Young, Experienced Roster Returns for UMD Men’s Basketball Team

All five starters from last season, who each averaged over 12 points per game, will be back for UMD, as well as the vast majority of their bench so depth will be a big key to the team's success.

November 9, 2021

Sam Ali,

DULUTH, Minn. – The UMD men’s basketball team is coming off a season that saw a lot of growing pains with one of the youngest squads in the NSIC. But with that came valuable experience, especially for the sophomores who just went through the first full offseason of their college careers.

“Freshman year is tough. You’re away from your family. You’re in the gym every day. It’s more of a grind than high school. I think a lot of those guys just learned to love the grind and they’re some of our hardest workers now so I think that’s really helped them,” said junior Jack Middleton.

“They haven’t really even tasted what a real college basketball season is like so I think it will be cool for us older guys to even just see how they transform into that. Basketball-wise, I think they’ve all made a jump. I think they’re all going to contribute more than they did last year and just be more efficient. I think all those guys are going to play another key role into how good we can be,” junior Drew Blair said.

All five starters from last season, who each averaged over 12 points per game, will be back for UMD, as well as the vast majority of their bench so depth will be a big key to the team’s success.

“We have five guys in that starting lineup that can score 20 on any given night. Some guys off the bench that can do it as well. It might be 20 for one guy one night and five for a different guy, then switch roles the next night, which is fine with me. Our goal is to put as many talented offensive guys out there. But there’s no doubt about it, we need to play defense if we want to be successful and that’s our biggest charge here,” said head coach Justin Wieck.

The Bulldogs will open their season this weekend at home as they’ll host the American Family Insurance Classic at Romano Gym.