Feb. 18—GRAND FORKS — UND men's basketball head coach Paul Sather has signed a three-year contract extension, the university announced on Tuesday.
Sather's contract will run through the 2028-29 season.
This is his second contract extension with the Fighting Hawks. Sather was hired in 2019, and his extension in 2023 was set to expire at the end of this season.
"In today's landscape of college athletics, it's a challenging time to be a mid-major basketball program," UND athletic director Bill Chaves said in a statement. "With constant roster movement, NIL dynamics and increased competition for resources, stability and strong leadership matter more than ever. Paul has provided that for our men's basketball program. He has built a culture rooted in accountability, player development and pride in representing the University of North Dakota. Extending Paul's contract reflects our confidence in his vision and in the foundation he continues to strengthen."
Terms of Sather's contract were not immediately available. He is making a base salary of $210,000 this season.
This year is shaping up to be one of Sather's best. The Hawks are 15-14 overall and 9-4 in Summit League play with three games remaining on the regular season schedule. They are currently third in the conference standings.
"Within our basketball program these last few years, I really feel like we've been knocking on some doors, and we've got to be able to bust through those," Sather said. "A couple years ago we had a great opportunity here to play a team like South Dakota State. If you win that game, we're playing for a share of that Summit League championship. This year, we're putting ourselves in a really good position again to compete."
UND lost talented players to the transfer portal in the offseason, such as Treysen Eaglestaff, Mier Panoam and Amar Kuljuhovic. However, the emergence of redshirt freshman Greyson Uelmen, the retention of senior guard Eli King and the addition of Garrett Anderson have helped the Hawks not only stabilize, but improve.
"We were pretty fortunate this year," Sather said. "We got a couple transfers in, but we also had guys that had redshirted, or a guy like (George Natsvlishvili) that didn't play a lot last year who's had a huge impact for us this year. We've got two freshmen that are playing for us. Sometimes some of the talent you can get out of high school right now is at a pretty high level. We've always done a pretty good job of getting high school kids here and having success with that. You definitely evolve with it because of the change and what's happened in the NCAA, but you've also gotta stay true to who you are and what works, and then change as you need to."
UND was 12-21 and 5-11 in Summit League play last season. Sather's best year was 2023-24, when the Hawks posted an 18-14 overall record and a 10-6 conference record.
Sather's overall record at UND is currently 88-129.
"There's some exciting things going on here," Sather said. "We've got some good young players that, when spring rolls around, we'll see what everybody's going to do, but I think we've got some opportunities to really continue to take great steps. So that's my vision and that's what we see, and I'm glad the people like Bill and (UND President Andrew Armacost), these people that are in these positions, see that vision as well."
In Sather's first season, the Hawks won 15 games. The following two seasons featured Sather's lowest win totals. UND went 9-17 in 2020-21 and 6-25 in 2021-22. In 2022-23, the Hawks finished 13-20.
UND has won four games in the Summit League tournament under Sather. The Hawks advanced to the tournament finals in his first season at the helm, when they lost to top-seeded North Dakota State as the No. 6 seed.