The Northern State men’s basketball team is setting the pace in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference.

Following a one-point victory over Minnesota State, Moorhead on Tuesday night, the Wolves (13-3 overall and 9-1 in the conference) are now in sole possession of first place in the NSIC North and also own the best conference mark among all 16 teams in the league.

“I really like my group. I appreciate being around them each and every day,” said NSU coach Saul Phillips. “They come ready to work and I’m having a lot of fun.”

The squad is led by point guard Sam Masten who is having a stellar season, having already picked up multiple NSIC Player of the Week honors.

“I’ve never had a good team that didn’t have a great point guard, and I’ve never had a bad team that had a good point guard. He fits the good point guard – good team to a tee,” Phillips said. “If you sit down and watch us play and go a little deeper into the numbers, it would be hard to argue that he’s not having the best season of anybody in the league and one of the best in Division II overall at this point.”

Masten is one of those extremely valuable players that makes all those around him better.

Phillips explained Masten’s basketball impact in terms of a different winter sport.

“His usage rate is off the charts,” Phillips said. “If you took into account hockey assists where he hits a guy and a guy hits the next guy … it would be Wayne Gretzky numbers. He does kind of set everybody up and they play well off of him.”

Another key factor has been the play of freshman Michael Nhial, who Phillips said brings a certain style of athleticism to the squad, similar to that of a former fan favorite.

“It’s kind of the Parker (Fox) role that he used to play,” Phillips said, “make some off-script plays that might make a difference in a close game.”

Despite the fact the Wolves top the NSIC field, Northern State is not rated in the NCAA Division II poll. The team lost a pair of early games against quality squads and has flown under the radar ever since.

“First of all, rankings in Division II are horribly flawed,” Phillips said. “There’s no real way of researching what everybody has done.”

The Wolves have compiled a solid record against standout competition.

“If you look at our strength of schedule, we’ve played objectively the strongest schedule in America and we’re sitting at 13-3,” Phillips said. “I don’t worry too much about what the rankings say.”

In fact, the Wolves deliberately sought out the stiffest squads they could find to fill out their non-conference schedule with a bigger goal in mind.

“We scheduled this way this year very consciously, because we thought we had a pretty good group. Those quality wins, even if it means you take a few losses, speak really loudly in March. I just want to get this group ready for the tournaments.”

The Wolves have already swept Moorhead and own one win over Duluth, another strong NSIC opponent. Northern will try to add to its resume by scoring wins over NSIC South leader Sioux Falls as well as Southwest Minnesota State this weekend.

While the squad has its sights set on March, it would also like to achieve a goal in February in the form of a regular season conference championship.

“Winning a championship is very important to us in the regular season,” Phillips said. “We’ve got all those numbers on the wall of the Barnett Center and we want to make sure that this group adds some numbers to that.”

Of course, the ultimate goal lies in the post season where the Wolves hope to make some serious noise.

“We want to put ourselves in the best position we can that if we don’t win the (conference) tournament, we still get an at large (berth in the region),” Phillips said. “I think we put ourselves in a good position to keep those alive, and obviously you get in the tournament and you want to win as many games as you can and get to a national championship. I’ve never hidden the fact that’s what we want to get done here.”

In the meantime, the Wolves will try to record as many wins as possible and have a good time doing it.

Phillips said the players on the squad are all about team success and not individual accomplishments. He said that was evident on Tuesday night in a victory over Moorhead.

“We were walking off the court,” Phillips said when he took note of something that Aberdeen native Augustin Reede said following a difficult shooting night. “He goes, ‘I think that’s the most fun basketball game I’ve ever played in my life and I went 1-for-5, and I never thought I’d ever say that.’ That’s a pretty cool place to be.”