ND-fan

South Dakota State just reached the elite 8 in WNIT last night winning by 19 over Drake and will now face Alabama next on Sunday to get to final four of that tournament. South Dakota will be playing Saturday to advance to Elite 8 in NCAA tournament. There is possibility that both of them could reach final four in both tournaments. It is show casing the Summit conference but it also showing how far we have to go to get to next level of basketball if we are going to have chance of playing in the post season. The next question is when will the new recruits be here for summer basketball with the team. If were going to make the next jump we will need these girls in the mix and contributing this coming year. Finally has it been officially been announced that Orth and Daninger are coming back i see where they have gained extra spot with announcement that Ally Van Loo will be transferring out. I also see that Wallace is transferring to ST. Louis where she can use her remaining eligibility up.

I think the AD needs to also address the number of transfers from the program and I would be surprised its because of the head coach. I think there have been number of reasons but if i was managing athletic department i would want to address it and find if there are reasons were loosing players now for the last two season. Without knowing what the problem its hard to fix the problem and if its reasons like funding, facilities, travel, and even better or more personal for conditioning, trainers, diet, or total health management these are things that can be address and come back to fans, alumni, and community to get more support. I believe number of fans just want to help this program progress but administration has to be active and communicating to the public needs they may have instead of not hearing anything from them. I believe this why we have so much criticism on fan forum. The fans care but you need to communicate to fans and community how your addressing it other than wait to next year when we have seen no improvement for three years based on their records. The local media and UND need to put some importance on the other sports beside hockey and i think it has effect why were seeing transfers athletes and recruiting they to want to be recognized. Its one of the big reasons athletes compete and especially if they want to play on after college and last few years all other sports at UND seem to be after thought behind hockey. Just my opinion but i hear from other people too!

I hadn't looked at the verbal commits today and i was surprised with that transfer especially him being South Dakota kid. New coach at South Dakota will have his work cut out for him if looses all these kids in transfer portal. Also will be interesting if we see some changes in coaching staff as well or Lee will be only one paying for irregularities.

I agree with you basketball you get two talented players and the whole team can change in short order. I look at the current Summit we have nine teams that are in flux one way or another so we could move up in conference quite quickly if we find that that talent in the next year. South State if they keep their current team which like it sounds and the recruits coming in should be head and shoulders above the rest of the teams in the conference. There problem will be keep that team sharp and playing for ultimate goal of going back to NCAA to make run in the tournament. The Bruns thing stinks in that we had again developed player into talent that could have provided team with one future top talented players for this team. So no use going over spilled milk but now were looking again players that are elite talent to build this program off setting us back year to develop them. Looking at the Summit by teams NDSU has the most returning of core even with large number of transfers, South Dakota if the new coach can retain number of players in transfer portal they could be big factor and i don't think Bruns fits in other than depth because they have AJ coming back and Archambault already head of him, ORU can be effective but loss Abmas reduces to them one star player left in McBride, Western Illinois who knows what they will have could be good or very bad have gone the route of putting team of transfer together, KC could be contender for one of the top spots behind SDSU, St. Thomas will be building and may be factor later in the season, Ohama has Filder but will have new coach so i bet it takes year before we get a direction of that program, and Finally we have Denver could be sleeper if they get another good recruiting year they were competitive down the stretch this year.

The assistant coaches salary is sure not going to attract any experienced candidates for the position. Only way is somebody looking as starting position to open the door for something elsewhere. Hard to keep a staff together when you know got to move on as soon as better position opens up. Not even 10% of Barry salary as coach of the hockey team . Hard to build a program with this all the budget allows.

It takes experienced teams to be effective and this constant turnover of players does nothing to build the conference stronger and i don't care how you spin it were becoming conference of rebuilding teams with the exception of South Dakota State so far. In truth we are farm system for other conferences above us and when you start having loosing teams anybody that has shown they are above average player is going to move to better team. This may not always work out but this is perception these young players are under. I look at Bruns we offered him scholarship at D I level when all he had was D II offers and as disastrous season we had he got more playing time quickening his development but when season was over he wanted to move to more winning program. He got to be FOY in the Summit and this one time happening i would write it off but this second year in row with Freshman recruit earning FOY in the Summit and he too moved on greener pastures. Now tell me how were going to build this conference who is Mid Major conference if we can't keep out young talent here in the league. I know this is the case college basketball but how are we build quality teams that compete against power conferences if talent we develop is not there when they are ready to compete with the talent of these power conferences. I think there should be some compensation for smaller conferences like this as there is professional sports like giving extra scholarships from the schools that are recruiting these transfer players and awarding them extra scholarship roster spots. Just quick thought but this would still allow players to transfer and help smaller conferences compete against the power conferences.

