Hans8891

I only watched Ouse in the state tournament, but he has skills and length that will make him an offensive asset. He can shoot outside, he has reasonable ball handling skills, can hit the floater and pull-up jumper, or get to the rim - plus a lot of length. He will definitely need to hit the weight room, but if he works hard, he is long and could be a matchup issue. More of a Grant Nelson type that could beat 4 or 5 type guys off the dribble from outside. Like most North Dakota players, it will be a significant jump in physicality and learning to play defense at the D1 level, but he moves well and has good ball control for a 6’9 kid. I like his potential.

Ok. We officially prove we don’t belong in the championship. We can blame Sather all we want, but your players have to not throw away the ball everytime they come down the court - even when unforced. This is ridiculous….

We should not have Trey playing point this much,. 9 turnovers now. They are well coached and know they need to use smaller guys up in his grill to prevent the crossover and we can’t figure it out. Take their shorter asses down on the block and go to work. We are not a good enough 3 point shooting team to live there, especially when they are overplaying the perimeter. Granted, they naven’t missed the last 67 possessions even when the defense hasn’t been bad, but our ofefense in the second half has been non-existent…….again…..

Need to take advantage of our length and athleticism tonight. They are well coached and will overplay the perimeter with help on Trey. Need to get Eli, Meier, and Mara going early to the hole and using our length and athleticism tonight to open some room for Trey. We have length mismatches. Plus we need to do a better job switching on perimeter and talking on picks. They move well and look for the open man. We play smart there is no reason we can’t win this thing…

I wonder what the time differential would be in how much time DU had control of the puck versus UND. 36 minutes to 4??? We have no puck control whatsoever? Dump and chase everything - including out of our own zone…. Berry apparently doesn’t believe in actually trying to complete a tape to tape pass. Every game….

There was discussion of many of the issues being raised. With respect to cost, it is not common to have tailgating prices close to regular parking costs. They are usually at a premium. Sometimes a very steep premium. What we have just doesn’t happen anywhere else. There are added costs to tailgating with bathrooms, patrol, cleanup, etc. it did go up from 60 to 100 bucks per spot - and yes, it is per spot. However parking also rose from 5 to 10 to now 15 per spot per game. Do the math. If we make home playoffs (and I believe with Schmitty we will), it is cheaper to have a tailgate spot than pay parking for each game. That is not realistic. there was also discussions of other things that make tailgating exciting like bands, fireworks, etc. those all cost money to create. Raising it to 100 per game per spot is idiotic and would kill it. But I do expect it will go up some over the next few years - and I think it realistically should. I am a tailgater that has 5 spots that will be affected but understand it is the right decision. you are correct that some who bring cars are part of a group and tailgate elsewhere. That is part of the balancing they are trying to evaluate. When the players and recruits come through, they want that to generate excitement. In the portal world, you recruit new players but you continue to recruit the ones you have. Some of that is the vitality they get from the atmosphere created. there was discussion of students and the mess associated. It was noted that this was one of the first years in a long time that students stayed past halftime. We want students there - period. That is part of creating that atmosphere. If that means we all have to take a step back and remember what we were like in college and not through the rose colored glasses of “we never did that”, then that is what we need to do. It is amazing to me how many of my rowdiest college friends forget what they were like in college. They always encourage students to use the garbages. Unfortunately that does not work very well. I for one will accept the trade off if we get kids to games and they stay and help the game day atmosphere we want in the Alerus.

Good grief people. They invited existing tailgate spot holders based on the forms we all fill out for tailgating spots. I did go. It was a good meeting. They sought input on how we could improve the tailgating experience, including discussing a survey sent out to the same group. It included exciting things like port-a potties and garbage can availability. They asked about ways to improve the vitality in the tailgating area. Some in the tailgate area just use it as a space to park, which does not improve the tailgating experience and they would like to figure out how to address that without getting into issues with long time ticket and tailgate holders. They would like to see less spots just used for cars, especially in the area of the hawk walk and the spaces up front where they would love to see an active and populated area for tailgating. They talked about how people liked the fireworks, live bands, other extras that people liked or don’t like. How to keep people from going into the active areas less than 2 hours before game time when the area is crowded and cars don’t work very well to get through - and technically are a violation of the tailgating rules we all sign up for. There was discussion about how many hours before the game people would like to be able to get in and we talked about extending the time after games to be able to stay and enjoy the atmosphere. We talked about the fact that tailgating costs would likely go up since right now it isn’t any more expensive to have a tailgate spot than it is to park for 6 games - $90 v $100 per season - and even less if we have home playoffs. There is a waiting list for tailgate spots right now. They talked about preferences for game times, with strong opinions that we would like to have another night game and not noon games if possible - prefer 2Pm games or later for tailgating purposes. There is no overlap next year between home football games and hockey games. That is the report on the meeting. It was a good discussion, but not overly well attended. There were a few tailgating regulars there, but not a ton. Schmitt stopped by and thanked the group, but overall it was an informational and brainstorming session.

