At 6-foot-7 and 207 pounds, Sam Hastreiter was an important and dynamic piece to the Lincoln Pius X state-tournament-qualifying team this past season.

Hastreiter has one scholarship offer, which came from Idaho in September of 2020. He remembers the day well, and it served as motivation.

“I was super happy because ever since I was little I wanted to play college basketball,” Hastreiter said of the Idaho offer, which came via Zoom. “It didn’t feel real for a while. Then it set in that, through all my hard work, it’s starting to pay off. But it also made me feel like I want to keep at it and keep getting better. It just shows that what I’ve been doing has started to pay off.”

Nebraska-Omaha, North Dakota State, South Dakota, South Dakota State, Northern Colorado, Incarnate Word and Liberty have all contacted Hastreiter.

Nebraska-Omaha has been the school recruiting Hastreiter the hardest. He’s created a relationship with UNO assistant coach Pat Eberhart.

“We’ve just been talking about how things have been going,” Hastreiter said. “He’s (Eberhart) been keeping in touch, seeing what I’m up to and asking about how certain games go.”

Hastreiter will use this spring and summer to work on his game with Nebraska Supreme’s 17UAA team. It’s the second consecutive season he’s played for Supreme’s top squad.

Once he’s on the AAU circuit, Hastreiter knows what part of his game he wants to work on the most — defense.

“I just want to work on the little things, because in AAU people don’t always do stuff like boxing out and rebounding,” he said, “so I just really want to work on defense because that’s something that can make me stand out and improve my game.”

The Thunderbolts graduate eight seniors which means Hastreiter is going to have more on his shoulders next season.

Not a problem, though. Hastreiter, who averaged 9.3 points and five rebounds while shooting 41 percent from 3 (23 of 56), was the only non-senior who was a captain, so being one of the leaders on the team isn’t a new thing to him.