So what's rumors for Freidel, Bruns, Eady, Harden Hayes, Cook, and players from South Dakota after coaching change. I see Griesel is heading home to Nebraska. If this transferring keep up Summit conference will be further weakened for the coming year. Looks like South Dakota State if keeps it core and group coming in will dominate the conference again next year.

South Dakota had sweet win on Baylor's home court. South Dakota State also had good day in WNIT with win against University of Minnesota today by 21 points reaching the sweet sixteen in that tournament. The Two South Dakota schools are making good showing in the post season tournaments. I hope we can start making progress with our women's program where we are playing post season too in the near future. This going to help both these schools in the recruiting battles in next few years.

I can argue both sides of summit conference tournament but my gut feeling it's too much of advantage for the South Dakota schools because of recruiting and retaining players. I hear people talking about how UND travels with hockey team and it's going to happen with basketball program but basically most of North Dakota citizens will not travel that far for basketball if that was the case their should have been thousands of NDSU fans at Summit conference championship with the success they have had in basketball but that is not the case. Hockey has number of fans that will travel but it is usually destination with exception of regional hockey tournaments which have been close last few years but these are two day tournament over the weekend much less of commitment to go watch. Now the Summit conference tournament starts Saturday and runs through Tuesday a four day tournament and if your distance from the tournament you can add two extra days for traveling quite a commitment to go spend watching midmajor conference tournament. Not something unless your die hard fan that is hard to commit too and plan a year ahead when your going to use four days of vacation and spend 5 days in hotel room. This is not the case for the South Dakota Schools fans when majority live in two hours or less from Sioux Falls where there costs is the cost of tickets. Like I have stated here before its to big recruitment advantage for South Dakota schools and no matter how you spin it the other 8 schools at disadvantage and i believe over time will spell problems for retaining number of schools in the conference. I agree playing front of full house is exciting but if it leads to the two schools dominating the conference i think its to big price. I believe its not going to change because of the money and politics. I also know majority of on board think differently but i wanted you think about some reasons why number fans may think and they just choose to watch the games on Tv instead of making the trip.

Then if UND basketball staff in not loosing sleep over loosing Mcgrath why then did we not pull his redshirt when we were playing short at front line on this team durning the season. We had several games where we were in foul trouble needing additional height and he surely could have full filled that roll and if not then our problem is much bigger than i think on recognizing talent. I don't believe the former so i have to think we have other problems like i have said before and i wonder where the AD and administration is on this and like usually we hear nothing. Where are the alumni and booster club they usually are weighing in on things behind the scenes. Usually somebody takes hit on what we have experienced in last two seasons and so far nothing has changed.

The firing of Todd Lee at South Dakota there are some references to Bruns in their forums there may have been may have been some questionable recruiting for Bruns. This may be just talk but i did see where we had both offers to Bruns younger brother also. Now we have McGrath transferring a redshirt freshman after consuming scholarship for us this past year and saving his eligibility to develop him and get him ready when we were playing short handed most second half of the year needing additional front court help doesn't make much since. This is just getting messier and messier as it goes along here with this whole program. The worst is silence from UND and even our local media there are hardly any coverage on what's happening or explanations for why we are loosing some our best recruits year in and year out. Does anybody know what going on it always seems there's group around Grand Forks that knows what going on but rest of us left to guessing and just accept what's happening when they choose communicate to world if ever. I just don't see how they are going to build a fan following without getting the fans involved in the program.

Since somebody brought it up tournament for Big Sky moving to Reno with small crowds made it also poor crowd and not very big experience but the Big Sky was such spread out conference it was going to be difficult for the fan bases to travel that far even for Reno. Second thing it was always durning the Spring Break for colleges and students were not going to travel to Reno they were looking for some place warm. I liked it before when women won Big Sky and they hosted the tournament on their home floor. I liked this because it gave real incentive to win the conference and you got big reward in doing so by hosting. This also gave big advantage to winner of the conference which i felt was deserved for playing whole season. Second the conference tournament was well attended and i guess this could be foiled if conference champ lost early in the tournament but I don't remember that happening when we were doing that in the conference. I believed this was fair because every conference member had equal chance in having advantage for the conference tournament by winning regular season in the conference. The way it is now these two schools its built into for them even if they have below average season they are still going to draw large fan following but for other schools to get equality has to beat them in the early rounds to meet one of the other seven schools. I see its nice show case midmajor tournament with big fan draw but i still have problem in that sets up disparity in conference between the schools for the conference. I am sure there are other points of view and good reasons for present structure but this is how i see it now and i don't like it.

