ND-fan

I don’t think changing coaches going to change our standing and may even we even regress further with the program. What McDermott pretty much said is fact statement of fact in men’s program and number of other programs. Facilities are sub par for division I , financial support has fallen behind the top teams even in the summit and our Nil money is pretty much nil with little hope of this changing near future. I think Sather has recruited payers that have developed into good players but we have never had financial resources to keep them past there sophomore years here for additional year to make that.run to win the conference. This was proven last year even other Summit program could allure one of our average player to them. My gage of Sather as is as coach does his team improve as season goes along this has happened each year coaching record for us is never going to look good because we’re going to be putting a new team every tear. Money speaks now in NCAA basketball if you want to winning program we are going to have find resources to compete and then judge our present coach because you need horses if can’t get them here no matter how you coach you can’t win. I think this is only get worse for small midmajor programs when players can move each year it would really help if like football redshirt season would add another year of eligibility.

USD went with junior senior portal players more ready to play division I and are much better than we are this year but with this move they are pretty much locked in the middle ground not good enough to play now with SDSU and probably not with NDSU but they will be looking for players again next year to repeat similar performance but never reaching point where they can win conference. UND approach was to find freshman sophomores that were recruits that were considered to have high potential but went to tier 3 and 4 schools but just sat basically for year on their bench. Choosing these type of players and also finding recruits that would mesh into culture they are trying to build the program block by block given they at least three years eligibility. In theory this could be good but problem is like all recruiting there are going to be number of these players are not going to make it at this level. When we went this direction we were pretty much looking at least two years of misery before we could look to compete at higher level because your not going to win or look good playing number of freshman and sophomores. Finally we have very limited money to attract better portal players for the basketball programs now. Like I said above some attention is needed for basketball teams and other sports at UND. The sarcastic remarks above on my remark on facilities is part of things to bring back these sports. Also you think just going out finding big time candidates for these positions going to fix this is just matter opening up positions your going to get flood of people they are just like college recruits if things are not in place to win they are going to pass move on and for better fit. They are not going to go through 5 to 7 year rebuild lstarting from beginning it’s asking them to risk future coaching plans with very little compensation for the amount of risk coming here. The level of pay I would be better as assistant coach at tier 4 and 5 schools then they have time to find right small mid major program they can have success in shorterm and jump to next level. This realistic view of where we’re at because we have let these programs slide to just keep up to other teams in Summit. The statement of Hockey and football consuming 95% of budget may not that far off. To run college sports to be successful now takes huge amount of money something that wasn’t here 5 years ago and until we get correction this is only going to worse when we’re seeing college players are getting paid in 100,000. To into millions that was illegal not that many years ago.

We have seen improvement in hockey and football but cupboard wasn’t bare and amount resources put into those programs this past year is showing positive effects of attracting recruits. Now you look at both basketball programs very little has been done in facilities and if done something that should have been done years ago. The Betty is not bad facility but sure doesn’t look like good division I facility look what st. Thomas has done, SDSU, and few years ago what NDSU and Oral Robert’s has done. I find it interesting KC, Omaha, Denver, and UND at bottom conference have similar problems in size facilities and have been going through coaches every four or five years trying rebuild. I think Hutter could be good coach but hard to know with how bare cupboard was and then having to compete having less resources to find talent. Like stated above Jory Collins has taken seven years to get to this level and us giving final piece to complete this team. Schiller has skills to play division I seems to fit into this team know doubt she wanted to play on winner which she got for this year. Another point about support the look at softball, the improvement there after up grade in facilities and support we became at least factor in Summit. UND has done amazing things campus wide in last 10 years becoming flagship university it shows in facilities for academic resources and has been reflected in increasing enrollments bringing in resources for Grand forks as well state wide to economy of the state. I think administration now also needs toconcentrate on other sports here at UND bring them up to UND excellence.

Dom Izzo has Bison going to big dance already and trying to get Fargo excited about this team. They do look good right now but don’t count your chickens before they hatched. They are team basically now of top seven and Koenen giving them elite player for mid major just like SDSU to south having Myer dominant player in middle. The fact is UND will not be able to compete with them this year and I am afraid it will be blowout that Fargo media are going to give full air time on. I am not wishing bad on any players but things could change if Koenen or couple of other players get hurt before the season is done we have seen this in past with South Dakota teams in past where they were early outs in conference tournament. This year the bottom tier teams are probably worst we have had in number years with coaching changes and portal defects gutting these teams and top two to three teams having coaching stability and school support to keep quality players around for multiple years. But getting back NDSU this is going to be there year but I look to next year when I expect big changes with portal and wether Jory Collins sticks around or moves on to bigger program.

