{"id":17201,"date":"2025-10-28T01:44:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T01:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/17201\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T01:44:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T01:44:19","slug":"mercyhurst-conference-preseason-coaches-preseason-poll-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/17201\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercyhurst Conference Preseason &#8211; Coaches Preseason Poll | Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With the announcement of the 2025-26 Preseason All-NEC Men\u2019s Basketball Team on Monday, two unanimous selections were made, and the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/necsports.com\/news\/2025\/10\/12\/MBB_PreseasonAllNECTeam_2526.aspx\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Sharks<\/a> were selected as the preseason favorite by the league\u2019s head <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/necsports.com\/news\/2025\/10\/12\/MBB_PreseasonMBBPoll_2526.aspx\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">coaches<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Mercyhurst made a strong impression in its debut last season and made fourth place accolades. Mercyhurst is now eligible for the NEC tournament.<\/p>\n<p>If Mercyhurst or Le Moyne win in the NEC Tournament championship, the runner up will advance to the NCAA Tournament as the automatic qualifier.<\/p>\n<p>Malachi Davis of Scarborough was the first 2024-25 selection with fellow Canadian classmate Jamal Fuller of Toronto as a swingman who has come off of an All-NEC second team campaign just a year ago have both joined 2024-25 All-Rookie team honorees.<\/p>\n<p>Central Connecticut sophomore forward Darin Smith Jr. and Stonehill guard Hermann Koffi. Mercyhurst graduate guard Bernie Blunt III finished out the five-member team.<\/p>\n<p>Expectations for Davis were high after his LIU debut last season, after a stint at Arizona State, the Toronto native was the centerpiece after quickly establishing himself as the squads go-to scorer and one of the toughest covers.<\/p>\n<p>With shredding defenses and ability to make it to the rim, Davis finished the 2024-25 campaign as the second-leading scorer, bringing grit to a team that was first in the steal rate as well as the turnover rate and defensive efficiency.<\/p>\n<p>Fuller overpowered defenders on the court and brought forth a versatile handful to guard with his ability to stretch the floor, gaining 36 three-pointer and in addition became the Sharks\u2019 second-leading rebounder.<\/p>\n<p>The 2024-25 NEC Player of the Year, the reigning NEC Defensive Player of the Year and another all-star made contributions off the bench for the regular season champion.<\/p>\n<p>Koffi became a confident shooter during the game and did not shy away from knocking away shots. He was on the opposing team\u2019s radar as a key offensive threat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the announcement of the 2025-26 Preseason All-NEC Men\u2019s Basketball Team on Monday, two unanimous selections were made,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[12416,5956,12415,136,138,137,12413,12414],"class_list":{"0":"post-17201","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-erie","8":"tag-all-conference","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-coaches","11":"tag-erie","12":"tag-erie-headlines","13":"tag-erie-news","14":"tag-mercyhurst","15":"tag-preseason"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}