HELENA — Montana Tech is the coaches’ preseason favorite to win the Frontier Conference men’s basketball title for the fifth consecutive year. The preseason poll was announced by the league office Monday.
Coaches were not allowed to vote for their own teams. The Frontier Conference has expanded to 12 teams this year.
The Orediggers collected 11 first-place votes and 121 points to earn the top spot of the preseason poll. Montana Tech finished its 2024-25 season with an overall record of 24-7 and 10-5 in the Frontier Conference and qualified for the NAIA national tournament.
Carroll College and Montana Western are tied for second place in the poll. Both teams received 89 points, while the Bulldogs picked up the final first-place vote.
Providence, which advanced to the 2025 Frontier championship game, finished fourth in the poll with 81 points. Dickinson State, who captured last year’s conference title in the North Star Athletic Association, placed fifth with 75 points.
Rocky Mountain College was sixth with 73 points, edging Bellevue (Neb.) by two points. Mayville State (N.D.) finished eighth in the poll with 53 points, followed by Dakota State (S.D.) with 50 points. MSU-Northern was 10th with 39 points, Valley City State (N.D.) 11th with 34 points and Bismarck State (N.D.) 12th with 17 points.
The 2025-26 NAIA season officially tips off on Thursday.
Each Frontier team will play a total of 22 conference games on their 2025-26 schedules, playing home-and-away contests. They are scheduled to play 11 home league games and 11 road conference contests.
The first conference contests of the season are scheduled for mid-November with traveling partners facing each other.
The top eight teams in the Frontier standings will advance to the postseason tournament, hosted by Montana Tech at the Civic Center in Butte. The four-day conference tournament begins with quarterfinal games Feb. 27-28.
