DU held a press conference and meet and greet with new basketball head coach Tim Bergstraser and his family Wednesday morning. The former Minnesota State University Moorhead (MSUM) head coach hire is rumored to include a Moorhead posse of at least five former Dragon players and is joined by his former assistant coach Spencer Bland. It’s a meteoric rise for Bergstraser with a scant three years of D2 head coach experience.
If AD Josh Berlo and the selection committee hit on this pick, following a turbulent two months, the high-risk move will look brilliant. If not, the blowback will be more about indifference and antipathy than raw anger and emotion. The question to be answered: Can Bergstraser fix what has long been ailing Denver basketball? Ultimately, there is only one right answer, winning.
Bergstraser had little to do with DU’s past and the press conference was forward-looking. “DU’s a big deal. It has a (great) college vibe, investment in athletics, success in athletics and academics – how can’t you sell that?” As for recruiting, he pledged to cast a ‘wide net’ with a focus on his former conference – the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC). Citing that the DU basketball brand is not respected, Berstraser sees a team constructed with a group of “my kind of people – I’m a fighter and a nasty competitor.”
A self-professed blue-collar coach and former player, Bergstraser stated what many before him have said from that same podium, “Our team will play the right way and compete for championships. We’ll do it with class . We will play with passion, intensity and discipline – you can win here.”
As for facilities, Bergstraser recognized that Hamilton Gym may not be a top-tier venue but that the Denver location (Colorado) and campus would more than offset facilities. No doubt, the Ritchie Center and the Denver Campus are an upgrade over MSUM while Hamilton Gym is nearly an exact replica of his former workplace, Nemzek Fieldhouse. As for Name, Image & Likeness (NIL), “We’ll work around it.”
In the brave new world of DI athletics and midmajor basketball, the playbook is changing. While many Denver fans may see the elevation of a D2 coach to a DI program as unusual, this is more the norm – four current Summit League coaches have been recruited from lower levels. Summit coaches have been elevated from D2 programs and high school jobs to run the programs at North Dakota (Paul Sather), ORU (Russell Springman), South Dakota (Eric Peterson) and St. Thomas (Johnny Tauer). Team Ranking places the Summit League as the 23rd strongest conference out of 31 in all of college hoops so the Denver job is a gateway DI position. Add current roster volatility at the lower mid-major level and what you are witnessing is the future of DI basketball in Denver.
Bergstraser’s first effort will be to restock a bare roster. Four DU players remain – senior Josh Lee has meaningful DI minutes and multiple Dragon players are in the portal and moving west. As for departing DU players, “that was their decision.” The transfer portal closes on April 22nd.
There was little mention of fan engagement – or questions involving the recent past. Bergstraser is likely well aware that the Denver market, with all its distractions, will only provide attention when and if the program begins to chart a winning course. A smart move by Bergstraser who is well aware that the current basketball program needs stability and success in order to capture eyeballs.
Many fans have long wondered if DU should recruit student-athletes (i.e. gym rats) from the upper midwest and the Colorado region who play hard but may not have the attention of national ratings services. That, frankly, is the model for most Summit League teams. Now, we will watch a blue-collar coach go forward with that same model. Can Bergstraser crack the code at DU?
We’ve waited 121 years – we have all the time in the world.
It seems this hire signals DU’s vision of moving up the D-I food chain has been revised downward. The symbolic message of hiring a relatively inexperienced D-II coach says any effort to move up to the West Coast Conference, with similar private academic schools, and/or building a 5,000-6,000 seat basketball arena on campus are now but pipedreams. The goal now seems to just be somewhat competitive in the Summit League. How inspiring …
This is Dunker. I’m depressed. I’ll write more later. Right now I need a shower.
I watched the presser:
What liked – his sincerity, toughness, excitement, youth, enthusiasm, strong work ethic, winner in D-II, and reverence for DU.
What I did not like: aura of naïveté, equating his old conference –NSIC D-II as “basically the same as D-I”, that he would “work around NIL” (instead of with it), bringing in 5-DII players for next year from his roster, insistence that Summit League is “big time” basketball (it isn’t), a lack of media polish.
Let’s see what happens…
Train wreck. He’s going to bring four or five of his D2 players with him ???and this is supposed to be a bonus?? AD Berlo has destroyed the basketball program and should be fired
if they win six games next year I’ll be surprised. They’ll be playing at the YMCA before too long. Instead of bringing up a DII coach, AD Berlo should be relegated to a DII program …or worse
Hey Matt, I graduated a few years before you but I followed your outstanding career closely. Man did Berlo ever shaft us. Any outside chance we had of joining the WCC in my lifetime are over. I’ll root for Bregs to be successful; he didn’t fire Wulbrun, but I didn’t appreciate his comment that he was always looking for the job to open up. Truthfully Wilbrun and his assistants were the right combo to give us the best chance of success. Maybe there’s something I don’t know about the Wulbrun firing. Bregs should have said he will sit down with our portal players. There are some great student athletes in that group who flourished at DU and could if nothing else ease the transition. I doubt he can bring in better players than those leaving. Hope I’m wrong. Don’t you worry about Bregs ability to recruit urban athletes?
