St. Olaf Men’s Basketball is coming into the 2025-2026 season with three new goals: to win against Carleton in their annual St. Olaf-Carelton game, make the playoffs as a top six team, and to focus on winning every game. This comes after a tough 2024-2025 season where the team ended with a record of 4-21.
A significant change this year that the team hopes will help with their upcoming season is their incredibly young roster — only two upperclassmen make up the team.
“The young team played through the fire,” Head Coach of St. Olaf Men’s Basketball Dan Kosmoski said in an interview with The Olaf Messenger. “As a coach, teacher, and educator, my goal is to develop, try to be truthful, try to be honest. My philosophy is to develop as a student, person, and player, and to make those individuals on the team to be one.”
So far this season, St. Olaf Men’s Basketball has had their ups and downs. The team faced defeat in their first two games this season against Wartburg College on Nov. 8 (69-76) and University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point on Nov. 12 (63-74). However, Kosmoski does not see those losses as a disadvantage.
“When you lose there is a sting to it, that’s good motivation,” Kosmoski said.
That motivation led them to go on and win on Nov. 16 against Crown College (81-60). Since that win, the team lost at an away game on Nov. 19 to University of Wisconsin-River Falls (80-86), and then went on to win their next two games on Nov. 22 against University of Northwestern (85-75) and Nov. 25 against Luther College (67-57). In their most recent game on Nov. 30, the team lost their two-game win streak against University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire (65-85). However, the season is far from over with many games still up ahead to surpass what they achieved last season.
The season is still ripe for St. Olaf Men’s Basketball to surpass their record from last season and achieve their goals.
“The games we lost this year were close,” Kosmoski said, “We are on the road to improvements and the players see it every game and practice.”
