Keifer Sykes
The Green Bay Phoenix men’s basketball team has been tabbed as the preseason favorite for the second-straight season, and senior Keifer Sykes has been named the league’s preseason Player of the Year. Junior Jordan Fouse was also voted to the Preseason All-Horizon League Second Team.
In voting by head coaches, communications directors and media members from around the league. Green Bay received 32 of 41 first-place votes and a total of 357 points. Cleveland State was the only other team to receive a first-place vote, picking up nine votes and 335 total points.
Last season, Green Bay was tabbed as the preseason favorite and Brian Wardle’s club followed through by winning 14 of 16 games and claiming the regular season title. The Phoenix finished the 2013-14 season with an overall record of 24-7.
Sykes was named the Preseason Player of the Year in a landslide vote. As a junior in 2013-14, Sykes averaged 20.3 points, 4.9 assists and 4.4 rebounds per game. He was named the Horizon League Player of the Week a school and league record six times.
Sykes enters his final season in a Phoenix jersey ranked tenth on the all-time scoring ledger with 1,492 career points.
Fouse was recognized as a preseason All-Horizon League selection for the first time in his career. The junior was voted to the conference’s all-defensive team as a freshman and sophomore, finishing runner-up to teammate Alec Brown in 2013-14’s Defensive Player of the Year voting. Defensively, Fouse collected a single-season program record 68 steals.