UND Men’s Hoops Fall to Eagles But Make Powerful Statement
UND Mens Basketball Coaches Go Barefoot
GRAND FORKS, ND. — The North Dakota Fighting Hawks were back home after a two game losing skid out west, they look to get back on track in the betty they’ve won two of their three games their this year, the emphasis in practice this week was crashing the glass.
“You know I thought it was better you know we’re offensive rebounding, but we had a lot of misses. I think we had forty seven misses and we had fifteen offensive rebounds so, you know we’re working at a pretty decent percentage of offensive boards that are misses,” said head coach, Paul Sather.
“You’re going to have days like that where you’re just not finishing well, and you’ve got to keep fighting for it. So we’ll be back Monday ready to work on that,” said sophomore forward, Brady Danielson.
Six of their last eight games leading up to this one have been on the road, players were asked if it’s taking a toll. They’re also focused on competing strong for forty minutes.
“Yea you know it definitely does, I mean we were out in Florida for a week, came back drove to k state, then we were out in Cali. I mean but our coach always preaches to not make excuses about anything, so I mean definitely takes a toll on you but we were all ready to go,” said junior forward, Brenden Howard.
“We’ve got to figure out ways to win, we’re just not putting full games together right now, and you know these next couple of games are going to help us hopefully against conference,” said junior forward, Brendan Howard.
GRAND FORKS, ND. This group is looking to put this loss behind them and push forward,” said Danielson
“Lets look at it with eyes wide open, and lets not pull punches lets get better from this. Lets not make excuses from it. Just show up Monday ready to work,” said Sather.
If you were at the game you may have noticed the entire und coaching staff was on the bench barefoot. They were supporting a cause bigger than the game.
“Samaritans Feet which is an organization you know long before I got here has been impactful here at the university of North Dakota with men’s basketball and this community. Because of Covid we haven’t been able to do our shoe give away but with Samaritans feet, I think a lot of time people think poorer countries or things like that, that every kid has or around here the kids have what they need. I think it was over six hundred shoes we gave away two years ago. And that’s why we went barefoot to kind of support the efforts the organization of Samaritans Feet does, cause it’s an awesome deal and it’s been affected by Covid. There is no question its not going at the same volume that it was before, but that need is more and more still necessary. So we’re just bringing awareness to that,” said Sather.