As I write this, I can’t help but think think about Ron Oyer. You understand. I’m actually dismayed Haefner and or the BOT allowed this hire. Either DU is being cheap or there’s something we don’t know. I guess we’ll find out when Berlo’s biography is published.
I always was curious, are you related to the Teahan who played Major League Baseball? My guess is Yes.
Be well and thanks for all you’ve done for DU athletics. You’ve made us alums proud.
I’m Dunker by the way.
Hey at least some of you on here aren’t overreacting and just giving up on Bergy, as he is called, and the players that are coming in with him.
Bringing his guys that he recruited for his system at a high level of D2 basketball. A team that went to the Sweet 16 in D2? Seems to have worked at Drake last year, who is in a league that is seen as “better” than the Summit League. Their D2 coach brought his D2 players and won the Vallet. They beat Mizzou and went to the 2nd round of NCAA tournament. Now he is at Iowa with many of those same players. That may or may not happen in Denver, but to relegate this coach and these players to the YMCA when most of us don’t even know their name is comical at best.
Thanks to COVID and the transfer portal, D2 basketball is no longer what many think it used to be. His team was beating NDSU for a vast majority of the game to start the season. Just like FBS to FCS football, there are good players, depth is the difference.
I choose to take a wait and see approach and hope he works as hard as he says. It can’t be much worse than it already is.
Our goal has always been to elevate DU sports – we rarely if ever call out players or coaches – the backbone of DU athletics. DU has a poor history in hoops so there is a short fuse and frustration. If he can win and win the right way, they (Bergy & players) will get plenty of support and flowers.
Bergy has been a head coach for 3 years yet he has always been waiting for the DU job to open up. (Stated at his presser. Maybe he just misspoke. Forgiven) Give me a break. Still i hope he succeeds no matter what. To get this job, it sounds like Berlo was his inside help once the Duluth coach got a raise and extension. It’s 2025 and we’re discussing D-2 hoops. Pathetic
5BWest- I appreciate what you say, and maybe it is the loud minority, but that is exactly what is happening here…calling out coaches and players before they even get started. I get the frustration of the past successes or lack there of, or the previous coaching regime and how everything transpired. But some can’t get the school right (it’s not Moorhead State), the coach’s name/nickname (it’s Bergstraser/Bergy, not Bregs) and probably can’t tell you one incoming player’s name, yet they already KNOW they are gonna suck, will win single digit games and have them signed up for the YMCA league. Maybe everyone is still mad Malone got fired too!!
I graduated in 1977. DU was a solid D1 program then with Hockey the mainstay but we also had a respectable Basketball program and Baseball. Lacrosse was a bad club sport and don’t even remember if we had Soccer, Golf or Gymnastics. We did have club Rugby and I was dumb enough to join that.
Never followed any sport except Basketball starting with the Joe Scott era. Those teams provided some hope for the future.
Sadly, I don’t see a path forward for Basketball today or in the near future with the current hire.
You get what you pay for. Good luck coach. You are going to need it.
I’m a 1980 graduate and saw Matt Teahan make the long shots. Great player! That era of DU basketball also lacked resources (DU Field House floor, etc.).
I heard the new coach was promised a pep band, so we’ll see if that happens!! Still bothered by Wulbrun exit and if you notice Air Force is not on DU’s schedule. Joe Scott’s exit likely was bad too.
Unfortunately, “Bergy” is way out of his depth and naively thinks he can easily recruit top talent to DU, yet his roster is filling up with his D2 players. Not to mention how horribly he’s treated the current basketball players who have been yanked around by Berlo and now “Bergy.” Complete lack of class and communication to their athletes who have done nothing but work hard for the university. Berlo needs to be out, and his choice to hire Bergstraser shows how little he cares about the men’s basketball program at DU. Downhill from here. What a shame.
There’s something truly troubling about a new coach who doesn’t even bother to meet with current players before gutting the roster and replacing it with his DII guys. Of those making the jump, maybe one looks remotely ready for DI-level basketball. The rest? Watch the game film—there’s no question they’ll struggle.
