Giving it his all: Sam Aslesen’s journey to being a leader for DWU men’s basketball

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Jan. 31—MITCHELL — Throughout his basketball life, Sam Aslesen has been someone who’s going to take chances on the floor.

It comes from the family mantra, “You got a chance that somebody else didn’t get. What are you going to do with it?” Given the opportunity to play basketball at a high level, Aslesen knows what he wants to do when he gets onto the court.

“I had to make myself the best player I could be,” Aslesen said. “A lot of it was mindset stuff: keeping control of your emotions and just being willing to go through those daily basic repetitions. I feel like that’s the biggest part of my game.”

This season, Aslesen made himself into the best player he can be as an integral part of Dakota Wesleyan University men’s basketball. The 6-foot-7 senior forward out of Howard leads the Tigers in scoring, averaging a career-best 16.7 points per game, the 10th-best mark in the Great Plains Athletic Conference. He also ranks ninth in the conference with a shooting percentage of 58%.

In addition, Aslesen is averaging a career-best 5.9 rebounds per game, second on the Tigers, along with picking up 1.2 assists and a steal per game. All the success on the floor for a DWU team currently with a 15-6 record has come from striking the perfect balance on the court as well as off the court.

“Sam’s a very hard-working guy,” Tigers head coach Kevin Williamson said. “You can tell that he had a mean streak to him when he got on the court and had a lot of skill. We just needed to kind of get in the mindset for him to take care of his body a little better and work on skill stuff with being a forward.”

While some of the focus in preparation for the season was for Aslesen to monitor his health better, it’s not going to change his mindset whenever he’s anywhere near a basketball, a lesson instilled in him by former DWU head coach Matt Wilber since he recruited Aslesen and fellow senior teammates Jakob Dobney and Blaze Lubbers to Mitchell.

“Something coach Wilber said all the time was, ‘Don’t treat it…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/giving-sam-aslesens-journey-being-004900785.html

Author : The Daily Republic, Mitchell, S.D.

Publish date : 2025-02-01 00:49:00

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