St. Cloud State Men's Basketball

The St. Cloud State men's basketball team will play a Thanksgiving Weekend tournament in Lakeland, Florida Friday and Saturday. The Huskies are 1-0 and will matchup with Florida Southern at 6:30pm Friday night before playing St. Joseph's (Indiana) at 4:15pm Saturday.

The St. John's and St. Cloud State basketball programs open the regular season by playing head to head Friday night in Collegeville at 7pm. St. John's is led by Seth Marx but is trying to replace their top 2 scorers from last season Aaron Barmore and Andy Burns. Marx is the top returning scorer averaging 8.9 points a game. St. Cloud State is led by point guard Shaun Jensen and center James Fort.

The St. Cloud State men's basketball team signed two players to National Letters of intent Thursday. The two players are 6'3 wing Scottie Stone from Melrose and 6'9 post player Payton Plagge of Sheffield, Iowa. Stone averaged 26 points a game and shot 40 percent from 3-point range as a junior at Melrose. In 3 varsity seasons Plagge has scored 956 points and has averaged 13 points a game. He's also shot 62 percent from the field.

The St. Cloud State men's basketball game against Michigan State last Friday will be re-broadcast on the Big Ten Network today(Tuesday) at 12:30. The Huskies lost the game at Michigan State 62-49 but gained an unforgettable experience. The Big Ten network can be seen on Charter on channel 425, on HD channel 822 and on Direct TV channel 610.

The St. Cloud State men's basketball team gets a chance to play an exhibition game at Michigan State against Tom Izzo and the Spartans Friday night at 7:30. The reason why the game came about is that St. Cloud State guard Kevin Levandowski's uncle is Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo. This game was in the works for 2 years and has now become a reality.

The St. Cloud State men's basketball team is picked to finish 4th in the NSIC preseason coaches poll. SCSU was 20-9 overall in 2011-2012 and 15-7 in the NSIC. Winona State is picked to win the conference title followed by Southwest Minnesota State and Minnesota State-Mankato. The SCSU men's basketball team returns key contributors points guard Shaun Jensen and center Tim Bergstrasser.

The St. Cloud State men's and women's basketball teams began practice on Monday. The SCSU men were 20-9 overall and 15-7 in the NSIC in 2011-2012. The Huskies return a group led by senior point guard Shaun Jensen, senior forward Theo Rothstein and senior center Tim Bergstrasser. Bergstrasser started 28 games in 2011-2012 and averaged 12.8 points and 7.6 rebounds a game.

The St. Cloud State men's basketball team signed 6'11 230 pound center Chris Larson from Hudson, Iowa. Larson is a transfer from the University of Oregon where he was a reshirt junior in the Ducks basketball program. Prior to playing at Oregon he played two seasons at Black Hawk Community College in Moline, Illinois where in his last season there averaged 6.7 points, 4.4 rebounds and 3.4 blocks a game.

The St. Cloud State men's basketball team is ranked #4 this week in the NCAA Division II Central Regional rankings. Winona State is ranked #1 in the region, Colorado School of Mines is #2, Metro State (Denver) is #3, St. Cloud State #4, MSU-Moorhead #5, Southwest Minnesota State #6, Adam State #7, Bemidji State #8, Augustana #9, and Minnesota-Duluth #10.

The Winona State men's basketball team is no longer in first place in the NSIC standings after the NSIC and NCAA penalized the program for using an ineligible player during 19 games this season. Guard, Grant Johnson was ruled ineligible for the rest of the season. He transferred to Winona State from UW-Parkside in the fall of 2011 but wasn't granted a release from Parkside.