It’s not just tone-deaf, it’s arrogant. A number of DU players wanted to stay. They were talented. They deserved consideration. Despite last season’s injury-plagued challenges, Wulbrun had laid a solid foundation and was making steady progress in building DU Men’s Basketball into a Summit League contender. That progress has been recklessly discarded.
This new coach comes off as unpolished, naive, and undeservedly cocky. And at the center of this dysfunction is Josh Berlo—an athletic director who continues to show zero leadership, zero transparency, and zero accountability. When is DU’s administration going to wake up? Berlo’s impact goes beyond Athletics. He is a poor reflection of DU as an institution. And people are noticing.
One looks ready? Who is it? Why? What makes you say the others aren’t?
Where did you see game film? Would be interested in watching!
I don’t know if I’d say a “number of players wanted to stay at DU” since only 4 were listed on the roster when Bergy was hired. Everyone else had already entered the portal. Where have those players that wanted to stay gone on to commit/sign or even visited?
Are some of you just mad at Berlo for letting Wulbrun go that it doesn’t matter what happens, you hope the new regime fails? Seems like it. I have no idea why he was let go, but guess what, nobody asked me either, nor did I expect them to. And I’m guessing nobody asked any of you, nor should they.
Maybe you are all right. Maybe I am right. Who knows. But beating down players and coaches that we haven’t seen play or coach a game yet is crazy. I get not everyone will be happy with any decision, but none of those guys coming in had anything to do with that whole situation, so I will choose to wait to see what happens when they put on the jersey. In the meantime, I’ll continue to hope for the best rather than expect the worst.
Do you know how to use Google? You can answer many of your own questions. Game film isn’t hard to find, you just need to know a little something about basketball to determine skill level and how that will translate to DI ball. DII players will get a rude awakening to DI pace, even if it is just Summit League. Bergy has his work cut out for him because he needs to figure out how he’s going to attract DI level talent with no NIL, poor facilities, and an inexperienced coaching staff, not to mention the bad press over the handling of Wulbrun’s departure and the lack of player support. Regarding players wanting to stay, many did, but because they felt completely unsupported and left out to dry by Berlo’s horrible handling of Wulbrun’s departure, they felt forced to enter the portal. Sure, a few were going to enter anyway, but nowhere near the number that did. See, that’s what happens when student athlete’s aren’t treated with respect and offered support in times of transition. Berlo didn’t even meet with the team for many weeks after announcing Wulbrun’s leave, right before playoffs, which is unacceptable and callous. When he did finally meet with them, it was via Zoom. Doesn’t relay a whole lot of “give a damn” on his part. So, no wonder players entered the portal. This is their futures we’re talking about. If you want to know where those players who entered the portal have signed/committed…again, Google. Easy to find.
I hope somehow, someway, sometime, DU basketball will gain some relevancy again and give the fans something to be happy about and look forward to. Not much else to say at this point.
I wish Bergstraser well.
Question for the moderators of this board whether it is @5BWest of @PuckSwami or whoever….I’m a new Pioneer Basketball fan and am curious to any of the followers here if there are any good follows for DU Basketball updates on X/Twitter/IG? Any “insiders” that are worth following?
Also, is this the only message board for DU Athletics or is there another one that people like to use?
This is the primary fan site for DU sports and basketball and fan feedback. We cover every game and write feature articles. All of our content is written by us. You can also follow us on Twitter – LetsGoDU.
The best interactive site might be Denver Men’s Basketball on Facebook. Lots of stuff there now since we just hired a new coach. Results of games, box scores, and interviews follow games. There is also pre-game info published a day or two before. Enjoy the ride NewPioneer. We old timers want DU to win in hoops. Bergy didn’t fire Wulbrun
Welcome Pioneer fan!
As you will discover, LetsGoDU has the most comprehensive coverage of DU sports outside of the school web site. Other DU fan sites have come and gone over the years, but the fanbase for DU in all sports remains quite small, due to the fact that the school has a small enrollment in an oversaturated sports market, is a private school with most of its success in niche sports.
Welcome New Pioneer
It’s too bad we don’t have an active message board for give and take. I don’t think the Summit League has one, but it might. The SL schools that play football 🏈 ( the 4 directional schools) are most interested in their level of college football which is top notch, but not really of interest to DU fans. Just my opinion.
New DU BB Fan
October 3, 2025
Has anyone seen the team practice this summer or since the regular season practice has started. I’m a new DU fan and did see a lot of MSUM games last year. There NSIC was the best DII in the country they play tough. Some of the new players i think will surprise you. A good non conf schedule that will be tough for a new team and coaches. However i will be surprised if they are not competitive in the Summit. They will play hard.
The team has open practices. Just drop them a note. Lacking a bit of height for the Summit League but they look good in practice.