ND-fan

The season is over and what failure of season it has been from start to finish this year. We have not improved enough to be confident in win with any team. We played top opponent at the beginning of the season short handed and maybe played as well as we did today. The positive today is that Borowicz showed by far she is our best guard on this team even only playing her first game of this season with major minutes. Zander again showed she can become dominant player but so far hasn't reached that level where she can give you consistent game. Jarnot is most baffling player she can play like one top conference players and then she has weekend like she had this weekend where she can't even hit the rim. I think its mental game with her and coaching change could make world of difference for her with another approach. I look at Leets this year and I don't think she totally bought into Bernhard game and what they are asking of her I don't think she has quickness to play that kind of game. I think they just wasted her talents this year. Now Fleecs and Lane the offense they were asked to play doesn't work without better guard play and to many times we found these players on perimeter instead of rebounding and putting it back up. I looked at this last game we did not run offense when we needed to control ball and get quality shot up especially in crunch times. The last 4 minutes of the game when it was close we came down several possessions didn't run offensive set that would get us quality shot we tried to force something turned ball over or put up desperation shot thinking back on the season this has happened to many times in games. This why we lost so many close games because coaching should have put importance on quality possessions. This giving up 4 to 5 possession at end of each halves is to big obstacle to win a game. Say we get 40% result in score it means 5 to 8 points a game. How many games would have this made a huge difference because we wouldn't had to foul to try to get ball back we would have been even or ahead in number of the games. This team if it is able to keep its talent and add couple of pieces could contend quite quickly with the right coaching. Bernhard season long interview for the job leaves little reason to hire on full time basis. Also if they go with new coach it should be his choice if he/or she wants to retain any of the coaching staff but i feel they will need to have fresh start or different approach. I think if i was coach looking to move up UND be good move there's talent here if you retain that talent and it has supported women's basketball very well in the past and there is active fan support if you put quality product on the floor. This is not program to build from ground up but one with right leadership can become one major player in mid-majors in women's basketball. Also the other positive is that with us done for season they can get actively looking for new coach instead waiting until the conference tournament is over.

yes those facilities help but for alot of people having to be here during our winter weather is not there first choice. What Fargo has now is this 8+ years of winning program and number of their kids making it to the NFL it attracts players who goal is to play in the NFL and adding that talent just makes a difference to continue to be winner. We just need to keep finding kids that compete and win some of the local big time recruits away to be able to compete where when we get them at home we can win those games and start having chances of winning the conference. I remember 80's and 90's how long it took to achieve that goal but it did happen then Fargo moved on to Division I and now were chasing again to get to next level.

Well we just lost first game of the series any hope of post season is they have to win tomorrow and then hope that Omaha looses out their final games of the season. It was not the effort i thought we get especially loosing by double digits. Another game of poor shooting you can't win games when you shoot in mid 30's and then number of fouls we gave up they shot 19 more free throws some was us trying to get ball back at the end of game but even before that shot number more Free throws were significant. I wish I could say something positive but this team i will say one thing is they have consistently played about same type of game for whole season. They can look really good for 2 to 3 qtrs. but when they are bad they are really bad and most of it goes back to shooting. It was good see Borowicz get some additional time and she did respond with scoring. I am afraid the season ends tomorrow with another loss which i guess in one way would put us out of our misery because i don't think we have shot in Double toothpicks of beating SDSU.

My guess on finishing order would be NDSU, USD, ORU, SDSU, UND, KC, WILL, and Denver based on last couple weeks of what's happen in the league. Reasons SDSU is not the team everyone expected and they have to go on road to beat NDSU short handed. USD i think are going to come up game short because i look at their opponents hard to not have 500 finish even if they play well, NDSU is at home and is rested for SDSU and I just think they will split with USD. UND I think sweeps at Omaha which i think will pretty much lock them in fourth spot but they could split to on the road moving them to 6. KC hard to guess them but i just feel they will split their remaining games, West ILL. will have good finishing record but not enough to catch UND or KC. Denver gets in as the 8 th seed. For got ORU if they split USD and W. ILL games probably won't mean much in seeding i think if other things happen with other teams. Now watch how this all gets blown up in next two weeks. My thoughts are nobody going to like to play UND or W. ILL if your seeded higher come the tournament time both teams are playing at different level than their record indicate. NDSU has been most consistent team from beginning to end of the season. ORU can beat anyone in the conference but i don't think they can put 3 straight games together. SDSU is unknown factor because loss of Friedel and irregular season and if they play UND first i wouldn't want to play them again and try to beat them 4 times in season and the long winning streak they have against UND i just think law of averages say it might be UND time win a game against them. USD may make to championship game but i doubt it wins the tournament. West. ILL could be real sleeper of team if were betting and given good odds they might be high gamble and high risk but could win alot of money.