I have watched st, Thomas couple of times they play such old school basketball and are very good. Their coach gets them to play such unselfish basketball and to make the extra pass and players seem to hit when they get extra pass. Also is case they play good defense and play intelligent basketball. If we are going to win this game we need to be hitting our shots and not turn over the basketball. I believe we have people to match up with them but I don’t know if we can make adjustments for the game plan their coach will have prepared for us. In my opinion he is best coach in the summit and he recruits players that he can coach and follow through on his game plans.

BackThe current situation is not on Hutter it’s on AD and his people they knew they had problem with Bernhard last year they brought in Hutter to help her to develop players and to use scouting report to game plan. The problem was she had internal problem with the players and administration had to know this but let it slide until the whole program blew up. I have know idea what happened but I think the players were waiting for change but again administration didn’t do anything then it forced players to make decision and I believe it just created perfect storm and today agents came in number of payers were sold there greener pastures else where. For couple moving has improved there status but many at best it was lateral move and for some it was needed to move to where they fit better. Ibrahim has found good fit and playing starting for Dayton, Schiller is having success and Jory seems to have managed to her to mold into the team, Pemberton moved to top power team but she is getting limited playing time and she needed to be on team where she would get more playing time to continue to develop not sitting on bench, Horne moved up again getting little more playing time but needed to be on team similar UND getting playing time, Hurst moved to division II better fit for her skills, Beal moved slightly lower laterally turned into bust based on talent she came in with I don’t know if it was her or failure on us developing her probably both But could have been much different if her talent would have developed. The other players that left were just to far from knowing potential and probably needed to move on. Hutter has chosen to build from scratch with exception Hughes he brought in yes a lot of turnovers but as point guard number are from young players out of position or not prepared to receive feeds or running offense. She was here just for year teach his system and there young guards developed this year. This has been happening Volmer is making strides, Hillesheim has improved, Harvey is back which is good, and Londen Harriss I think could become exceptional player she has all tools just needs to develop them. These players are future of this team for guards and Ava Miller is going to get better especially if she gets stronger to hold her own inside. I think also Ohnstad could become unique player for us but needs to work on her game and has come miles since beginning of season. Just need to find more talent that is ready to play with these players. Still going to be long season SDSU and NDSU games will be brutal there right now at whole different level. The St Thomas and South Dakota games will be important if we can make these competitive games then we’re getting better. KC game was disappointment I think we should have been competitive with them but some it they are quicker more experienced at guard which cost us dearly yesterday .

This team also needs a player that can be counted on to get us points when things are going bad as of right now we don’t have that player I see where couple of our younger players may have that ability but so far they are not there to do that on consistent basis. I hope we have somebody we have recruited coming in or at least working on to come here. This would just make number of our other players that much better and we need leader of that type if we’re going to make that jump to next level in conference. But that player also needs to fit in as team player there not easy to find but is what is needed for the program.

Today’s game took step backwards again KC with their preesue defense got us away from what we do best. Kept us from finding good shots and turn over margin went right up to level where we don’t get enough possessions. We gave up 26 points on turnovers plus if you add points lost in possessions of say from normal turnovers of 10 to 12 turnovers where we shot 44% would gave us another 10 points and then add poor free throw shooting we spotted them nearly 40 points we needed to make up. There is no way we can win games with this kind of play. Hutter worked on shooting he said this week but.then we step back ball control and rebounding playing better defense. These younger players need to step up and start playing full 40 minutes of basketball they have been given playing time to improve but they now need to step up and prove they deserve this time. I believe coach Hutter has some tough decisions coming ahead with this group I see potential in number of these girls but they now need to step up and now prove they deserve to be at this level.

From what I have seen hard to predict finish all these teams in this era of the portal most are young teams that have been put together with few experienced portal players. UND is of this mold with couple seniors and bunch of freshman and sophomores. Watching them yesterday I think there is still quite a bit up potential. This group has some very good guards if they play up to potential but four and five positions could use another player for more depth and size. SDSU coming here looked to be very balanced team against Omaha team that was short handed on frontline. SDSU will be one top teams but they are beatable and I don’t think they have much higher up potential but I maybe under estimating them. I still think St Thomas and NDSU will be two top teams and will see if NDSU doesn’t have fall off like they did last year I don’t think in Era of portal, with Richman’s intensity i wonder if these younger players don’t burn out before season is over. I think rest of league will be battling all season long.

Turnovers are bad difficult to overcome but what is worse is 3pt. Shooting can’t continue to shoot under 25% when big part of your game plan depends on outside game to open up inside game. I think these players are better than that you got to have confidence and belief you’re going to hit the shot. Yesterday when they missed everything I think they were just happy hitting the rim. I know they have practiced shooting so if you’re hitting these shots in practice why not in game condition. This could be coaching but I think it’s number these girls.should be redshirting to develop their talents and a lot of this successful teams have experienced players to rely on. This has been difference between SDSU and NDSU has been younger team. It will be interesting how this plays out this year with NDSU having couple of stars that junior and sophomores with a lot of playing time. This is rebuilding year finding talent to build for the future.

