Carroll College Men’s Basketball Prepares for Final Weekend Before Frontier Tournament

Carroll College men's basketball entered the final regular-season weekend on the road at Valley City State and Mayville State after compiling a 16-4 record and sitting standalone in second place, two games back of No. 11 Rocky, according to Carroll Athletics' Feb. 20, 2026 update. The head-to-head results this weekend carried clear postseason weight for the Fighting Saints.

Carroll Athletics spelled out the stakes plainly: “The Men control their own destiny in terms of postseason seeding, with a pair of wins locking up at worst a second-seed for the Frontier Championship." The Frontier Championship is scheduled for next week at the Butte Civic Center, making the road trips to Valley City State and Mayville State pivotal for final placement.

Coach Dan Pearson addressed the roster's composition and focus in a Fighting Saints Insider interview with Jonny Walker in Helena. Pearson said, “Yeah, I mean, I think this is going to be something that we're dealing with probably up into the maybe even mid-portion of next year with a lot of youth that we have. The goal for us is to see if we can stretch together 40 minutes. Throughout the course of the season, we've had stretches. We'll play 35 really good minutes, 36 really good minutes, and then there's always kind of these dips that show up at some point. [...] So, we want to mellow those things out as we finalize the regular season going into the postseason, because we feel like that's the difference between us being a good team this year and a team that can go do something special.”

Earlier in the season Carroll recorded decisive wins that set the stage for the finale. In the first meetings with the Vikings both Carroll squads overcame early struggles to pull away; Isaiah Crane (Portland, Ore. / R-SO) poured in 25 points in the men's meeting, and Willa Albrecht (Billings, Mont. / R-SR) scored a career-best 35 in the women's contest, the second-highest single-game scoring night in program history. Both Carroll teams also posted double-digit victories over Mayville State in Helena.

Local coverage and game access were organized through Carroll Athletics and the campus media team. Carroll Sports Information Director Conlan Burk was listed to call the action live on Rewind 94.9 FM in Helena, with VCSU STREAM and MAYVILLE STATE STREAM links and live stats pages (CC vs VCSU WOMEN; CC vs VCSU MEN; CC vs MSU WOMEN; CC vs MSU MEN) provided on the Carroll Athletics site (story posted 02/20/26 | 9:17 AM, Gary Marshall). As the Fighting Saints closed the regular season, the combination of standout individual nights and Pearson's emphasis on consistency framed their push into the Butte Civic Center tournament.