GRAND FORKS — At this week’s press conference, UND junior guard Sydney Piekny was asked to preview the season in one word.
Her choice? “Redemption.”
The Fighting Hawks went 7-24 overall and 3-13 in the Summit League last year.
Piekny is one of the Hawks’ six returners from that team.
“Last year is definitely not how we wanted it to go,” Piekny said. “I think that we’ve got girls this year that want to prove something, get UND basketball up to where it should be and this program where it should be in the Summit League. I think we’ve just put in too much work over this whole offseason to not give that to the fans and for ourselves.”
UND head coach Dennis Hutter, who is entering his second season at the helm, echoed similar sentiments, saying the players have a “chip on their shoulder.”
“We have a lot of kids that have a lot to prove,” Hutter said. “Whether it’s a returning player who wants to prove that maybe last year wasn’t really who we could be, or maybe it’s a transfer coming in and trying to prove that they belong in the situation they’re in. We’ve got a lot of kids that have a residual chip on their shoulder.”
The players and coaching staff might have the ‘hunger,’ but how is the program measuring success this year?
“I think seeing a few more wins in that win column for sure would be a measure of success,” Piekny said when asked. “But I think that just this group together, when we get in the fourth quarter, we know that we’re going to be the better team that’s more in shape. We’ve prepared since June for this moment, and so I think with the girls that we have, I think we can do that this year.”
Earlier this month, Hutter described this season as the second of a three-year rebuild.
For Hutter, measuring the success of Year 2 begins with eliminating the “loose” play that plagued the team last season.
“It can be a little intangible, it can definitely be tangible,” Hutter said of measuring progress. “No. 1, getting them to understand what it takes to win. There’s a fine line between winning and losing, and success and not being successful, it really is. It’s usually the little things, and they’ve been hearing that all summer long. We’ve got to be better at the little things. Little things are little things until they’re not done, then they’re big things.
“They hear that time and time again, and I felt like last year, I would use the phrase loose — we got loose, we weren’t tight. This year, we talk a lot about being tight, being solid, being sound with our game, fundamentally sound, great decisions off screens, taking care of the ball. That would definitely tell us we’re trending in the right direction.”
Hutter says that the team’s ‘edge’ will be evident in the first five minutes of a game this season.
The next step is turning those improvements into results.
“Being in more competitive games would certainly show that a little bit more, too,” Hutter said. “Being able to win a few more games certainly goes a long way with that as well, but it’s a process. It really, truly is, and I don’t mean to talk coach speak up here, but it is a process. Getting them to understand that the product will come if they just trust and respect the process. So, if they continue to do that, I think they’ll see the results they like.”
The Hawks open the season with a home game against Minnesota Crookston on Nov. 2, and this year’s lineup will look much different.
Hutter, who was promoted on March 24, 2025, shortly after Mallory Bernhard resigned, added five transfers and four freshmen in his first full offseason as head coach.
Hutter believes having a year of experience as head coach will also help the program in the second year of its rebuild.
“Just how I got into this situation and how it came about, I felt like I was a step behind (last year),” Hutter said. “I never was able to play catch up. I feel like this year, I’m playing in lockstep with where we are, if not trying to get a step ahead, and boy, that does make a big difference. It makes you look at things differently. You’re able to look down the road at pitfalls that could come up, and how do you navigate them before they happen? What are things that you’re going to have to deal with that could potentially happen? … I’m looking at things this year that I never even thought about looking at last year, and I think that has a lot to do with me going through what I went through last year. I think that’s really important in regards to prepping them to put them in the best position to be usefulness throughout the year.”
Alex Faber is a sports reporter for the Grand Forks Herald. A Michigan transplant, he graduated from Michigan State University in 2024 with a degree in journalism and minors in history and environmental studies.