our guys, and the fact that we are picked a little bit lower shows how good the GNAC is,” said sixth-year head coach Jamie Stevens. “The preseason polls are fun but it’s hard to say where teams will wind up. We know what our goals are and where we want to be at the end of February.” The University of Alaska Anchorage earned the top spot in the preseason poll, claiming 9 of 11 first-place votes and 119 points overall. Second-place Western Washington and third-place Central Washington each received one first place vote, and the University of Alaska (fourth), Seattle Pacific University (fifth), and reigning GNAC champion Western Oregon
University (sixth) were the other teams in front of the Yellowjackets. Saint Martin’s University, Northwest Nazarene University, Concordia University, and Simon Fraser University occupied the eighth-through-11th spots, respectively, to round out the field of 11 conference teams. MSUB’s season kicks off with a pair of exhibition games at home, as the Yellowjackets take on Carroll College on Nov. 2 at 7 p.m. and Montana Tech on Nov. 4 at 7:30 p.m. in a doubleheader with MSUB’s women’s basketball team. Live video with play-by-play commentary and live statistics will be available for all home and select road games this season, through MSUB’s Stretch Internet portal here. --@MSUBSports | #JacketNation--