I have something i think needs to be talked about that is Summit conference tournament and basically is it fair to other 8 schools that game is basically played on South Dakota home quart for both the South Dakota schools. Yes, the crowd draw is tremendous and i am sure it provides additional monies back to majority of conference members. The negative is this promotes the two South Dakota Schools basketball programs in that they have large advantage in recruiting talent. I am sure they show how they get to play in front of large crowds of their fans to prospective recruits. These advantages have help build these programs to where they are far way deeper in talent than most of the other schools in the conference. The above advantages that come to South Dakota schools makes it very difficult for other schools in conference to build their programs and compete to get to NCAA tournament. This does not mean it can't be achieved but it makes it hard to build a program that has year in year out success with the advantage these schools have. I also got to believe it's why we hear how number of the schools in conference are looking to other conferences to compete in. Even our newest conference member there're rumors they are only going to use Summit as stepping stone to get to a desired conference for them. I just got done watching tournament on both sides of tournament for men and women the South Dakota schools were basically playing at home . This playing at home usually has always meant about 10 point advantage which may not be that big advantage but is definitely 5 points for sure. Then look at men's final where it was 2 point win for SDSU which factors in who wins the tournament. Even College hockey have not let us have home court advantage in Regionals making it more difficult for us to have regional close to us instead they have moved regional around to different locations. This has been even at cost of reduced revenues to NCAA hockey tournament returns. This i think this has to be considered for Summit Conference too because their other venues around conference to show case and build region wide following of fans and schools in this conference. Look Denver has venues, so does the Twin Cities, Kansas City, and Tulsa to host a conference tournament. This does not mention even Fargo and Us have facilities that could host conference tournament. I would appreciate other opinions on this but I watched the tournament when over 85% of seats were either dressed in Blue or Red for the games I find this not appealing format. Then you add in media color definitely shaded to these schools up until the championship game it makes me bristle. I got to believe new commissioner for the Summit has work cut out for him on conference tournament and getting schools on same media platform for the conference and then retaining member schools in the future and all this is tied together.

I was looking forward to next year building on development of players we had this year and now we starting all over again with the loss of Bruns. We can't build any type of winning program if we continue to loose freshman of the year players in conference to transferring. I thought Sather just had bad luck last year in the transfers we had last year but now i have my doubts something is very wrong here. The first possibility is the coach, or all the coaches, second is the school and community, and third is general atmosphere around the whole UND program which i include administration, support staff, and how the team is treated compared to other division I schools. The latter could be amount spent on the program on conditions of traveling like what type of traveling , places where they stay, and what they do when they are traveling. The final thing could be just how they perceive which direction the program is going. I thought Sather had time to turn this program around but if you keep loosing the core of the team each year this is not possible. Chaves has some work ahead of him he needs to do some research to see what are reasons were having this constant turn over of players. This may mean contacting last years players again to see if he can find the reason for number of transfers we had. Then he will need to address these problems and make needed changes to reduce why players are leaving our programs. I hope this can be achieved by not having major changes in staff but we can not turn this program around until we can keep our recruits on this team. If we loose anymore players we pretty much guaranteeing ourself another year in basement of the Summit. Now looking at this team for the coming year i will find it hard for us keep Nero and major reason he will stay is he ended season still hurt and will be hard for him to find another team take risk on him wondering about his health. That leaves us with Norman, T, Mathews, and Grant all players still developing and big question how they will develop but far from being ready to be full time starters and more likely being players that could fill rolls on team being lead by starting group of players. Sather is going need to find now couple of transfers that can start and make big impact right away. Even with this move we would still likely be in bottom third of the conference for next year.

