ND-fan

The numbers spent by each of schools above may not be totally accurate but i do find it interesting the schools that were at the top of list were playing for national championship. The UND Fan above statements were very interesting and enlightening about fund raising and level of support for the schools. I do have one question and that is NDSU does go to FBS what changes will it mean for the structure of their other sports because of title 9. When they go to FBS the number of scholarships i believe will go up but how will they account for this to be in compliance with Title 9. I know not very much of fund raising but in past UND had national scope of past graduates and has that well dried up or have they lost much of that to name controversies over the last 10 to 15 years. I experienced the focus that large universities put on fund raising when one my children graduated from Iowa State from doctor programs and at graduation they had speaker durning ceremonies talk on giving to the university. Which I would say was little too pushy in my estimation but i may be behind the times. But getting back NDSU they may have money to move up and may be popular in Fargo but how does that play out to rest of the state for funding their institution and being part of the upper great plains. I am old school so i may be way out of touch but i think these are important things and higher education system needs to remember its just not city your in but whole state and region these institutions are part of.

With the injuries this team like the paper said just has to grind we don't have much in personnel to change our look much. Suecker is help but still playing hurt and you can tell it in his play. The good part is Bruns, Norman, T, and Mathews are developing much faster because of the playing time. It would be nice if they could come up with win but they nearly need to play perfect game they have so little margin to get a win with. You can see the frustration in Sather when he is coaching but i got to feel he got to be pleased with effort these players are putting forth. I hope we can make it through rest of the season without any further injuries but with effort these players are putting forth i could see injury happening.

I see Daninger is senior but she has year of eligibility left according to Midco half time show so i thought she was here for another year. That is where i was wondering how many openings they have for next year. I guess Orth could have year left of eligibility left with last years giving additional year of eligibility.

I have lost track here but how many commits do we have for next year and how many openings. I thought we have signed several people point guard from michigan, the four star recruit from Michigan, and one girl from Minnesota. But i may be wrong on these and i thought we would have only 3 to 4 openings in scholarships. Maybe there others that may not be returning next year i am not aware of. I would appreciate somebody putting this all together where we stand on signings and scholarships available.

I would like for someone to explain to me how that improves them Nationally or even locally for fan following or in the world of the media. Most people understand if they go to FBS it will be to one smaller FBS conferences and if you win the conference it will be for some lesser December bowl game played in afternoon on maybe weekday with limited tv exposurer. Second if they have to move all their sports to this new conference they will find they will have tremendous costs of travel and these sports will loose their traditional rivaleries again eroding the fan bases. Then you add in the recruiting where number of players if they are traveling farther it makes it more difficult for parents and family to watch these athletes. These are some of difficulties i see with move to FBS but i can see it happening because there is lot ego with NDSU and Fargo but until the reality of this move happens all they can see is the glory of playing FBS football. The only way this would make since would be if South Dakota schools, UND, and Montana Schools couple other FCS school would all move up and form new conference at the FBS level.

I think they did replace Tyree with Bruns just slightly different players both guards and both have been effective as Freshman. What they didn't replace was Rebraca and I don't think you could have but I think they should have looked for one more experienced big man instead of settling on Howard who didn't fit and finally left the team. Also we haven't seen what Levias will bring to the team I have feeling he would have brought some things that Tyree brought to the team. To also be fair not many teams can absorb loss of three top seven players and then have scholarship player quit team that represents 30% of the roster and in this case has been the top of the roster. The only team that could weather that now in this conference is South Dakota State and they would be still hurt by this kind of loss.