The face mask requirements are killing factor for many people attending a game or even doing business in any business. The face mask issue is that there are about 30% of people that scared to death of doing anything without a face mask, another 30% that are just complying or doing it when they perceive a risk to themselves or other people and then remaining third who do not wear face masks and if required to will just stop doing business or associating where they have too. I think the frustration is really beginning to build now because we are now getting number of people who have been Vaccinated or have gone through covid so they perceive there risk to be low for themselves or other people but they can't get back to fairly normal life. I look at the numbers here in the state we now have about 100,000 people vaccinated and there are about 100, 000 people who have had covid meaning about 1/3 of the residents of North Dakota are confirmed to have built resistance up to Covid. Now we get to area how many people have had covid but were never tested or confirmed to have covid and that number i believe to probably large number. I know number of people who have had covid but didn't get tested because they didn't want the hassle and they recovered from it fairly fast. So you ask then how do they know had covid its case where spouse or even they children had it in same household and they caught it to and just isolated until they were over it. As we go along here were getting to point the risk is reducing for everyone as more people become more immune to this virus. We are never going to get away from covid but the risk is going to be low that majority of people can live normally interacting like we have as human's. I think number of people in the above categories are not going to put up with much further restrictions on their lives especially if we start approaching numbers where we have 70% population Vaccinated and there is opportunity to get Vaccinated further if people so choose to do so. I will be one of these people because its time to get back to living because life to short to be sitting cooped up in our homes isolated from people and friends. Yes there will be risk but there always has been risk we also could die from flu or we could fall down hit our head, or be in car accident, and all these these things will have higher risk to us than covid once we been vaccinated.

What you say about her bringing in her players is injustice Bernhard has had with title interm coach because she has had full responsibility but not total freedom yet to make changes if she so chooses. I think she is learning but here at division I level the time frame is quite short without some success. The point guard she did bring may have helped but few games she did play at beginning of season she had not showed yet she could be that dynamic point guard that could change what was happening on the floor. This is what i see as difference for UND compared to the South Dakota Schools look at South Dakota State they have the Selland girl that shoots from outside or go inside, and then add Irwin and tueninck both players that can hit the outside shot. I know they list Selland and Irwin as forwards but they play guard positions more than traditional forward. USD has similar scenario in they have Korngable and Lamb both playing guard positions and able to hit outside shot as well as drive and score. UND have couple of people that shown they can do this but not consistently yet in Zander and Jarnot but they need that guard that can do this i believe consistently we will see big turn around on this team. Our posts showed this weekend they can play with the elite and are getting better at their roles. Bernhard to be considered for the coaching job must win this coming weekend and that means a sweep not a split but sweep to at least make the post season conference tournament. Without that i don't see how AD could choose her for the job because fan base are already looking at her season performance on wins and losses and having problems with that. I believe that Bernhard could help herself some by being more public and selling her self and the team to public even when things have not gone well making fans apart of the team struggles to make it like whole community is part of getting back to one of the elites in the conference. Her counter part on men's side does much better job of this and something she should take some lessons on. Matter of fact look at his really first recruiting class the biggest add is the young Freshman point guard he has brought in and how he changes his team. Also his group of players he had was having poor outside shooting but look at this past weekend how shooting has improved over the season and this we have not seen this on the Women's side. But getting back to Bernhard the AD is the one that has to know real inside scoop if see deserves to continue to coach this team and if she is will be right fit to get this program turned around. If he believes in her and knows more than us on outside i can see how she could be hired or not. I can be critical of things but i will admit i don't know all inside and outside facts but i as fan like to point out negatives and positives of this team from what i can observe. Even when i am critical of team i still want the best for the team. All of these players from what i can tell are way above average students, people, and players and will be winners in what ever they want to do in their lives. I think this team is much better than record shows and talent is much better than they have played but it maybe that with all things that have gone on there hasn't been enough time to get all changes made and showing this on the basket ball court.

