The Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference zeroed in on two of them by bestowing a pair of Wildcats with top honors that were named on Friday.

Graduate student forward Dylan Kuehl was named both the GLIAC Player of the Year and GLIAC Defensive Player of the Year, while Matt Majkrzak was selected GLIAC Coach of the Year.

In addition, Kuehl’s sophomore teammate Cal Klesmit joined him on the league’s First Team, while graduate student Jackson Dudek made the Second Team. Kuehl, of course, also made the conference’s All-Defensive Team.

The Wildcats put together their most wins ever with a 27-5 overall record through Saturday, including 16-4 in league games for a co-championship with Michigan Tech and No. 1 seed in the GLIAC Tournament.

Matt Majkrzak

Kuehl became the fifth NMU player to be named GLIAC Player of the Year, the most recent being one of his former teammates, Max Weisbrod, in the 2023-24 season. After that year, Weisbrod transferred to NCAA Division I Northern Iowa.

Kuehl’s First Team and All-Defensive Team honors were each his fourth straight. Only four players, including Grand Valley State’s Trevor Smith this season, have ever earned All-Defensive four times.

Kuehl averaged 21.3 points per game this season, putting him in the top 15 in NCAA Division II, as he shot 56.7% from the field and averaged 6.3 rebounds a game.

In GLIAC games only, he was the league’s No. 1 scorer at 23.8 ppg, second with a 58.6% field goal success rate, third with 1.5 blocked shots per contest and 10th with 6.4 rebounds an outing.

The final week of the regular season really capped off his individual season, as he set his career high scoring game not once, but twice. His 36 points vs. Roosevelt on Feb. 26 was a career high, which he reset with 41 vs. Wisconsin-Parkside on Feb. 28.

In sum total for those two games, he shot 70% from the field on 28-of-40 shooting, which included sinking 4 of 7 on 3-pointers each day, making 13 of 14 free throws, grabbing 16 rebounds, dishing out nine assists and not committing a single turnover in a total of 64 minutes court time.

And somewhat ironically, considering he was the league’s Defensive Player of the Year, after that week Kuehl earned his third GLIAC Offensive Player of the Week honor this season.

Over his four-year career through Saturday, Kuehl is at 2,131 points, second in program history and just 93 shy of No. 1 Bill Harris.

While Kuehl’s been on the floor, the Wildcats have a 93-34 record, a .732 winning percentage, and claimed four conference championships.

He was also named to the Trevor Hudgins Award top-15 watch list.

Majkrzak is only the second NMU coach to named GLIAC Coach of the Year after Dean Ellis won it in 1993, and is the only multiple winner as Majkrzak also won it in 2024.

In seven seasons, the current coach is 135-71 (through Saturday) with GLIAC regular season titles in 2023-24 and this year, while taking conference tourney crowns in 2022-23 and 2024-25.

This season, Northern rose as high as No. 10 in the National Association of Basketball Coaches weekly poll, its highest ranking since Jan. 11, 1993, and was No. 17 in the final poll heading to the league tourney.

Klesmit was a prolific shooter for the Wildcats as he finished third in the league with 2.9 triples made per game as he led the GLIAC by shooting 45.5% on them. His 12.3 ppg included a career-high 30 points vs. Parkside on Dec. 4. He also sank at least five 3s eight times.

Dudek, averaging 12.4 ppg and 5.1 rebounds, shot 42.3% on 3s and is 43.4% on triple in his career, sixth among active D-II players with at least 80 attempts. He had a career-high 29 points vs. Marian on Dec. 14 and last year won the GLIAC Tournament MVP.

This group and the rest of the Wildcats were among national leaders in several statistics. NMU is first with a plus-11.1 rebounding margin, second with a 1.86 assist-to-turnover ratio, fourth with a plus-17.8 scoring margin, 11th with a 38.9% success rate on 3s and 16th by allowing 65.3 ppg.

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