The year is over and has been improvement over last year but it showed we have long ways to go if were going to compete for conference championship. We have had pleasurer of Leet this year and will be missed next year. We have nobody ready to take on her role for next year beyond Vanderwal who was redshirted this year. This means to me she has ways to go before she will be level of Leet and be major factor to be counted upon. Second we do not have a lot size either on the team or coming in this next year. The two four star recruits are both listed as 6 feet or less and two other recruits are guards. This leaves us with girls over 6 feet tall with Lane, Vanderwal, Van Loo, and McCarthy. This coming year we have good nucleus coming back but we will need this years freshman to step up or new recruits to provide additional talent to bring us up to next level in Summits conference. SDSU will be chosen preconference pick for next year to win the conference, South Dakota will not be the team they are this year but will have number high level talent returning, Denver will be returning number of top players, NDSU will be returning number of players, ORU has couple top players returning, and so does WI if they all choose to return with there extra year eligibility. We will need to improve on defense and on offense we will need to have improvement from other girls to free Borowicz up offensively. We saw that today they really concentrated on her for the whole game and we continued to look for other players to step and lead the team but had no consistency on other players to create and score points. This has been problem all year and when we get this its very difficult to beat this team. I believe we should be able to compete for second place in the conference next year. My hope and dream we develop to level where we can compete with SDSU by end of next season and go play in the NCAA tournament which maybe a dream but if players develop like there expected level of play is projected this might be possibility. One thing i am looking forward to next year see how this team develops and performs. Ps I want to thank all players and coaches on this team for this past year for fine year we have had to watch them play and get better as the season went along. I do appreciate them and recognize hard work and effort they have put forth this year.

The team looks tired and they are not playing well together right now we have gotten away from what was bringing success in that seven game streak. I don't know if what other teams are doing defensively or we have gotten away from inside outside game that was so effective before. What i have noticed lately we have been bringing Leet or Lane to outside to clear out the middle to let Kacie drive and shoot but problem with that is were getting no rebounding or second chances out of this offense. This also brings a bigger defender to perimeter which hurts Manson getting good looks for a three. I Liked it better when we had two bigs down low screening for each other and being able to get position to get layup or good hook shot and if not usually kacie or manson had good chance at outside shot. The second thing this team the girls that are starting have never played this many games previously and played as high minutes as they have this year. I have said it before we needed to be playing more girls and still do to help keep them fresh. Saturday games is prime example four starter played 32 plus minutes for the game and Leet and Danninger split basically playing time each with 22 and 21 minutes. Then rest of minutes went to Davis with 15 minutes and Hoskins with 3 minutes. I know at this time teams are riding with their starters more minutes but i believe we have been doing this for sometime and i think its showing. I have been looking at other teams in the conference we on average have been playing our starters more minutes per game and there have been reasons because we have been in closer games but this something i think UND needs to look at in the future. I too fear that this team could loose the opening round game with way we are playing now. If you asked me three weeks ago i would thought we had good chance winning opening round game and put good showing in semifinal round of the tournament. I guess we will see what happen's at the tournament but sure is improvement over not making the tournament like last year and should help in the recruiting process with improvement in this team.

This team we had on floor was not the team they expected on the floor at the end of the year. First off we have had two starters hurt for most of year in Suecker and Nero with Nero playing limited minutes hurt just ghost of player he can be. Second T did not play up to his potential which he showed at times durning the season but here again we were asking player from Jucco college to come up and carry the load for the front line. Third we had 3 players on this team that were redshirting this year and i believe they were counting on Levias to play this year and i have no idea what type of player he can be because haven't seen him play. The talk was he would have provided point guard that could create and make his own shot or then could dish off to open player. The positive for the season is our three freshman who because of this season got lots of experience playing and developing. Bruns looks like they found diamond in rough and he was getting better as the season went along and this was for kid that was not highly recruited. Mathews and Grant both developed as the season went along look like they can play very important roles in the future on this team. The recruits they have committed for next year look to fill in their needs and look like they can contribute right away for the team next year. I don't think Sather will be on the hot seat next year and would only be on the hot seat in following year if there were so signs of improvement in this team then. I believe administration looks at next year as the second year in Sather rebuilding the program and last two years are part of covid years where nothing has been normal in athletics. There are still big questions in player personal for next year to be decided either by Sather or by the players. This is not to mention if we get some transfers again.

I would agree points differential probably gives extra minutes of playing time for these girls. So i went through there box scores of games that were decided with 10 points or less for SDSU for the most part all four of these girls played in these games even when it was close. Now for the conference season there has been only one close game for them and that was South Dakota then it was Myer and Timmer who played. My point is coach Johnson is considered one of the best coaches in Summit in Women's basketball and I am pointing out one things i have noticed he does in his program. There are number of other things to be considered with my point is talent of Freshman he has recruited compared to ours etc. We will see next year like somebody said how things change with next year recruits and the improvement in the team.