Bernhard i will give her credit that these girls play hard for her but our Philosophy on how were going to play the game is so predictable it hasn't changed even though the game has changed in last 5 years. Val Sussex color announcer for tv and former coach i thought basically outlined the problem for UND with her color comments durning the game in that they just believe if they rebound and pound it inside that will win the game. South Dakota which we match up the most in the Summit even showed that you can't win many games with that style of basketball. Today we had better shooting from the perimeter by Zander and Jarnot which finally opened up the game for our front line people. Today you need to have that outside shooting because of the three which more than offsets inside scoring and rebounding edge you may have if you don't have it and opens inside game enough that shooting percentages improve to start to offset the three point shot. The advent of three has made outside shooting guard most valued position to where it was before was big center that controlled the game from inside. That is why offensive scoring has gone up because coaches have figured out the percentages good shooting guards are like what we experienced with tall dominating centers for years. I like Reinke for her work ethic and she does play good defense but when i hear Val Sussex say she is invaluable to the team i just cringe because playing her at point guard like we have been is such deficit for us it one reason we have lost so many games this year. She should have been coached for improvement in her shooting because i don't think it has improved since coming to North Dakota and i know this year she is playing with broken hand but look at the number for her on offense compared to your opponents. Today she scored 2 points 1-4 shooting 0-2 from 3 and 0-2 from free throws. Now compare her opponent Korngable she was 6-11, 3-5 for threes, and 1-3 for free throws for total of 16 points. Otherwise both were similar in other statistics but at point guard position we were down 14 points and we lost the game by 9 points. I think if you look we have had severe deficit out our point guard position all year on scoring basis and yes we had several girls hurt but we have gotten one of our point guards back last couple of weeks but we have seen hardly any playing time increase for her who was recruited for offensive ability. These are things that i see why we have been close all year but value of scoring from point guard at has been undervalued here at UND for last 4 or 5 years.

This was good game for UND were getting to see how good this team can be if players play up to their ability. They still have alot to clean up on turnovers and handling shifting of defenses but overall it was very good step forward. The thing i want to see is improved effort tomorrow because SD will still come out of here with split. I still think they can play better defense against them but South Dakota does have many options to score off. AJ came to life in second half but i did notice they didn't have Inhenacho on him then and soon as they put him back to AJ we got couple of turn overs to get the lead back. Sims i thought did pretty good job defending Umude he made him work for his points and i thought we did that with AJ also so offense end i thought why we getting good looks from threes because they were tired defending. I also think South Dakota game plan was to make North Dakota shoot the three because of their season percentages and take Rebraca away inside but we are shooting ball much better lately and i think this caught South Dakota off guard. Like i say now which team shows up tomorrow one with poor statistics or team we saw today. It would be fun for us to finally put together sweep in conference play tomorrow.

I think this pretty much put hand writing on the wall that UND is going to look for new coach for next season. I got to believe Bernhard interview for this job has been this past year but with UND current record and us at best having 50/50 chance to make conference tournament i think UND wants to go in different direction. Positives for Bernhard has been she has had team still playing hard for her and she has been close in number of games this year but bottom line is you got to win more games than she has. Also the year she had to contend with with covid and injuries has hurt what she could have done to make changes in program. Also basically coaching staff remained same so i got to believe little if any new idea's or philosphies changed with the program. Also we still have several players that haven't been seen with the program for majority of the season and little said of it when we have been so short handed for most of the season. Also my impression since Brewster and even Bernhard is that they were never very open to public on what's happening like it some big dark secret they were going give away instead of just communicating to public and fans. I sure do hope we can keep number of girls on the team when we go through coaching change because we have number of very talented girls with right additions and new coaching we could rebuild very quickly and be a contender in Summit conference. When things don't work like they have for last several years i find it sad because it effects numbers of people from our student athletes to coaches lives has big implications on future of these people as well as their families.

I have to agree with you on UND winning the point guard battle i watched USD play SDSU last weekend USD pretty much controlled the games when there point guard Plitzuweit was in control of the game but in the second game SDSU switched players defending him and shut him down in second half and they came back and won that game. I believe Ihenacho can do this because he is big enough and quick enough to defend and i also believe he is also quick enough and big enough that he can score if he wants to against Plitzuweit one on one situation. The thing that worries me most about South Dakota since we played the first time the development of their big center off the bench Zizic we may have no one big enough and strong enough to match up against him because of having to defend Umedo which usually requires help.

