Dawson adds three Montana guards in local recruiting push

Dawson Community College kept leaning into Montana with three more guard additions: Isaac Kelly of St. Regis, Wilder Bearcub of Poplar and Kaden King of Rudyard. The Bucs did not just add bodies to a class. They doubled down on a roster-building lane that favors players who already know the state, the schools and the style of basketball that grows out of Montana’s smaller high-school programs.

Kelly, a 6-foot, 180-pound guard from St. Regis High School, helped guide a 22-2 team that went undefeated in District 14 C and won a sixth straight district championship. He averaged close to 10 points per game, and his profile fits a junior college coach’s checklist: a steady ball handler who can pass, shoot and bring energy. Bearcub, a guard from Poplar High School, was even more versatile on the stat sheet, putting up 12 points, 8 rebounds and 4 assists per game. King, a guard from North Star High School in Rudyard, added another scoring option after averaging nearly 10 points a game.

That kind of local haul matters at Dawson, which is based in Glendive at 300 College Drive and competes in the Mon-Dak Conference and NJCAA Division I. The men’s program has long sold more than location. Its history includes 11 Mon-Dak Conference championships, three Empire Conference titles, three Sub-Region championships and the 1981 national championship. More recently, the Bucs went 24-9 overall and 10-2 in conference play in 2024-25, then followed that with a year-in-review that showed 29 wins, titles in the Mon-Dak Tip Off Tournament, Region XIII Tournament and Mon-Dak Conference, plus six players moving on to four-year scholarships.

The recruiting pattern is hard to miss. Kelly came from a St. Regis team that was 22-2 and 14-0 in region play, Bearcub arrived out of Poplar, and King came from North Star in Rudyard. Each brings production from a Montana small-school setting, where the margins are tight and coaches have to value fit as much as raw numbers. Joe Peterson’s evaluation of the group reflects that mindset, emphasizing Kelly’s handling and shooting, Bearcub’s playmaking and rebounding, and the kind of effort that can translate quickly at the junior-college level.

Dawson’s class is not limited to in-state talent. The program also added a 6-foot-11 center from Serbia, and the school announced that its basketball programs will start junior varsity teams for 2026-27. But the Montana core gives the Bucs something more specific: continuity with the state’s talent base, familiar travel and a pipeline that has already fed a program built on winning.