The William Jewell men's basketball team has been selected seventh in the Great Lakes Valley Conference preseason coaches poll, as announced by the league Tuesday. The Cardinals are coming off their best season since moving to NCAA-II at 20-9 overall and earning their first national ranking at No. 20 on December 5. The 2017-18 Cardinals also went 10-8 in conference and qualified for the GLVC postseason tournament for the first time since 2015. 

Jewell returns two All-GLVC performers in seniors Pharroh Gordon and Keith Hayes. Gordon was a double-double machine last season, averaging 14.8 points and 10.6 rebounds per game on his way to All-GLVC Second Team and All-Defensive Team honors. In addition, he ranked among the top players in the nation in total rebounds and broke a 39-year old Jewell record with 9.1 defensive rebounds per game and was named the Male Athlete of the Year (Cecil Martin Award). Hayes also earned Second Team All-GLVC honors and is one of the top scoring guards in the league, averaging a team-leading 18.4 points per contest as a junior. He shot better than 48 percent from the floor and 40 percent from behind the three point line. Also back is senior Byron Harp who averaged 13 points and over three assists per game in 27 starts, along with sophomore Eysan Wiley who saw action in all 29 games, averaging over seven points and five boards as a true freshman. 

The Cardinals will need to find a way to replace the production of two-time All-GLVC guard Patrick Whelan, who after pouring in more than 1,600 career points (12th all-time) has taken his game back home to Europe where he is playing professionally. Also lost to graduation, is big man Emil Ostafiiciuc, Easton Koch, and Brandon Scheer. 

Jewell is under the direction of Larry Holley, now in his 40th year at the helm, and opens the season on November 3-4 at the Small College Basketball Hall of Fame Classic, an invitational only tournament in St. Joseph, Missouri where they will take on Queens University-Charlotte and Tarleton State. The home opener will be the following weekend, November 9-10 as the Cardinals take their turn to host the GLVC-GLIAC Challenge. 

Bellarmine University has been selected to win the 2018-19 GLVC men's basketball title. The Knights garnered the top spot in the preseason poll with 181 points, including 12 of the 13 available first-place votes given that Conference bylaws state a school cannot vote for itself.  Last season the Knights were 29-3 overall and 16-2 in league play, having won both the GLVC Championship and East Division crowns.  Bellarmine returns a large portion of the lettermen of that team, including senior forward Adam Eberhard along with a number of players who spent time in the 2017-18 starting lineup: Ben Weyer, Daniel Ramser, Tyler Jenkins, Chivarsky Corbett, and Alex Cook.  Parker Chitty, a member of the GLVC All-Defensive Team, and CJ Fleming, a GLVC All-Freshman Team selection a year ago, also return to a ball club that was recently recognized in national preseason rankings at No. 1 by DII Bulletin and No. 2 Street and Smith's. Eberhard, who was one of two unanimous first-team All-GLVC selections last year, has been named a preseason All-American by both publications.  The Knights will once again be under the direction of Scott Davenport, a four-time GLVC Coach of the Year entering his 14^th season. 

The GLVC regular season will no longer include the standard two divisions, or the three divisions that were adopted last year with 15 teams.  The top-eight teams with the most points derived from the GLVC Point Rating System at the end of the regular season will earn a berth to the GLVC Basketball Championship Tournament on March 7-10 at the Vadalabene Center in Edwardsville, Illinois, on the campus of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

The complete 2018-19 GLVC Men's Basketball Preseason Poll follows:

2018-19 Men's Basketball Preseason Poll
Place	Team	Points (1st)
1.	Bellarmine	181 (12)
2.	Drury	160
3.	Lewis	157 (2)
4.	Southern Indiana	141
5.	Indianapolis	138
6.	Truman State	118
7.	William Jewell	101
8.	Maryville	94
9.	Rockhurst	91
10.	Missouri-St. Louis	74
11.	McKendree	64
12.	Illinois Springfield	61
13.	Quincy	48
14.	Missouri S&T	28