A new era of Northern State men’s basketball was on display Wednesday night as new coach Matt Wilber recorded his first win with the program.
After falling to four quality foes to start the season, the Wolves defeated Jamestown 74-71 to open their Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference schedule during their home opener at Wachs Arena.
“I just couldn’t feel more proud and humbled to be here. What a cool experience I’ve had in this game and to be here right now at this point in my life. I just couldn’t be more thankful,” said Wilber. “You have assistant coaches that are around you that have to buy into the messaging. You have players that have to buy into it. … When basketball teams win and they go on coaching records, there’s a lot of people that are part of that.”
With a brand new coaching staff, and just about a whole new squad, there’s always a question with chemistry. Wilber said that has been a main focus for him and his coaching staff since day one.
“We got two goals. Number one, and these are one A and one B, whichever way, there’s two major goals. Number one, win as many games as we can. Number two, we need to respect Wolves basketball and play the way it needs to be played,” said Wilber. “That message has been getting pounded home of what we need to be as a team first, and what they need to be as teammates. And they’re really buying into that, but it’s been a great group of guys to work with.”
James Glenn returned to the court against the Jimmies for the first time this season as he missed the first four games due to the birth of his newborn daughter. With a new reason to play for the new dad, he was happy to get back on the court.
“Oh, absolutely man. She was sitting courtside, it doesn’t get any better than that,” said Glenn. “That was a pretty amazing experience, huge blessing.”
With Glenn back in action, the Wolves offense moved at a faster pace throughout the game.
“Our offense moves so much better. And you could see he demands gravity and makes some plays, and everybody just feels more comfortable with his movement,” said Wilber. “We were just faster and smoother and that was with the conscious effort of speeding our offense up and getting that going. And that’s gonna be a work in progress this year, but James Glenn really impacts that.”
Even though Glenn shot 2-for-11, he impacted the game in other ways as he had a team-high six assists on the night.
“They found me for a lot of shots. They weren’t dropping. But you know, that’s a blessing having a lot of good guys around you. You can swing that thing,” said Glenn. “If you really think about it, a lot of our assists come from easy passes and that’s how it should be. That makes life easy on every player on the court.”
Life was easy on the court for Cameron Mercadel who shot 5-10 from the 3-point line scoring a team-high 15 points on the night.
“He’s been great to start the year. And the two he hit in the second half were tremendous. They were just tough shots,” Wilber said. “He’s jumped into our starting lineup, and he’s been really impactful. And he shot the heck out of it.”
Just seven Wolves touched the floor against the Jimmies, and for a majority of the second half, it was just six as Ty Rogers left the game due to injury. Each of the players made an impact as five Wolves were in double digits, while the other two had nine and eight points.
“It’s just not sustainable throughout the year. We’re not gonna be able to win with six, and obviously we had seven and Ty went down. But we were playing an undersized lineup where our fifth man was 6-foot-5,” said Wilber. “Those guys guarded, they scrapped and clawed and they were tough. … so I’m really proud of them. That’s what we need to be. That was a really good representation of grit and toughness, and what it takes to win games.”
The Wolves were able to get their first win and will now look forward to keeping the momentum going.
“We needed some momentum, and we knew we had it in practice. We knew what we could do, so it just felt great to really get moving in the direction we know we can be,” Glenn said. “So, I’m really excited for what we got coming forward.”
Northern has a non-conference road game against Chadron State on Saturday afternoon.
“Our defense has to get on the bus, right? Our defense has gotta get on the bus and ride with us. You can really practice, and practice is really important, but it can only do so much and simulate so much. You can’t simulate game action and game speed,” said Wilber. “So, every time we play, we’re getting game experience. So, it’s another opportunity to go play. You know these are limited. There’s an expiration date on being athletes, so do not waste an opportunity to go compete and play your tail off.”
To see a complete box score, click on the following link:
https://nsuwolves.com/sports/mens-basketball/stats/2025-26/jamestown/boxscore/14110
