Northern Michigan University’s Jackson Dudek, right, drives to the basket while defended by Lake Superior State's Tyler Jamison and would get fouled during the GLIAC Tournament championship game played at Michigan Tech’s arena in Houghton on March 9. (Photo courtesy Cara Kamps)

MARQUETTE — Second place isn’t so bad when it’s only a preseason prediction.

That’s where the men’s basketball team at Northern Michigan University was picked to finish in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference after coaches took their preseason poll recently.

The poll, released Wednesday, put NMU only behind reigning regular-season champion Michigan Tech in the voting. The Huskies received the maximum 10 of 11 first-place votes — coaches vote for all teams but their own — meaning it had to be Tech coach Josh Buettner who picked the Wildcats as they got the other first-place vote.

MTU received the maximum 100 votes on a 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 voting system, with the Wildcats getting 85, third-place Wisconsin-Parkside 80 and No. 4 Grand Valley State 74.

Last season, GLIAC Tournament-winning Northern finished fourth in the regular season with 22-10 overall and 13-7 conference records, so getting picked No. 2 is a vote of confidence.

There was a dropoff in the votes after fourth place to No. 5 Lake Superior State receiving 59 votes. Then came No. 6 Ferris State with 57, No. 7 Wayne State 51, No. 8 Saginaw Valley State 34, No. 9 Purdue Northwest 26, No. 10 Davenport 20 and No. 11 Roosevelt 19.

There was some real differences between last season’s finishes and this year’s predictions, a credit to coaches who usually pick quite closely to those previous finishes no matter the sport.

Lake State was second in the GLIAC last regular season, losing to the Wildcats in the conference tourney title game, 78-63. In the semifinals, Northern knocked off Tech at the Huskies’ SDC Gym 69-68, while NMU opened the tourney with an 85-72 home win over No. 5 seed Grand Valley in the quarterfinals.

Getting the No. 3 choice was also a vote of confidence for Parkside as it only tied for sixth last year, and GVSU bumped up a spot from finishing fifth to getting No. 4 in the coaches poll.

Conversely, LSSU dropped three spots from a runner-up finish to now be voted No. 5, while Roosevelt finished tied for eighth and now has been voted last.

In March, the Wildcats not only won the GLIAC tourney, but advanced to the NCAA Division II regionals, falling to Tech 87-72 in the first round in Springfield, Illinois.

Over the past three seasons under head coach Matt Majkrzak, NMU has won a pair of league tourneys and taken a GLIAC regular-season title, too.

He is entering his seventh season at Northern, holding a 108-66 record — a .621 winning percentage — along with a 69-43 (.616) mark in GLIAC games. His Wildcats have been in three straight NCAA tournaments, the first time NMU has been in that many consecutive national tourneys.

This season, the Wildcats return three starters in the front court — graduate students Dylan Kuehl, Jackson Dudek and Sam Privet — who were one of the league’s most productive trios last season. As a group, they averaged 34.8 points and 16.5 rebounds per game, with each shooting between 50% and 56% from the field.

Kuehl is a three-time GLIAC First Team and Defensive Team honoree, while Dudek was named GLIAC Tournament MVP.

Among the newcomers are Division I transfers Bennett Basich from Wisconsin-Green Bay and Charlie Miller from Northern Iowa.

Basich, a 6-foot-4 guard, wasn’t announced as an addition until late August. He redshirted his only season with the Phoenix in the Horizon League, but was a standout at Arrowhead High School in Hartland, Wisconsin.

With his team as a two-time state runner-up, he was First Team all-state and twice an all-conference First Team member. Basich was the Classic 8 conference’s Player of the Year as a senior, averaging 20.4 points, 6.9 rebounds and 3.9 assists a game.

“He’s someone we’ve watched play a lot during his tremendous high school and AAU career, and have always been extremely impressed with,” Majkrzak said in an NMU Sports Information news release at the time of his signing.

Story contents based on Northern Michigan University Sports Information press release reviewing the preseason poll. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.