It still comes down to Valley and Big Sky in national championship game. Then you look at Big Sky Montana State mirrors a Valley team what do expect with Vigen coming from NDSU and Boll coaching tree. The National Championship game should be very competitive both teams are physical on lines of the ball and both have talented skill players. The one area that Illinois State has one advantage is at quarterback I believe but MS has to be feeling the third time has to be charm. I still think it will come to turnovers and who runs ball better. I would have preferred if Montana would have been there it would have been a fun with new teams in the championship.

This team is under sized and young. The recruits they recruited this past year are we’re DI projects most of them were coming with 3 to 4 years eligibility. The seniors they retained from last year team Demers is DI player but under sized and Aumer can play roll on DI team but not major role. VanderWahl has size just not quick enough to play in Hutter offense. Hughes has quickness and intelligence to play DI but needs to have some dominant 4 and 5 to playoff. DI talent on this team I believe right now is Volmer, Harris Hillesheim, Ohnstad, and Miller but all these players are freshman to Sophomores with very limited playing time. Other players could develop into roll players are Piekney and fletcher rest have no idea of their ability but can’t have that many roll players. We have no player that we have now we could go to get points when we’re not developing offense. We may have some players in freshmen group but we’re at least year or two from they getting to that kind of level. Now we need future recruits that develop immediately in next year or two but it’s going to take some recruiting to bring in some top players. This is going to be project we started this year with cupboard pretty empty and what we recruited was going to take time to develop them into talent. Like I said it’s going to be long year and at end of year some players on roster may not have roll here in future at this level could be some difficult decisions coming for Hutter.

I agree with you on playing somebody different if they are hurt. Second when they chose Jerry it was said it was very close competition if somebody hurt and it’s effecting their performance it should be no brainer level of talent is higher may be in our backups.. Third everyone forgets that Jerry is sophomore and I think as season progressed more is required of quarterback because opposing teams are adapting to what you do. This when you need quarterback make correct reads and audible or go to alternative receiver but this wasn’t happening in second part of the season. This why I believe we came more predictable shorten playbook for Jerry to make it easier for him to make the reads but Jerry style for the big play which he had at beginning of season. My question has been how much of decision to continue to start Jerry was it OC or Schmidt. My feeling it has been Schmidt and as glowing he talked about Simon he didn’t want him at the helm. I maybe wrong on this but that is why I have been critical of Schmidt he has done number great improvements to move UND forward but I also wanted point out for what ever reasons he may have passed golden opportunity for getting to the ultimate goal. Finally if we have become predictable we need scout department that scouts are team what they do playing to inform are coaches what we have become predictable on. I like Schmidt, but I think criticism is also needed but to often the coaches we have hired that having backing of guard of UND aren’t criticized enough early to make them review what they are doing and then become stubborn to change and I have seen it pretty much in all sports over last 10 to 15 years.

All those things are big had one of my cousins children they were both parents were UND alumni but chose Montana over us in volleyball plus there was more incentives than UND offers in volleyball. This is not to mention coaches did much better job of recruiting with follow up and selling their university. The incentives that can be offered is big when you come to kids today higher level the talent the more they are offered it has changed so much in last five years. Hutter inherited program that Bernhard basically ran it into the ground but on top of that we had AD who came here has let all sports decline plus especially all women sports. I don’t think his abilities lies in getting big donors to help in keeping up to other institutions in conference to where we now have seen declines in our various sports even hockey has fallen back. We need to expect higher expectations from whole athletic department and performance.

We just let something slip away from us today a chance to go semifinals as well as maybe to play in national championship game. I know everyone is on OC but it still comes down to head coach. We don’t who was making final decisions on who played quarterback but I gave gut feeling it was Schmidt fro his response since last week about Kaminski. Schmidt brought in Johnson and hoped he would become starter but he looked part but wasn’t nearly ready to play quarterback but Kaminski was next based on his physical abilities and he was chosen over Romfo not one you would choose looking at quarterback selections. Kaminski looked great for first half of the season but things started falling apart because our opponents picked up they could confuse him and saw he didn’t make audibles now did OC have right to replace him for learning moment or that was not option. My final thought Schmidt comment about Simon not leaving this was his hope not you would ever get true answer out of him on that. Yes we will need another option avatar quarterback but what does that do with quarterback room and ability to recruit for future. We need quarterback coach with experience and has confidence OC and Head coach. But this loss today was really chance to reach our optimal goal and I believe we gave it away with playing player that was not ready to play and may have been playing hurt from concussion. This makes extremely disappointed because we got rid of coach that refused to move forward on things and now I see beginnings of this again only in different way he may prove me wrong in future everyone thinks he will just have be better with his future players but opportunities lost may never appear again I ve watched this happen in sports most of life.