North Dakota coach Paul Sather on Grant Nelson, Mark Sears before Alabama basketball visit

Posted by Admin December 17, 2024 Basketball

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North Dakota coach Paul Sather is ready to welcome Grant Nelson and Alabama basketball to the Betty.

Nelson, a native of Devils Lake, N.D, will be facing his old rivals in the Fighting Hawks for the first time since transferring from North Dakota State to Alabama (8-2) in 2023.

For UND, the game is a little bit bigger than just hosting Nelson in his home state for the holidays.

After falling 95-85 to UTSA on Sunday, Sather told reporters he thought having UA on campus was a “cool opportunity.” But with the days ticking down to SEC play in January, why would coach Nate Oats sacrifice the chance for another battle test in the non-conference gauntlet for Summit League team that’s 4-8?

Oats said on Tuesday that there were “no easy games” with UND, Kent State and South Dakota State remaining on the non-conference slate.

“We just get three games to get better at a lot of things, and this would be the first of those three,” Oats said.

North Dakota coach Paul Sather talks Grant Nelson, Mark Sears and more before Alabama basketball visit

Sather thinks the Betty Engelstad Sioux Center will be a “fun, packed environment” on Wednesday.

“You don’t see teams from leagues like that do that very often, so credit to them that they wanted to,” Sather said.

Sather called Alabama’s length “incredible” and its depth “awesome,” heralding guard Mark Sears as “one of the best players in the country.”

“It’s up to us and our job to go out there and compete every possession and see what happens,” Sather said.

Sather said facing the Crimson Tide is “going to be really, really hard.” In the same breath, he said teams like Alabama are the ones that make others get better.

Nelson is one of the reasons that Alabama has gotten better. Sather thinks the 6-foot-11, 230 pounder’s skill set, size and physicality have improved on both sides of the floor.

Not just since the six games Sather coached against him in three seasons at North Dakota State, but back when Nelson was a junior at Devils Lake High School.

Before the team took off for North Dakota, Nelson shared with reporters that his only other Division I offer coming out of high school than NDSU was UND.

“It’s kind of fun to see him doing well. That’s what you want for any young person, right?” Sather said of Nelson. “You want to see when they take those chances and they take those risks and they make something happen and I think he’s doing a really good job of that.”

Emilee Smarr covers Alabama basketball and Crimson Tide athletics for the Tuscaloosa News. She can be reached via email at esmarr@gannett.com.