I thought this was possible game for us to win especially at home. I only got to see most of last half of basketball. I find no fault with effort with this team but lack of athleticism compared to our other opponents is easily seen watching the game. If this team shoots basketball at 42% for the game and makes its free throws this game should have been 10 point victory. Instead we loose by 7 points and looking at rest of league i don't see one team where i feel were better them and would be favored to win the game with personnel we have on the court right now. This does not mean we can't come up with couple of victories in conference season but loosing tonight was one of the victories i thought we might have playing at home. Sueker is not even close to 100% you could see it with him coming off court in second have we was limping walking to the bench. When will Nero return haven't heard any time line on him yet and are they just going to redshirt Levias for rest of the season since were 2/3 through the season. I see McGrath must be sick or hurt not on the bench. This all adds up to pretty thin and young lineup for the rest of the season. The positive to this season is Bruns, Mathews, Tsartsidze, and Grant are getting playing time which should help them in future years getting experience playing quality minutes. I think this season is now all about getting ourselves ready for next season and hope with new additions next year help us make a step forward to competing in this conference. I know this very negative assessment but i just don't see us having much of chance of anything with remainder of the season. Were going to be at best 7 seed and lucky to be 8 seed which we more than likely to meet South Dakota State team that is so talent and deep we would have hard time winning against their second 5 let alone their first 5. This is not going to be quick rebuild now this is going to take couple of years developing the players and adding young talent a lot of people here on this board are really going to be squawking about this but no matter what direction we go its going to take time especially if going to go with young players. We are already committed to this when looking at roster number of young players on the roster and who are recruited for next year. Its very rare to win conferences with young players it takes experienced leadership to win and only time will take care of this.

I guess i look at from different view with most of the losses were lost by touchdown or less and most of these losses could have been a win on one or two key plays going our way so we very close to having very special year. Also all these losses were against playoff teams and FBS school that had very successful season. The difference is team never got confidence or ability to make key plays to start winning these games against quality opponent. The my main reason for this is skilled position players on the team were young and this only comes with more experience and learning from these losses. yes i heard all other reasons on this board but still comes down to players making plays on the field in crunch time and this year it sure didn't happen.

This past weekend the two South Dakota Schools have been making a statement to rest of the Summit league in women's basketball which most observers already knew is they are different level than other teams in the Summit. This past year with granting of extra eligibility for last year just about guaranteed these two schools another year of dominance in the Summit conference. South Dakota got return of their three stars of Sjerven, Lamb and Korngable for fifth year and with backed up talent they were set to have another good year and it sure showed against our girls this week. Then we come to South Dakota State they only have one returning 5 year player Irwin very good player giving them depth while their major star recovered from season ending injury last year. The thing with South Dakota State is they have number seniors or i should say seniors that gave them extra year of eligibility coming next year or the year after. Also adding that South Dakota State has recruited number of very good young talent that are fighting for playing time wonderful position to be in with small mid major program. This was the position that UND and North Dakota State used to be in schools that had tradition of winning and where top athletes wanted to come and play on winning teams. Both programs are in process of rebuilding and are different phases of that process but something is missing we don't seem to have interest of fans or community to get back there and seems we are not promoted even by schools themselves like back then. In the past athletic departments and community would have put urgency to getting the program tops in the conferences they were in but now i don't see that now were one sport schools and that is where media is trained on and also the schools. I have question for all to ponder we have example of similar situation in Nebraska what happens if these sports fall on tough times like it has in Nebraska their recognition and following falls on hard times. What effect does this have on schools and communities. I can hear all sorts of that is not going to happen but in past when we had Tom Clifford leading the university, he wanted us to be winners in anything we did and he work hard to make that happen. I have nothing against new president in fact i think he has gotten off to good start but i do have questions about AD what his focus is on for UND athletics. I started about dominance of South Dakota schools but i leaked into my frustration about wanting UND to be best and i thought we were getting there back there in 2016 and 2017 when we started to have you conference champions in basketball for women's and men's, volleyball, and even with the football and hockey program was also at the top. Then we got into cutting sports and look where we are now with most of these programs not desirable position to be in and i have to believe most people want this for UND.