This team can look so good and then look really bad at times and has to be frustrating the coaching staff but i don't find it abnormal when you look at this team. Its very young team that has little experience on team with exception of Rebraca and this is his first time being leader of team who is very emotional type of player. The only senior on the team Panoam who is just getting his first playing time as player now in second half of the season. My experience has been when you have young teams you have these up and downs you just hope they catch fire at the end of the season to make a run. Second because of Covid a team like we have has been set back because conflicts of scheduling and pre season practicing this is where you can work on some of this up and down. But the bottom line is when you have young team its hard to get consistent play. One other reason too is loss DAE changed structure of the team and also lost one of more experienced players on the team plus we are now playing short handed as team. We have only 11 on the roster now where if we were at full roster we would have 15 and i believe this is showing up now in our in inconsistent play we just don't have many options sometimes to match up with some teams. Were especially a little undersized and we can't go very deep either on size. Its learning curve for this group of players we are just going to have to be patient hopefully it comes this year but to be honest its probably won't happen until we start getting their next year. All these players that are playing have 3 more years of eligibility left.

I was just looking at the standings if Omaha should get two more wins yet this season other than North Dakota it would mean that for North Dakota to make the playoffs in Sioux falls they would need to sweep to just to reach number 8 seed. Omaha remaining games 1 with WIU, 2 North Dakota, 2 with Denver and 2 with Kansas city all the teams fighting to just get into the Summit tournament. Also all those teams will have played less games than us so we need to have more wins to get higher win percentage to qualify for the tournament. We could easily miss the tournament especially if it comes down to needing sweep on the road in omaha. I watched SDSU and USD play this weekend we have alot of building to do to reach their level of basketball. These teams were are athletic and physical to say the least compared to us. Saturday's game was gem to watch two good teams play nose to nose game and how these teams can score and shoot both on inside and outside. They are both deep with talent and going to their benches doesn't mean fall off in their ability to shoot the basketball. Both of these teams top four guards can out shoot anyone of our guards at the present time. Also they are strong physically and in size but also quick enough to stay with their opposites especially USD. We will get to see that this coming weekend when they come to UND. I believe are front court players will be able to hold our own if they do not get in foul trouble protecting the paint from the their guards penetrating. The two South Dakota schools are where we were 25 years ago here in North Dakota with UND and NDSU having best teams and coaches in their conferences we have some work ahead of us if were going to catch them.

Denver series is going to tell if UND has turned a corner for the program or if we return to what happened with 0 and 13 start. The game we won we saw better shooting from our guards than we had for all season on game one. The second game we started the game again shooting basketball quite well and we lead most of the first half. Then we came to second half and again we saw where we shot ball poorly and we lost our lead and lost the game. This is going to be big question now with Denver are we going to have better shooting or are we going to have what we had before with shooting percentages in 30's. I hope to see better production out Borowicz as she regains her form after such long time being injured. If she can start to handle point guard duties and start scoring as she is capable of we should see some improvement in UND. We need to have sweep but i know that is asking alot for this team on the road. Definitely need a split or the season will basically be over for UND. If this team is have any chance at Sioux Falls we need to some how reach a 6 seed which i don't even know is even possible yet. Other wise we will draw one of the two South Dakota schools which i don't think we have any chance of beating especially when were playing in Sioux Falls.

They can't afford not to have player that can't hit open look once in while i can't remember last time he hit a three when it mattered in game. It something he got to work on to hit open shot he's got form and ability to shoot but he's now has to get confidence and show he can hit that shot.

I watched part of the game he's got talent but he is kid that is going to take time to develop for D I and from what i watched i don't think he's going to make immediate impact and being starter or playing huge minutes his first year. I think they will need to do quite a bit work in weights to get his strong enough to play defense at the D I level. I think he's good recruit in long run because he is athletic and show's skill but like all new recruits it will be how he adapts to this level of play and how hard he works to develop that talent

A sweep this weekend would put UND in position i would believe to no lower than 6 in conference and that would be assuming we lost rest or our games. I think were going to end up either 4 or 5 depending on how we do against South Dakota but this weekend a sweep would put us in position to go as high as 3 in the conference.

