Dawson Buccaneers Coach Joe Peterson released the 2018-2019 Men’s Basketball Schedule on Monday. The Bucs are only returning one player from last year’s team that went 24-8 and reached the Regional Championship game for the 3rd time in 4 years, but they are bringing in a talented freshman class who are ready to take on a challenging schedule.
They tip-off the season in the Mon-Dak Pre-season Tournament November 2-4 at the 4 Bears Casino in New Town, North Dakota. The conference pre-season tournament idea is returning for the first time in many years and 4 Bears Casino is sponsoring the four day event for all 8 of the Mon-Dak men’s teams as well as all 8 of the women’s teams. DCC’s first game is against Dakota College Bottineau at 4:00 pm CST on November 2nd. They will play either Lake Region or Williston on the 2nd day depending on the outcomes of the first games. Coach Peterson was excited about the season opening tournament, “I think this will be a great opportunity for fans, parents and 4-year coaches to come and see us play three games in one weekend against good teams. It also gives everyone a sneak preview of the conference and we get good competition right off the bat to test us.”
After the season opening tournament, the Bucs will come home for the next three games vs. Little Bighorn on Tuesday, November 6 and then Northwest College and Sheridan on Friday and Saturday. Coach Peterson said, “We will be playing 6 games in the first 9 days of the season! That’s 20% of our schedule in a short time span so our young guys better be ready to go!”
There are home and home series set up with Northwest, Sheridan, Rocky Mountain College JV, Little Bighorn College as well as a tournament at Gillette College and single home games with Central Wyoming College, Stone Child College and Turtle Mountain College. In all, the Bucs will play 7 non-conference games at home, 5 on the road and 4 at neutral sites.
The conference season will begin January 10th and 13th with a road trip to United Tribes Technical College and Lake Region State College. The Bucs first home game will be against 5-time defending champions North Dakota State College of Science on January 17th. The big change in the conference this year is that Miles is returning to the Mon-Dak. Dawson will host their rivals on January 28th and will return the game in Miles City on February 21st. All of the conference doubleheader home games in January and February will be on Mondays and Thursdays at 5:30/7:30 pm except for the final regular season game against Bismarck State on Sunday, February 24th which is at 2:00/4:00 pm.
Coach Peterson is starting his 4th season in charge of the Buccaneers Basketball program, “I can’t wait to get started working with these young guys. We have an exciting group of athletes with high basketball IQ. We are going to test them hard in the pre-season and this schedule is going to be quite a test for them. It will be a fun group to watch and see how they improve as the year moves along.”