Our offense looks terrible to many people standing and then we have no outside game. South Dakota State looks like current type of modern offense being played with go inside and then kick back outside for the three and were playing old school basketball just pound it inside and look at the numbers it should have been close game. The difference is they shot 9 more threes and and made seven more three throws so we loose by 18 with us giving up one more bucket on turnover. We shot today 1 for 11 today for three's and this modern day basketball you have to have people hit the three Manson shot the most today shooting 0-6 and only one hitting three point shot was Daninger and Borowicz never attempted 3 point shot. Also we are showing short bench where our front line people are playing tired and it showed on the court today and South Dakota State went at least nine deep today. I think when we fall behind 20 points in games like today we need to start playing some our freshman it may even we loose by 40 points but there is no way were going to build this team without them getting more playing time. We can't expect to compete with short bench so we might as well start looking at building this team for next year. Also Borowicz must be in real dog house with her not starting both games this weekend for both halves. I would like to hear some reply from Bernhard on the status of the team and i see that Davis did dress for the game but were still missing several players.

South Dakota state coach made adjustments at half and we did nothing to improve our offense. we got out scored 22 to 11 in the third quarter. We need somebody to hit outside shot and looks like they have just put a restriction on Borowicz from shooting outside shot.

I do believe we are recruiting better talent but one year's recruits won't suddenly turn us into contender in the summit. We have to have improvement of the players that are on the team now with additional talent to become a factor in the conference. We can't keep having years where we our loosing players to injury and expect to put quality team on the floor. Last night we are missing Anderson, Davis, Vanderwal, Wallace, and Gordon off the roster and i believe these are all scholarship players. That is 1/3 of our team and then we had Borowicz sitting for both of the opening haves we expect to compete with one top teams in mid major program. The next thing is probably won't have the services of Lane now for several weeks after injuring her ankle. Then we have Leet who picked up her third foul in third quarter trying to protect her we sit her but at time were down 20 points what do we have to loose if not try to let her play with the fouls but instead we protect her and then were down 30+ points by time she gets back in but then were trying to press where she not fast enough to play so she ends sitting for most of 4 quarter on the bench especially when were shorthanded for the game. The game management of this game stunk from the very beginning and i hope they look at this film of this game and not only from what players did but how they coached the game because there are alot of things they could learn about themselves. The other thing last night was we missed i don't know how many layups and not by younger players by leadership like Orth. Finally, one last thing i will say is we are terribly undersized in height and also physical strength to like of South Dakota. I look at their girl's size and lower body strength we look like children out there to bunch of adults. I will say with the above complaints were improved over last year but i think we need to address these areas plus number of other areas if were going to improve this team. I still believe Bernhard is learning and i think she can get the job done but she needs to be more open to public getting fans informed on what they are doing right and wrong. I look at her counter part at South Dakota you can go see her news conferences after the games plus her coaches show and she tells more in her one public appearance than Bernhard puts forth in whole season. Then look how the fan base follows this team and invested in them something to learn from.

also missing Anderson and Davis our 7 and 8 players off the bench. Also is Vanderwal out for the season or will she return before season end we could us another tall girl to just help for few minutes. I thought this would be much closer game but missing these players has hurt in our rotations. Second is Orth has missed at least 6 bunny layups tonight which hasn't helped. South Dakota has showed why they are rated but i don't think this has been great effort on our part. I don't think we well prepared for this game at least we sure didn't have game plan to beat them from the game we played. This is not good way to start the conference season and my guess is South Dakota State is going to light us up come Saturday. I feel we can't match up with them size or quickness at all. I think we gave up in second half and i don't understand saving Leet because of her foul situation and then she ends up sitting on the bench with 3 fouls. I guess i am confused what the game plan was and use of the players available. I think Bernhard will need to explain what happened.

They played alot better than i expected and if they could have finished like they played in the middle of second half they could have pulled upset. T played like the press he received coming into this year and Bruns is playing much better than anybody could have guessed for true freshman. Being down to 8 players may have helped instead of playing 10 -11 we had players that had to perform and new they were not going to be pulled as soon as they made mistake taking the additional pressure not making mistake away but just going out there and playing hard. I see where we getting core of young players that could be built around in the future.

