DU hoops has a new boss in a guy who has made serious waves in Division II.
The Pioneers hired Tim Bergstraser on Monday to be the men’s basketball program’s next head coach. Bergstraser comes to DU from Minnesota State University Moorhead, where he built the Dragons into a strong Division II program over the last three years.
“At the onset of this search, we prioritized finding a proven high-character winner with head coaching experience that can be a leader for our student-athletes on and off the court with intimate knowledge of the Summit League,” DU vice chancellor for athletics Josh Berlo said in a statement. “We found exactly that in Tim Bergstraser. He has succeeded at a very high level, competing for recruits and living in the Summit League’s footprint.”
At MSUM, Bergstraser led the Dragons to three straight 25-win seasons for the first time in school history, culminating in a 25-9 season in 2024-25 in which they won another conference tournament title and reached the NCAA Division II Sweet 16.
Several of Bergstraser’s players from MSUM will likely follow him to Denver, with a trio of the program’s top contributors in Carson Johnson, Logan Kinsey and Shaun Wysocki entering the portal less than an hour after Bergstraser was announced as the Pioneers’ head coach.
In a statement, Bergstraser said he is “determined to add to the great winning tradition that is already established in this athletic department.”
He played collegiately at St. Cloud State, where the 6-foot-6 center was introduced to coaching as a student assistant in 2013-14. He has also coached as an assistant during his career at Wisconsin-River Falls, MSUM and Quincy University in Illinois.
Bergstraser is the 34th coach in DU history and takes over for Jeff Wulbrun, who coached the Pioneers for four seasons and in 2023-24 and led them to within one win of their first NCAA Tournament appearance via a showing in the Summit League championship game. It was the Division I program’s first conference title game appearance since 2005.
Wulbrun was 53-74 in his tenure. He was put on leave on Feb. 21 and didn’t return to coach. Assistant Shammond Williams served as DU’s interim coach after Wulburn’s exit. The Pioneers finished 11-21 and lost to St. Thomas in the opening round of the Summit League tournament.
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