This article is satirical and fake. It is a part of our annual Rectrum special, April Fools edition.
Shocking news this week as North Dakota State has fired head men’s basketball coach David Richman after 11 seasons and 24 total seasons with the program. Richman was the 2015 Summit League coach of the year and won three Summit League conference titles.
His overall record was 211-141, and he went 1-2 in the NCAA tournament. A great career and a Bison basketball legend, but after a few rough and disappointing seasons, the Bison will be moving on. Athletic director Matt Larson announced this week that the university will replace Richman with Minnesota State University Moorhead’s head coach, Tim Bergstraser.
MSUM came to the SHAC earlier this year for an exhibition game in which the Bison snuck out with a 67-63 win. Bergstraser has been coaching for 11 seasons but has only been a head coach for three seasons. He has accomplished quite a bit in those three seasons as his Dragons have won two NSIC conference tournaments in 2023 and this past season in 2025. This season, he got his team to the “Sweet 16” of the DII tournament. Each team he has coached has won at least 25 games every year, and none of them have lost a double-digit number of games. His overall record stands at 75-22 through three seasons and 50-16 in conference play. He is someone who has proven that he can win, and win often, and someone who is young and eager to win.
The Bison have lost a lot in the portal this season in Darrik Dissette, Brennan Watkins, Jacari White, and Patrick Bath. They have also graduated key players like Masen Miller and Jackson Moni. This new hire with Tim Bergstraser could potentially bring a few players over in this day in age of college athletics. Their leading scorer, Logan Kinsey, has one final year left and could potentially make the move to a DI program. What better team to go to than the one your old coach is going to? Carson Johnson, who is just a freshman, was second on the team in scoring and could easily make the switch to DI. Johnson led MSUM with three pointers made with 64. In the 2024-2025 season, the Bison showed they loved to shoot the three-pointer, so this could be a perfect fit.
As for the assistant coaches, at the DII level, there aren’t as many coaches on each team, so MSUM only had one true assistant coach. The rest of them were graduate assistants.
That means Bergstraser will have to find at least three other coaches to fill the voids in the NDSU staff. It’s hard to think that Joshua Jones will stay as he has been with Richman for the past five seasons and will likely go elsewhere. Luke Strege has only coached at NDSU for two seasons and could potentially stay. Spencer Wilker has been a part of bison basketball for over 10 years and likely will keep his loyalty to the program and stick around for the next coaching staff. Camron Greer is quite young and probably wants to move up in the ranks of coaching and will most likely move on from NDSU. Spenser Bland from MSUM could potentially come over with Bergstraser, as he has been at MSUM for six seasons and could want to move up to the DI level.
Overall, it’s always tough to fire coaches, especially ones like Dave Richman, who have done so much for the program, but in the end, this is a move that must be made. Tim Bergstraser will hold a press conference later this week to meet with the media and give a statement on the future of Bison basketball.