I was impressed with women play tonight with exception of the turnovers you can't have minus 10 differential on turnovers and also not scoring in the paint but we had the shots there in the game but couldn't get them to go down. I wish we had another big girl to just to play a few minutes to give Lane just a little more rest. I think that is why we struggled offensively some in second half she was tired and it effected her shot and also her positioning for getting the basketball. Hoskins and Anderson will need to fill that roll as the season rolls along. This is such different team than last year overall play is up we should be one of teams in the middle of the conference by year end and that's if we stay healthy. This is team that could be contending in the Summit if they progress and add some more talent in next few years.

I hate to agree with you but i don't see us having very good time against NDSU especially with Nero and Sueker down. I don't think this will even be close we can't match up with them and i have feeling this will be similar result like SDSU had against KC. This looks like to me going to be pretty much 3 team race in Summit and were not one of them.

This is going to be long season especially if we miss Sueker and Nero are hurt. We can't loose our top two players to injury on thin bench already and if Howard did quit even makes bench that much thinner. Howard was not going to be big factor at UND because he had limited ability in that he wasn't big enough to play inside and not quick enough to play on outside especially when it came to playing defense. He had a roll where he could provide some offense but that would be limited playing time. This team just doesn't have the size to compete inside and players they have playing on front line are just not experienced enough to get the job done. I looked again we were out scored in the paint by more than 20 points and if this continues into the conference season were going to get lit up by upper teams in the conference. Looking ahead at NDSU were going to be eaten live in the paint they have experienced front line and bigger than we are, Our only hope for us is if we can shoot from perimeter near 50% we may be in this game but even then we would have hard time beating them. Sather knows right now the team they put together after last year's major turnover is not going to fair well in conference play. I hate to say it, but the pressure is going to be on him to turn this program around and i got to believe they will have to see significant improvement after next season. I have been thinking on this yes he was handed team that lack roster depth when he took over but again all weak players that were part of that first year either he inherited or he brought in have left. The problem is that we still have roster problems by players transferring out or we have just missed on their ability to play at this level. The current freshman class looks like we have turned the corner but we will need to retain them and build from there. The problem i see where fans are going to be upset is were going to have several teams in our conference like ST. Thomas that will have already passed us and they were just division III, Western Illinois who look like there coach has rebuilt them in less than two years, and even South Dakota who lost through transfer and injury looks to be farther along than we are. I still believe Sather can become very good coach but his learning curve and his assistant learning curves on recruiting and retaining division I players may have cost us year or two. Also I have to believe covid hasn't helped either and may be big factor in our recruiting and retaining players at the university. All i know is this going to be very difficult season and our record will show it at the end of the season.

I went to box score of Mayville state and Bemidji state the game was fairly close in first half and Bemidji blew game open in the fourth quarter. Voegeli only played about 15 minutes of that game and it was early season and Mayville played pretty much there whole bench in that game. It's always hard to compare by teams match up against other teams match ups. Bernhard said they didn't play very well but also said Mayville had several players of D I ability so my take is Mayville is probably going to be very good team in NAIA and North Star conference and watching last night i didn't see where Mayville was that out matched with the players they had on the floor. Also they had very good size for small college basketball team. This where i think UND has problem matching up with alot of top Summit conference opponents in that they are not very deep on front line with size. This team is playing better than last year but i think talent wise were behind top half of the Summit conference. I see next years class addresses alot of these issues and number of freshman this year should be better after year of playing or developing practicing. Bernhard is rebuilding threw recruiting and that takes time after how far the program had fallen.

