University of North Dakota Director of Athletics Bill Chaves announced the hiring of Paul Sather on May 30, 2019 to fill the head men's basketball post. Sather comes to UND following a very successful stint at Northern State (Aberdeen, S.D.) where he was back-to-back conference coach of the year, leading the Wolves to the NCAA Division II championship game three seasons ago. He will be entering his seventh season at the helm for the Fighting Hawks in the 2024-25 season.
Armed with a collegiate coaching résumé that includes 25 years— including 20 at South Dakota schools— Sather has built a pair of national-contending basketball teams at his two head coaching stops. Prior to that, he was a six-year assistant at NSU, his alma mater, under legendary head coach Don Meyer before later embarking on a 15-year head coaching course that features a 303-169 (.642) record.
“What a great day for the University of North Dakota and North Dakota Men’s Basketball,” Chaves said at the time of Sather's hiring. “Any hire is about getting the right fit at the right time and I have no doubt that Coach Sather is exactly the right person to lead our program today and into the future. Paul’s success as a head coach at two institutions including his alma mater has been remarkable and I believe that experience will serve us tremendously well as he embarks on his tenure at UND. We look forward to having Paul, Kelsie, Sam and Becca join our family and the Grand Forks community.”
The Fighting Hawks secured 12 wins in 2024-2025, featured by non-conference victories over Utah Valley, Loyola Marymount and Weber State. Treysen Eaglestaff averaged 18.9 points per game, recording 30 double-digit performances and 13 games of 20 or more points. He became the 40th player in program history to top 1,000 points in a career, as he earned himself All-Summit League Second Team honors. He recorded 51 points against South Dakota State in the Summit league Tournament along with 40 points vs. No. 6 Alabama. Eli King ranked fourth in the Summit League in steals, securing himself a spot on the All-Defensive team. The Fighting Hawks averaged the most points per game in the Coach Sather era, scoring 77.3 points per contest. Eaglestaff (18.9 ppg), Mier Panoam (13.0 ppg) and Amar Kulijuhovic (10.7 ppg) all averaged 10 or more points per outing.
The 2023-24 season was the most successful of Sather’s tenure at UND. The team went 18-14 overall, and 10-6 in the Summit League. Both of these marks were the best of the program’s Summit League era. B.J. Omot was named to First Team All-Conference, becoming the first Fighting Hawk to do so since Marlon Stewart in 2019-20, Tyree Ihenacho was named Second Team All-Conference, the first since Filip Rebraca following the 2020-21 season. Eli King was named to the Summit League All-Defensive team and Amar Kuljuhovic was named to the Summit League All-Newcomer team. The team started 8-4, including a six game winning streak, the best start through 12 games in the Division I era. After an 0-3 start to the Summit League schedule, the Fighting Hawks got the first league win at Kansas City 82-69; which began a seven-game winning streak. Ultimately the Fighting Hawks earned season sweeps of Oral Roberts, South Dakota and Denver in league play en route to the third seed in the Summit League tournament.
During the 2022-23 season, he guided the team to non conference wins at Incarnate Word and at Elon, as well as over Wisconsin-Stout, Utah Tech, Cal State Fullerton and North Central (Minn.). The team got their first win in conference play on January 19th against Kansas City, in which the team set a single game record with 18 made threes in a single game. They also closed their year playing their best ball of the season, winning five of their last seven games. In the Summit League Tournament, the Hawks came in as the 9 seed and got their first tournament win in three years as they defeated Denver in the 8 vs 9 game.
In the 2021-22 season, Sather helped the Fighting Hawks work through an ever-changing schedule and closed the season with a record of 6-25 overall and 2-16 in Summit League play. North Dakota battled its way back from deficits in most games and of the 25 losses, 12 of them came by 10 points or less.
Sather also coached Summit League Freshman of the Year Paul Bruns, who played a key role for the Fighting Hawks in 2021-22, leading all freshmen in the Summit League with 14.8 points per game. Bruns finished the year with honorable mention All-Summit League accolades and broke the freshman scoring record at UND with 460 points.
In a year that featured a global pandemic and new challenges across all of collegiate athletics in 2020-21, Sather navigated a tough non-conference schedule and a new-look league schedule to help guide the Fighting Hawks to their highest finish in the Summit League since joining the league in 2018-19. The 8-8 mark helped UND finish in fifth place before falling to eventual Sweet 16 participant Oral Roberts in the Summit League Tournament.
Flip Rebraca etched his name in program history by earning a spot on the All-Summit League Second Team following finishing seventh in the league in scoring at 17.3 ppg and fourth in rebounding at 8.2 rpg in league play while becoming the 39th player to score 1,000 points in his career at UND. Off the floor, Rebraca was named to the Summit League All-Academic Team and a CoSIDA Academic All-District Team selection.
Sather led a Fighting Hawks team to new heights in his first year behind the bench in 2019-20, becoming only the third coach in Summit League history to reach the tournament title game in their first year as head coach. Along the way, UND picked up a win over Big Ten foe Nebraska, the first since 1933, started 2-0 in league play for the first time since 2005, and knocked off North Dakota State in the final home game of the year.
