After a historic 2024-2025 season, the Omaha men’s basketball team has high expectations going into the 2025-2026 year.
Last season, the Mavericks went 22-13, winning the Summit League regular season and tournament to earn their first trip to the NCAA Tournament. They fell to St. John’s in the first round.
The Mavericks are projected to finish second in the conference this season after coming in eight in last year’s preseason poll.
Coach Chris Crutchfield acknowledged the high expectations for this year’s team at Summit League media days in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on Tuesday.
“We wanted to make Omaha basketball relevant, right?” Crutchfield said. “It took us a while to get here, right? It took us two and a half years to get relevant where people were talking about Omaha basketball, but now, this year is the validation year. If you want to be relevant, be relevant when you’re supposed to be relevant.”
After losing Omaha’s leaders in senior forward Marquel Sutton to LSU and senior guard JJ White to Baylor, but Crutchfield said little has changed in how they go about their business
“Not much has changed in our program,” Crutchfield said. “We lost JJ and Marquel; those are big pieces, but we’re returning so many guys that have been a part of this build. The other part is we’re older — we’ve got seven seniors, we’ve got a bunch of juniors who are experienced. We’ve got a total of nine guys that were on the roster last year, six of them played a lot, three of them were starters, so we do return a lot. I just like our connection, I like our maturity, and the experience is a huge factor.”
Joining Crutchfield in Sioux Falls was fifth year senior center Isaac Ondekane. Last season, the 6-foot-8 post played in 35 games, starting 34 and averaging 5.3 points on 58.1% from the field. Now, he will try to carry that success into this season.
“I really just think I’m hungry,” Ondekane said. “What I did last year, it was pretty good, good enough for us to get to where we got, but I feel like I can do more and build on more for that. So I’m just trying to stay hungry and trying to continue to grow my game even more and expand on that.”
The Mavericks are returning 54% of their scoring from last season after losing their top two players. Crutchfield mentioned reasons he thinks players chose to stay at Omaha.
“At the mid-major level, you don’t get a chance to retain really, really good players,” Crutchfield said. “We lost two good ones, but we retained nine good ones also, and three starters. I think the culture, the way we play, the way we take care of our guys, the way we treat them, I think they all want to be a part of that success, and the continued success.”
Senior guard Tony Osburn also joined Crutchfield in Sioux Falls. With the losses of Sutton and White, others will have to step into leadership roles, Osburn included.
“It doesn’t take just one guy,” Osburn said. “It takes everybody that came back, and everybody is smart enough to realize those were the two best players in the conference. They were great dudes to be around, and we have replaced it well. There’s going to be games where it struggles, and there might be a stretch where it’s hard for us to kind of fill it in and figure it out, but like we did last year, it might take a second, but it’s going to come along and come together.”
In his junior season, Osborn played in and started 34 games, averaging 12.2 points, 3.4 rebounds, and 1.4 assists while shooting 39.2%. The 6-foot-2 senior was a preseason first-team All-Summit League pick and will shoulder a heavier load on the court and off for the Mavericks this season.
“He’s our quarterback, and he’s been our quarterback for the last three years in this program,” Crutchfield said. “Obviously he’s smart, he’s got great basketball set, but he has a skill set. His ability to handle the ball, his ability to shoot the ball is an unbelievable skill, but I think just his leadership, guys will follow him because he plays the right way. He’s a team guy, he’s all about team, he’s not about himself.”
The Mavericks have a lot of new faces this season with the additions of many transfers. Senior center Christian Richardson, senior forward Julian Margrave, junior point guard Rob Matos and junior guard Paul Djobet all joined Omaha during the offseason.
“We’ve got depth, we’ve got experience,” Crutchfield said. “I like what we’ve got. Now, we just have to put it all together and get on the court and show people what we can do.”
Omaha will return to Sioux Falls to open the season against Murray State on Oct. 26. Tipoff is set for 12:30 p.m. CT.
