Huskies men’s basketball excited for chance to build off strong 2025-26 season
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HOUGTON -- Starting Friday, the Michigan Tech Huskies men's basketball team will begin the tough task of building on the best season in school history where they finished 29-7, won a share of the GLIAC regular season title, then won the NCAA Midwest Region title, and went to the Elite Eight.
"Last year, obviously, was a phenomenal season, Elite Eight, winning a region has been a dream, something this program has been striving for a long time," said Huskies coach Josh Buettner. "To finally get that done, and finish the season the way we did in the regional, was spectacular. Those guys, everything they had been through, that group of seniors, a lot of them had started since day one, went through the rough patches, stuck with it, believed in what we do at Michigan Tech, won a couple championships, and a regional championship to top it off."
However, gone from that group are a quartet of seniors, Nate Abel, Josh Terrian, Dawson Nordgaard, and, of course, Marcus Tomashek.
"It wasn’t just Marcus," Buettner said. "The identity of that team for multiple years was more the defensive side of it than the offensive side of it. I get, from the outside looking in, people like to look at who scores the most points, takes the most shots, and things like that. But, if you look at all those big games, most of them were us getting holding teams down defensively, and our identity was that we created within the program probably well before that.
"Obviously, Marcus was a special player, and there were certain games where he just took over, too, which needed to happen. But, at the end, we’re missing Nate’s on the ball defense as much as anything. We’re missing 'Dodge’s' (Nordgaard) post presence as much as anything. We’re missing Terrian's leadership as much as anything. So as a whole, it was great. So many guys were such important contributors on that team."
Now comes the hard part, filling all those roles that special class took on over the course of their careers.
"I think we have the pieces here to replace it, and maybe even someday exceed what they did," Buettner said. "I guess the question we’re asking as a staff, and challenging our players, is do we have to go through the full process that group went through? I have all the confidence in the world, if we can keep this team together two, three, four years, we’ll have a chance to be right back where we are. But, do we have to go all the way back to kind of ground zero, or rebuild from scratch again to get there? Or, can we pick it up a little quicker than we did with that last group?"
Buettner is confident all the same.
"I think that’s the challenge right now," he said. "We have some pieces back that gained some valuable experience. The one thing that group, none of them were really there for, day one, year one, year two of last year’s team, when we were going through the nine and 10-win seasons, and going a month without winning a game sometimes. So, they have to believe us as a coaching staff, what we’re looking at, what to avoid, and see if we can improve on it this time around."
Two players who will be counted on to continue to take big strides will be junior guards Gabe Smith and Ty Fernholz. Smith started every game last season, averaged a full point more (7.8) than he did the year before, and averaged nearly seven rebounds (6.8) per game.
Fernholz was not as impressive offensively as he was as a freshman, but he was still effective, making 35.6% of the 3-pointers he attempted.
"Gabe is a huge lead by action, lead by what he’s doing (type of player)," Buettner said. "He works as hard as he can every single play. But, he’s not the most vocal. Ty’s a wonderful player, wonderful person, trying to lead, but I don’t know that he has a mean enough bone in his body. Sometimes leadership goes that way."
Two other players who could step in and make things interesting are senior forward Luke Hazelton and junior guard Garrett Spielman, who transferred to Michigan Tech from the University of Wyoming.
Among younger players whom the Huskies will count on, sophomore guard Jesse Napgezek showed signs of being a very special player last season.
"We’re counting on big things from Jesse," said Buettner. "He was really good early in practice and then struggled a little bit. But, he was so good at the end of last year, and he is super talented. We’re counting on him."
Among the freshmen the Huskies have brought in, guard AJ Chambers, guard Ethan Marta, and guard Trey Brost could all push for playing time. Guard Kayden Schultz has a chance to be, in Buettner's words, "a pretty special player."
Last, but not least, freshman forward Anthony Richardson, who stands 6-foot-6, could be an impact player, if he can sort his game out at a new height.
"He’s grown about six inches in the last year, and there’s times in practice he shows just spurts of things we’ve never had at Michigan Tech," Beutter said. "He still has some development to go. He just turned 18 in September, but there’s a world where he’s going to be very good by the end of it too."
Game times
The Huskies open the season Friday and Saturday with the JustAGame Crossover in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. They will face Winona State Friday at 4 p.m. Saturday, they will take on Missouri-St. Louis, also at 4 p.m.