He had the ball knocked out of his hands with no time left and heaved a turn around 3 that was nothing but net. We just can’t catch a break.

We still need better offensive movement and not get lulled into one on three dribble mode, but we did play better defensively and not give up wide open 3’s all night like we have a tendency to do. We had the one stretch where we had Woodson, Deng, Kraft, and Reggie on the floor at the same time. That is not a lineup we want on the floor together. Need to recognize you need some defensive team players on the floor at all times. Went from a lead to 5 point dogs in no time in that stretch. We had a good shot against the top team in the conference in their barn. Their game winner was a prayer - unfortunately that prayer went in…

Unless Mal has a monopoly on poor coaching decisions, somebody in that coaching staff ought to be able to impart that endless dribbling is a problem for this team - I.e. 20 plus turnovers and no assists. Teaching them during practice not to stare at everyone and telegraph where they are passing to should be part of the entire coaching staff’s job. Helping to get these girls to understand a team defensive rotation concept where someone is not wide open every time down the court is a coaching staff’s role. It starts at the top but they clearly aren’t getting much from anyone else either. Sorry, but nobody on this staff gets a pass. There is more talent on this team than how they play night in and night out. 25 plus turnovers on a regular basis? I didn’t think that was even possible. 1 assist for an entire game. By all means, let’s keep that offense…

Somebody really thinks we are close??? We have one assist with 3 minutes left in the game. We have 27 turnovers. Close to what?????

Second half we are back to dribble fest again. Wasn’t sure we were going to score more than 3 in the third quarter until 2 minutes left. Now at 19 turnovers with a quarter to go. Can’t win games that way but when your entire offense is dribbling continually you get what you deserve. We were fortunate state couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn the first half or we would have been buried a long time ago. They were shooting 20 percent to our 50 percent and we were still only up 8 at half. Someone is wide open continually with our defense.

It’s a good thing time is running out. Would not want to play another minute. Plus these officials are horrendous. They clearly need the replay option on and and need to rent a clue.

Our inbound is always burst to the ball and if it isn’t open, just pin your guy and hope for the over the shoulder lob.,.

We have to be smarter against the bunnies st the end of the game. Deng got sucked into the land leaving his guy wide open for a 3. Have to know that is what they want down 9 with less than a minute left…

Eli has been a monster today. Attacking the way we know he can. We have shot very well but that comes from movement getting good looks as well. Getting a little nervous about our lack of movement down the stretch. Keep doing what got the lead. Using clock is great but not with 4 minutes left and taking bad shots because you run out of shot clock. And will somebody please tell them that you can score when you beat the press. We have guys up court wide open and we are still dribbling into doubles…. Beat the press, get numbers , and score. Make them pay for the doubles.

Looking back at it, Eli’s pass wasn’t on the 4 point play. Trey just had a step back on that one, but Eli did have a pass out to the left side top for Trey off a base line slash that was a beautiful pass for an open look.

3 assists will tell you everything you need to know about our offense. Jossy works her tail off but she has to create everything in whatever it is that Mal calls an offense. We go from Kacie having to do everything to passing the baton to Jossy. Pemberton, Jossy , and Aumer did a nice job of scoring on the drive but had to do so one on 3 because of our lack of offense. On a positive note, Ibrahim was fantastic. 10 blocks in one game against a team with skilled bigs was incredible. She needs more minutes and will keep getting better.

I actually disagree with that. Some of the best outside looks yesterday came with beating the defender base line, forcing the help side up and getting it across to the weak side. The 4 point play of Trey at the end of the half came from Eli beating his man baseline and swinging it weak side to the top where Trey got a great look. Certainly you need to recognize what is happening and avoid getting trapped but when you force defensive movement, I would much prefer that than continuous dribbling at the perimeter with no creation.

