Graduate guard Ryan Dufault mourns his last game. The Tommies fell 67-66 to North Dakota in the Summit League Tournament semifinals March 8, 2026. (Evan Neubauer/The Crest) 
Sophomore guard Nolan Minessale led the Tommies with 23 points. Evan Neubauer/The Crest) 
Minessale had nine rebounds. (Evan Neubauer/The Crest) 
Neither team had a run longer than 8 points. (Evan Neubauer/The Crest) 
Minessale leads the Tommies off the court. (Evan Neubauer/The Crest) 
Dufault has played with the Tommies for five years, and has been coached by Johnny Tauer since he was 16. (Evan Neubauer/The Crest)
North Dakota junior forward George Natsvlishvili sank a free throw with 0.1 seconds left to knock St. Thomas out of the Summit League semifinals 67-66 Saturday.
UND senior guard Eli King intercepted a pass from driving Tommie sophomore guard Austin Herro with two seconds left on the clock. King passed the ball downcourt where the 6-foot-10 forward was able to draw the foul that sent him to the line.
“I looked at my coaches, my teammates, they were believing in me and I just cleared my mind right before I released the ball, and it went in,” Natsvlishvili said.
Herro dished seven assists in Saturday’s game at the Denny Sanford Premier Center. That was his only turnover.
Sophomore forward Ben Oosterbaan tried a full-court heave for the following in-bound play but sent the ball sailing past the opposite baseline, giving the Fighting Hawks possession.
Graduate guard Ryan Dufault stared up at the final score of his last game in a UST uniform with a towel over his head. He didn’t appear in a single game during the first year of the Division I transition, but ended with 130 career games played, the most in the Tommies’ D-I era.
“I think he left a legacy that people will be talking about him for decades,” coach Johnny Tauer said.
The Tommies shot just 10-of-22 on 2-pointers and 3-of-15 on three-pointers in the first half, uncharacteristically low for the team that led the nation in 2-point percentage at 63.6% and was second in the conference in 3-pointers with a 36.5% split.
St. Thomas led 34-28 heading into the locker room at halftime.
“I thought the first half, we weren’t as crisp offensively. We held them to 28 points in the first half and I thought we had let a couple opportunities slip away just trying to stretch that lead,” Tauer said.
UST shot a slightly better 12-of-23 within the arc in the second half but still struggled from range, shooting 1-of-9.
Fighting Hawks redshirt first-year guard Greyson Uelmen scored 28 points on 9-of-11 shooting. He also drew nine fouls, reaching the foul line 12 times to sink nine free throws.
Uelmen averaged 16.6 points per game on the year but was coming into Saturday’s matchup off a 41-point explosion in the quarterfinals against Denver.
“It’s shocking when you see a redshirt freshman doing what he’s doing, but he’s just such a winner and he just makes plays. He competes. He hates losing,” UND coach Paul Sather said.
UST sophomore guard Nolan Minessale led the Tommies with 23 points and nine rebounds.
“We knew right from the start it would be a battle. I mean, obviously it’s to go to the championship. I think the message was just, I don’t know, keep fighting and just do whatever it takes to win,” Minessale said. “Unfortunately we weren’t able to come out with the outcome we wanted.”
Oosterbaan scored 16 points on 8-of-12 shooting. He scored 39 points across the two tournament games.
“I just was, you know, trying to execute the game plan, and I felt like I was left open a lot,” Oosterbaan said. “My teammates found me and I didn’t think I did anything that special.”
St. Thomas grabbed 13 offensive rebounds in the first half, but only one in the second. The rebounds resulted in only eight second chance points.
UND led 15-12 midway through the first half, but the Tommies overtook them, maintaining a lead that never stretched past eight points.
Uelmen splashed a 3-pointer and then assisted on another with seven minutes left to play to tie the game 54-54. The final minutes were a back-and-forth battle that was hashed out in the paint and at the free-throw line aside from Hawks senior guard Reggie Thomas’ 3-pointer with just more than two minutes left.
Uelmen scored seven of UND’s final 13 points, and Minessale scored eight of UST’s last 12.
If they all stay, St. Thomas could return all but one of their players who played more than two minutes per game.
“We’re building something and, you know, it’s just getting started, so we’re excited to keep elevating what we have going on here,” Oosterbaan said.
This report is brought to you by U.S. Bank.
Adam Mueller can be reached at muel7541@stthomas.edu.
