GREEN BAY (NBC 26) – The Michigan Tech men’s basketball team, which plays in the NCAA D-II league, came to the Resch Center on Wednesday afternoon and upset UW-Green Bay. The Huskies are having their best season in several years, and that’s largely thanks to Fox Valley.
“Marcus Tomashek is a hell of a player,” UW-Green Bay head coach Doug Gottlieb said. “Obviously he belongs at that level and it’s a great reward for them.”
Michigan Tech junior Marcus Tomashek was a miss Wednesday in Phoenix. Ashwaubenon’s representative lost 30 points in the Huskies’ 72-70 loss…
“It shows people that I can play at this level,” Marcus said. “I mean, it shows that D-II is just as good as these D-1 teams.
Averaging 25 points per game this year, Tomashek didn’t have a single NCAA Division 1 offer coming out of high school.
“I spent the entire summer watching every single one of his games, hoping no Division 1 team would want to take a chance on it,” Huskies head coach Josh Buettner said. “I knew Marcus would be special.”
But he’s not the only Green Bay area guy who shines for huskies. Redshirt junior center Dawson Nordgaard is their second-leading scorer, averaging 11 points and 4 rebounds per game.
“Well, he’s great in attack, but also in defense,” Tomashek said. “He’s a really good rim protector and he’s great offensively. the guys can’t stop him now.
His name hangs in the rafters of the Resch Center. Dawson’s dad, Jeff, played for Phoenix in the 1990s, and Buettner says he had a feeling the raw product from west De Pere could put it all together.
“You just knew there was a good chance he would improve as time went on,” Michigan Tech head coach said. “He had hands. He had feet. It was long. He had a certain touch.
These two Green Bay area residents became good friends and now, after back-to-back losing seasons, Michigan Tech is heading in the right direction, with the Huskies off to a 7-3 start. Their goal for the rest of the season is to take Michigan Tech to the NCAA D-II Tournament.
“We just have really great chemistry,” Nordgaard said. There’s not a lot of transfers, transfers, we’ve been a team for a really long time and we just have a great relationship with each other.