I agree he has two years for sure and if he is showing improvement in 2nd year he will get a third year. This is Chaves hire and he already on record he feel's this year is like women experienced last year with covid and injuries. All the other points are valid on loosing Rebraca and other players and we may never know all the reasons for the player losses but for sure it has not been positive for them in their transfers. Today's game i don't think they played as hard as they have played for the most of the year. I think the way the game went and they were down by 11 at half time and then went down by more than 20 second half it was like season was over. They came back with Grant and Norman but Bruns and Danielson could never get it going and without them contributing it was to high mountain. The worst part is i think we lost Panoam for the final game which will leave us with 7 healthy players and Nero who is dressing and playing still quite hurt. I hope we keep the game close Saturday but i have my doubts on that front. I don't think we missed mutch not going to Sioux Falls because we wouldn't have snow ball chance in July of beating SDSU. I don't think we will see quick turn around next year in the program because we will be primarily made up Freshman and Sophomores look around the league the top teams all pretty well experienced teams and its hard to win with young team. My hope would be could reach 5 in the conference seating in the tournament next year.

Mosiouxfan i can agree somewhat with that rational but i just went through SDSU stats on their team They have four Freshman on the team lead by outstanding Myer who has played in all games with 25 minute average, Timmer who has played in all but one game and has 18 minute average, Vlastuin who has played in 24 games and 9..8 minute average, and then there last freshman Byom who has played in 22 games and 6 minutes a game. I found this impressive that these freshman had gotten that much playing time. Now i look at UND freshman this year Anderson who leads freshman class has played in 17 games and 11.2 minutes per game, McCarthy who has played in 16 games and averages 4.3 minutes per game, Sieben who has played in 11 games and 2.8 minutes a game, E. Land who has played in 10 games and 2.3 minutes per game. This quite difference between the freshman classes and i believe will be advantage for next year. Yes i do know that Myer and Timmer are exceptional athletes. But even there least played freshman for SDSU has more minutes played than McCarthy, Sieben, and E. Lane combine in playing time for this year. The point i am trying to make practice does develop players but there is more to learning basketball than practicing and it is just playing time in real game conditions. The next point is we have four talented players coming in next year by all accounts i am hoping by next year at this time they are becoming major contributors to the team. If we are going to reach next level we will need to develop these players quickly to go along with our proven talent developed. I have even heard Mallory say on radio she has tendency to play players to many minutes durning games and it does have effect longterm on their level of play. Finally i am not picking on Berhard because i think she like this team are better than last year and i know she is learning becoming a better coach like playing nothing like experience makes you better especially if keep you keep studying and learning from what your counter parts are doing.

I wonder if it isn't size of the community and things that are available to them in larger schools and communities. I had cousin that was looking at coming to UND and her parents are former students and alumni was impressed with the school but didn't like shopping and things that were not available to her here in Grand Forks. I have to admit that town has taken quite hit with brick and motar businesses in last 5 to 10 years like number of smaller cities have in the US. I may be wrong on this but this is what our family has experienced in the last year and she choose to go to Colorado because of this. She said the weather she could handle but not having things she was accustomed too in shopping, entertainment, and dining was factor in her choice.

This does not look good for us its going to take a miracle if we make Sioux Falls this year. Even with win next tuesday probably not enough to get there. Ohama also still has game with ST. Thomas. Then we will need to beat the Bison for final game of the season and they will be fighting to hold onto there second place standing.

The big difference tonight is in stats we were out rebounded by 12 rebounds which we usually control by 10 boards. Second they had 29 more bench points than us even if you switch Moore back to starter we were out scored by 10 points by there bench. Again we looked like tired team and they play without any energy. We may have peaked for the season and i hope not but we sure have taken step backwards last two weeks.

They look like tired team and Bernhard continues to play same players. Leet looks like she walking most of time and she has shown to coaches she tired. Lane looks tired. Then there Orth she doesn't even look herself out there wonder whats going on there. They may of hit wall with all the minutes they have played in last month. They are going to have to get it together next week but i kind of think they have settled to have 5 th place and they are not putting forth the effort. Bernhard needs to get over only playing experienced players she did this last year too. You got to have little faith in younger players and sure they are going to make a few mistakes but look at what extra they can bring and need to keep your team fresh through out the season.

If they thought this was level of needing to suspend they should have put in full game suspensions because only having half game suspension doesn't have much hurt put on these teams. Most teams can work around half of game suspension and they still have full sqad when it comes to end of the game. The coaches being fined is okay but if want to send message it should have been players full game suspension, coaches full game suspension, and then added a fine also for the coaches. Even if this would have outcomes for teams in league conference standings it would have sent message this behavior has consequences and is not tolerated.