There were a few bad calls each way. The game just didn’t have much flow. There was a bad no call at the end of the game when Trey drove in down3 and got crunched that was tough when every touch had been called before that. But overall it was just a whistle happy game…

Correction. 46 fouls called…

There were some positives yesterday. Reggie played his best game at UND. Cut down on turnovers. Played good perimeter defense- most of the time - and didn’t get sucked down low very often where his size is simply not going to be effective. Mara really is getting better, although he still tends to find himself out of position at times, not really knowing where to go in a team offensive or defensive scheme. No doubt about his athleticism. When we moved the ball, which we did a good chunk of the game, we got decent looks and shot reasonably well - which is why we stayed in this one. When we got back into the Panoam and Eaglestaff dribbling show, that was typically when we went back down by 10. Our team defense is just atrocious game after game. That is what it is and the coaches don’t seem to have any ability or desire to change it. NDSU moves the ball well and they have outside shooters, which is a bad recipe for a team that doesn’t know to rotate defensively and has a very bad habit of leaving people wide open at the 3. I was scared going into this we were going to give up 100 given how many 3s they take and our horrific perimeter defense so was at least a little pleasantly surprised. I am.a little surprised on the comments on here about Eli and defense. He has made some defensive mistakes and is sometimes making bad decisions being overly aggressive, but most of his mistakes come from trying to help out someone else’s defensive mistakes. He ends up coming help side all of the time to help someone who gets it handed to them on penetration. he makes more things happen defensively than anyone else on the floor by a mile. He is hands down our best off ball help side defensive player and his ability to help out on the boards was a game changer yesterday. He had 13 board from a guard position yesterday. If there is criticism to be made of Eli, it is getting him to do more offensively. He makes great drives to the basket but just has not been able to finish for some reason this year.. Amer has had trouble finishing this year as well, compared to last year. I went to the game. It was definitely officiated differently than what we have seen in Grand Forks. The Omaha game in Grand Forks was a football game. This was touch fouls everywhere. 43 fouls called and 68 free throws shot. Deng and Mara both had 4 fouls 2 minutes into the second half. Some of them were just stupid fouls, but a lot of them were just overly quick whistles in my opinion.. Panoam and Mara fouled out. Deng and Eli playing with 4. They called it tight everywhere, but there was not a flow to the game with all of the whistles As noted by others, we hit anything closer to a reasonable free throw percentage and we win this game. Most of the game, our free throw shooting percentage was in the 50’s. There is just no reason why D1 basketball players should have that much difficulty at the line.

Defensively, I am trying to figure out how many coaches we can have on a bench who have no concept of how to correct defensive rotation so that someone is not wide open on the perimeter every time down the court. My y ball teams have better defensive rotation than this team. Do they really think the fact that every team we play shoots 60% and 45% from the 3 every game is a coincidence??? #9 for USD drove right side baseline a dozen times and scored on us almost every time he tried. Does it occur to anyone that maybe we should force him left into our bigs and see what else he can do rather than just give him 25 points doing the same thing every time down the floor???? I know we have poor rim protection inside, but you will always have poor rim protection if you don’t force them into your shot blockers. We just gave a very bad South Dakota team over 100 points on our floor. Everybody gets 90 on us. Just how many coaches does it take to make some kind of defensive adjustment. This isn’t new. It is year after year of no idea how to play team defense. I continue to believe that this team still has some talent and could be better than we are playing, but somebody has to tell these coaches to scrap their existing defensive scheme and try something different. Go to a zone, trap, something. It can’t be any worse than what we are witnessing now. Scoring 90 and still losing by a bunch is just not acceptable…

On an offensive note, for 2/3 of the game, we actually looked like we were starting to get it. We looked great in the first half and for the first third of the second half. What I have said was there all year, the finally picked up on. When everyone overplays the high post pick on Trey, he looked to find them early and it was open and created movement and shots. Our passing was light years ahead of where we have been most of the year. We had 12 assists in the first half. We looked up the court. We made the extra pass. We reversed the ball and got good looks on the weak side. We shot 60 percent up until that point and 50% from the 3 point line with a 7 point lead on 16 assists…. You may be sensing a “but” coming…. Then we stopped doing what was working and went back to being dribble kings with no passing and no movement. In the last 10 minutes, we had 1 assist and probably shot 25%. Meier and Trey would dribble for 15 seconds at a time with double teams. No looks to reverse. No looks up the court. Just one on 2 and 3 ball with bad shot selection. Paul sat on the sidelines and made no adjustments - again…. That was the good news of this game.

We may finally have broken through. We finally beat the press with 2 passes and without trying to dribble through it 3 out of the last 5 possessions and scored each time - with only one stupid turnover dribbling into a trap during that stretch. Right direction if we actually continue it…