The University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) men’s basketball team is headed back to the NCAA DII tournament for the third year in a row. Their first foe will be Fort Hays State University. UMD said they’re an excellent defensive team and will be gearing up for it to be a battle.

“A lot of the time in practice we’ve been playing offense with six guys on defense, kind of getting ready to face a more dominant defensive team. Then, like us, they’ve got two guys who can really score on offense too. So if we can sit on defense and kind of take those scoring points away from them, we should be in a pretty good position,” sophomore forward Mattie Thompson.

“For us it’s about trying to play our game,” head coach Justin Wieck said. “Execute what our game plan is on the defensive end, and then hopefully just continue to be unselfish, move the basketball and not turn it over. It’s going to be a possession-by-possession thing and we’ve got to make some big plays down the stretch.”

There’s also the pressure to perform in the NCAA tournament itself, but senior forward Charlie Katona knows the Bulldogs aren’t the young pups they were years ago.

“We had our work cut out for us that freshman year. We didn’t know what to expect. Like, hey, we know teams are good, but let’s see what we can do. And now, being there three years in a row, I think that’s going to play big into how we go into these games. Being able to to sort of set our foot down, get our grounding and, just do what we know how to do.”

UMD and Fort Hays State tip off Saturday at Noon in Mankato. For the full bracket, click here.