Marlon Stewart became the 38th 1,000-point scorer in program history that season, also reaching the top-10 in the program record books for single season assists and points per game to earn the first All-Summit League First Team distinction in UND history. Filip Rebraca also broke the UND Division I single-season record for double-doubles in a season to be named to the All-Summit League Honorable Mention Team while De'Sean Allen-Eikens broke the program's scoring record by a freshman.
Off the court, the Fighting Hawks topped all of Division I in community service hours by a men's basketball program as well as set new highs in GPA marks.
In his final year at Northern State, the Wolves were the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Tournament champions, finishing the league schedule with an 18-4 record, part of a 30-6 league mark in the past two seasons. Sather's team led the NSIC in scoring defense, scoring margin, 3-point field goal percentage defense, and assists. In addition, NSU sat sixth nationally in 3-point field goal percentage.
A year prior, an early 18-game winning streak propelled the Wolves to a program-record 36 wins and all the way within a missed buzzer-beater of an NCAA Division II championship. He was named both the NSIC and NABC Central Region Coach of the year. His team was again among the elite in the country in a myriad of statistical categories, finishing in the top 20 in scoring defense (66.1) and rebounding margin (+7.8), in the top 10 in scoring margin (+14.1) and in the top five schools in field goal percentage (51.2).
“What an incredible honor to become the next men's basketball coach at the University of North Dakota,” Sather said on his hiring. “Growing up in Minnesota and competing as a player and coach in the Dakotas for over 20 years has made me very familiar with UND Basketball and the strong history and tradition of winning championships. It's the state’s flagship university with tremendous academic programs, beautiful athletic facilities, and most importantly, a passionate community that supports UND basketball. I'd like to thank Bill Chaves for believing in my vision and investing in the men's basketball program and I can't wait to work with the players and start our pursuit of building Fighting Hawk Basketball into champions again.”
Sather launched his head coaching career at Black Hills State (Spearfish, S.D.) in 2005. In five years there, Sather was instrumental in turning the BHSU program around from a 10-19 season in 2006-07 to an NAIA Final Four contender in 2008-09. The Yellow Jackets also qualified for the national tournament in 2009-10 and compiled an overall conference record of 46-25 in the five years under Sather, including winning two Dakota Athletic Conference championships.
As an assistant at Northern State, his teams recorded three league titles, a pair of NCAA Tournament bids with 10-league players, two of whom would also be named All-America. He then spent a year as an assistant at the University of Colorado.
After earning his bachelor’s degree in secondary education in 1996 from Northern State, he served as physical education teacher and assistant boys’ basketball coach at Sidney High School in Nebraska from 1996-1997. The following year he was a graduate assistant at Wayne State College while he earned his master’s degree in sports administration.
Originally from Princeton, Minn., Sather had a stellar career collegiate career as a Wolf from 1990-1994. He was team captain for NSU when it earned back-to-back NAIA national runner-up finishes in 1993 and 1994.
Sather's family includes his wife, Kelsie, and their two children, Sam and Becca.
| COACHING CAREER |
|
|
|
|
| Year |
School |
Overall |
Conf. |
Finish |
Notes |
| 2005-06 |
Black Hills State |
17-14 |
10-4 |
|
|
| 2006-07 |
Black Hills State |
10-19 |
5-9 |
|
|
| 2007-08 |
Black Hills State |
16-14 |
8-7 |
|
|
| 2008-09 |
Black Hills State |
30-5 |
13-1 |
|
Program-record for wins, NAIA Final Four, DAC champs |
| 2009-10 |
Black Hills State |
21-10 |
10-3 |
|
NAIA Tourney, DAC champs |
| 2010-11 |
Northern State |
12-14 |
7-14 |
T10th |
|
| 2011-12 |
Northern State |
13-13 |
9-13 |
T8th |
|
| 2012-13 |
Northern State |
20-11 |
14-8 |
T5th |
|
| 2013-14 |
Northern State |
18-11 |
13-9 |
8th |
|
| 2014-15 |
Northern State |
23-9 |
15-7 |
4th |
NCAA Tournament |
| 2015-16 |
Northern State |
18-12 |
13-9 |
4th |
|
| 2016-17 |
Northern State |
22-8 |
17-5 |
T2nd |
|
| 2017-18 |
Northern State |
36-4 |
20-2 |
1st |
NSIC Coach of the Year, NCAA national runners-up, NSIC regular season and tourney champs |
| 2018-19 |
Northern State |
26-7 |
18-4 |
1st |
NSIC Coach of the Year, NCAA Tournament, NSIC regular season and tourney champs |
| 2019-20 |
North Dakota |
15-18 |
7-9 |
6th |
Summit League Tournament Runner-Up |
| 2020-21 |
North Dakota |
9-17 |
8-8 |
5th |
|
| 2021-22 |
North Dakota |
6-25 |
2-16 |
10th |
|
| 2022-23 |
North Dakota |
13-20 |
6-12 |
9th |
Won the 8v9 SL tournament game, ended season winning six of final nine games |
| 2023-24 |
North Dakota |
18-14 |
10-6 |
3rd |
First winning record in SL play, best 12 game start of the SL era, swept three conference opponents |
| 2024-25 |
North Dakota |
12-21 |
5-11 |
6th |
Had a player earn All-Summit League Second Team honors (Treysen Eaglestaff) and a player make the All-Defensive Team (Eli King). |
| Total |
|
355-261 |
210-159 |
|
|