Zac i guess i still disagree with you on our guard play because i think why we have regression at guard play is that we don't have player like Rebraca in the middle and yes the players haven't progressed but i never thought they were high quality guards but they filled roll last year when they had Rebraca. But when you had player like Rebraca in the middle that could score and create his own shot it just opened up outside for guards like Panoam and Igbanugo who are left open can hit that outside shot. Thats the difference this year that little extra time has effect on our shooting percentage. Also last year we had Nero and Ihenaco both guards that can create opening for themselves scoring and played better defense so they could just rotate those other two in situations where they could be real factor. Now this year we don't have inside presence and teams are exploiting this weakness. If you go back to Montana game we shot the ball well and Howard had career game both shooting from outside and inside and Tsartsidze had effective game inside and one of few games we were close to other team in points in the paint. The last three games we have been out scored in paint and also shot ball poorly especially when the game counted and after they had the game in hand they played deeper in their benches so some statistics get skewed then in overall game. I guess i think Sather was taking a big gamble on four year players progressing to next level because usually what you have in player is pretty much set after playing four years of college ball. But getting back to front court we basically have Tsartsidze sophomore and the two freshman because Sueker has size but he is more outside forward/guard than inside player. That leaves little experience at frontline position and none of them had played division i basketball. I think Sather may find something before years over that might work because he is as good as any I have seen getting best out of players. That's my hope he may pull upset or two in conference tourney. Also that other freshman guard i have to believe he had to be in there plans of replacing Ihenaco. I just think this rebuild now will take several years because it takes times for players learn to win and develop as team.

Zac you say und had major issues i would like to elaborate on that. Yes jones roster had issues but most mid major programs have weaknesses in their roster's but it did have some very good players on the team Sather inherited Rebracha, Stewart, Walter, and Brown. DAE as i remember was going to leave and Sather convinced in him staying and he did have good first year. Moody other player with some talent just didn't mesh or fit in what Sather was doing and that happens. I agree with you it has been hard recruiting to rebuild team. But the first year he was here the recruits of that year I contend are part of the reason we are at where we are. Danielson, Ramsey, and Urbonavcius of this class we only have Danielson good kid works hard plays defense and can rebound at times but has almost nothing from offense can be expected. This leaves us when we are on the floor with four against five trying to score. Also we could have used even just average big man with experience from this class but it has turned out these scholarship went to number young players. This may be best move in long term to get this team turned around but it sure doesn't help sell the program to the fans. I looked at your tv shots of the crowd and then came to student section it was empty and crowd was made up people like me older die hard fans. This is the change i have seen younger generation if doesn't happen now they loose all interest. Also it didn't help yesterday that Eastern Washington retooled with number of transfers and seemed to have pretty good team on floor that was long athletic. I was thinking what we couldn't have done with one more big man like they had brought in where we could match up against these taller teams. That has been my only criticism on Sather recruiting i thought he needed to bring in experienced big man that had played division i basketball for this year and that scholarship could have been available again next year. I just think we're going to see teams play us with bigs as much as possible because we're going have hard time to match up with them. Second we really don't have a star or go to player when we need scoring and that will only come from these young players and that will be likely Bruns but very difficult for freshman. Treyson looks to be very good player but like all recruits see how he develops as player. I think Sather is very good coach but like you say he has had difficult time to recruit in. Second i think he also had learning curve on players needed to play at this level but i see improvement in that area too. The problem is were going to suffer through very poor season and maybe another one until this group matures.

Sorry this was for mens forum i didn't realize i was on women's forum .

I think this years recruiting class has potential for some very nice players but the problem is that they were not ready to take on full load to compete at division I level. The loss of last years transfers like Rebraca and Inhenaco left void in this team that couldn't be replaced. Rebraca loss was real hurt because you just don't go out find another player of his caliber talent wise and team leadership. I understand his situation UND didn't have the advance degree he wanted and he been using his basketball scholarship to get his education paid for. Second he's getting chance to play at power 5 school starting plus getting high quality education. Inhenaco transfer i don't understand from basketball stand point because he would have been getting more playing time and he is playing for mid major school after the transfer. The other transfers i don't think has hurt us and we probably have gotten as good or better talent back this year in this recruiting class. Sathers first year recruiting class is where he didn't acquire any top level recruit that was class of Danielson, Ramsey, and Urbonavicius and two of those three already gone from the program and are replaced in this recruiting class. The problem is that has left us with void of experienced players compete with for this year. I think Sather is going to be good coach but learning curve to moving division I has hurt us in presence and then add in covid 19 year hasn't help him in being able to recruit. But looking at teams in Summit this year i think were seeing effects of covid with exception of couple of programs who were able to keep veteran teams. I think his recruiting is getting better each year and you can see it each of his classes of recruits and i expect next years recruits to be even better but its takes time for these recruits to develop and learn how to win. The key for him now is to retain top recruits and start having success but with these new transfer rules it's going to be tough on small major programs when power 5 schools and large midmajors programs are using small midmajor programs like minor league system when they have need to just steal it away from these small midmajor schools.

We don't have inside player that you can count on to score one on one down low in the paint. I think Sather and company blew it last spring in not finding another post player that can score down low. Urbonavicius could score better down low in the post than the players we have on the bench now and he wasn't very good. I think the three post players we did pickup last year could develop in adequate post players but we are far from that happening this year. They should have been looking for transfer that could have filled that roll for this year. Bruns is going to be star player in the future and he's getting better each game but he can't carry this team and shouldn't have too. When we have starting 5 out on the floor we can somewhat play with other teams but soon as we substitute were in trouble and as game goes along teams find ways to beat us and run the score up. This is going to be long season ahead for us we will be lucky to win 5 games in the conference and that may be way to high a figure. I wonder what Sather is thinking now because the group of kids he has recruited there are to many without real athletic ability to be playing division I basketball. This has to be priority going forward for him to get to next level of player to come here. Its possible because Jones recruits there were a number of them were at next level of play and he had them coming here. I thought we would be better but i just read print that Tsartsidze was real jem and he may be but he has ways to go and were already to conference season and we have no alternative with our next post players true freshman. Like i say this is going to be long season and we have ways to go rebuild this team and it may take even more next season before we can start moving forward.

yes you want higher goals but looking at this team now and other teams in the conference there are years where even moderate goals are difficult to achieve. This team is so very young and at this point has no real stars on this team. Now looking at rest of the conference the top teams in conference were able to keep there teams in tack and also keep their 5 year starters. Here at UND we lost one true star in Rebraca and up coming star in Ihenaco to transfers which has put a big whole in this team. We have choosen to go with young players and build a team from there but going that way were at least 1 to 2 years before where we can make run conference championship. What happened last spring put UND back to where we were when transitioning from DII to DI. Sather is really going to have coach and get most out this team to even have record close to last year. The coming year he has to land several high end recruits or transfer if this program is going to compete. I was more optimistic earlier but looking at last couple of games i can see were not athletic as we have been in the past. Jones was much better recruiter of finding athletic players and turning them into productive players and so far Sather has only had couple of those players like Ihenaco and Bruns and couple of these other young players may turn into some jems. I hope i am wrong on what i have seen so far but we have long way to go with this program.

We keep playing like this were not likely to make the Summit tournament next spring. I thought by now we have developed rotation we would want to play for conference but looking at tonights game were still playing everybody so this must mean were still haven't found who we are going to go with. The biggest problem i see we don't have inside game Tsartsidze the player with most experience can play some defense but hasn't developed a move where he can be effective scorer. Norman other experienced inside player is undersized to create a shot for himself in the middle. To be fair these are still young players developing. The rest of the players we recruited are freshman and are not ready to play large number of minutes. So without inside game puts pressure on the outside game and here again we need that inside game to give our players time to hit the outside shot and second right now this team is just not shooting period you can't have periods in game where your shooting in the teens. I guess i have questions also why we have Grant playing so many minutes he doesn't shoot very well, he gets lost playing defense giving other team good looks from not being there on defense. The best part of his game is ability to feed ball down to other players but overall i just don't think he ready to be playing. I thought this team would develop more and i was optimistic they would do that after Montanna game but since we have been going backwards or maybe not either it may be that other teams have picked up on weaknesses and have adjusted how they play us. If this case we may not be vary good team were to young, weak inside, and looks to me not as athletic as we used to be. We have some very good young athletes and our experienced players are very good role players but we have no real stars on this team like in the past like Stewart and Rebraca to go too.