Western Ill. looking at their team will be tough match up again for UND because we don't have the guards to match up with them. They have several smaller guards and couple of larger long guards of 5 10" and looking at their stats this team has four five people that can hit outside 3 so we are going to be challenged defensively with them. If they have poor night of shooting we would have a good chance of beating them but they always when we played in past they have been very quick team and i see they also have one post player that has been scoring quite well even with poor shooting if they drive and dish to post still may be tough to get stops. Like all the games this year its going to come down to guard play if we are quick enough to defend and can find somebody to hit few open looks. I wish we could just see this team if it had couple of quick guards that could score both from outside and from driving you would not believe how good they could be with our front line of girls. I believe they would be challenging for conference title with the right coaching.

I have question were seeing all this building downtown but my question is since Covid has happen businesses all over the country are moving away from having there people coming into offices working on daily basis. They are working from home and using zoom to meet with fellow employees. I have cousins out in Washington where Boeing is selling off office space and working from home and i know this is true because my cousin is one these people and he has number other people working under him doing the same. So getting back to here in Grand Forks i am wondering where are all the businesses that are going to set up full offices are going to come from when the trend is moving away from owning or even leasing property to provide office space. Same thing is happening in other cities too I have relatives in Denver where real estate agencies that have four story buildings that used to have building full of people now have only four people coming into office daily and rest are now working from home that is what they think how it will work in the future. I worry and wonder if Grand Forks has great plan but world is changing that it may become a bust for the city. These are just some thoughts i may be all wrong here but i think future of downtown cities from very largest to even small cities like Grand Forks times have changed in just last year that structure of cities may have changed where people work are changing also.

Do you think they are going to let this transgender policies destroy women's sports in US after 40 plus years of title 9 to get women's sports to where it is now. I just don't think they will let go that far. I think politics will change when they see it could change women's sports across America were already seeing some work on this at state level and i got to believe people common sense is going to prevail. Also i don't see how this will translate to world women's sports because if this happens it will kill that also. Its going to be interesting but when the average American who see where there is no opportunity for girls to compete and get scholarship to go school are going to become quite vocal and also become a political issue.

I am not picking on Tiffin but wondering what level of support is coming to the Women's programs in recent years its just not scholarships but total effort to recruit players here to UND. I know there is no expense left for us recruit hockey players and amount of support i believe its like no where else in the country but the question lies at what expense to other UND sports. Yes hockey generates a lot of revenue but i still think this UND athletics is team effort in developing quality sports department. I know there other ideas and feelings on this but UND in the past was known for more than being hockey school we had highly regarded football, basketball, and volleyball programs and we were starting to build programs in soccer and softball. I believe this all can be achieved.

What's happen to UND women's sports in last few years cancelled hockey, basketball is mess, and now hockey is going downhill too. Just three years ago we competing going to NCAA tournament and now in all these sports were bottom of league and plus we lost women's hockey.

Ihenacho is very important piece to UND if its going to make a run at the end of the season. But the next biggest piece to the puzzle is getting Sueker on track before the end of the season. He was recruited for his size and his ability to hit the outside shot and so far he has struggled all season on that aspect of his game. We saw flash of that against NDSU last Saturday and I thought he may have turned the corner but this weekend looks like he took step backwards again. I think its matter of confidence and he's still adjusting to speed of the game which i believe why he is struggling with his shooting. I consider him and Sims in same boat in that they talk about Juco transfers it takes almost whole season for them to adjust to this level of basketball and then you put in abnormal year with Covid its going to take time to get their expected level of performance. The good thing is both of them get extra year and if they do reach level of performance they were recruited for we could have pretty good team in next couple of years.

Its pretty bad when your best outside shooter is your center for the team. I watched tonight's game for the most part we were not taking shots it was just throwing basketball at the rim hoping it would go in or one of other front line could rebound it put it back up for layup. I also thought were beginning to see where this team is starting to give up and i never see where they are having fun on the court. Second i wonder what were looking for on offense were not working ball it seems to get person decent shot at basket. Also were not setting screens effectively either setter is not proper position or person for who screen is for is not using screen to get free from the defender. I can go on but our guard play is terrible i think our guards that played tonight went 7 for 27 for 26% and one guard i think of more as forward than guard had best percentage. Also our guards dribble and hold ball to much instead of passing making the defense move where our front line with proper screening and posting should get a look inside but again i don't think we have guard that can hit outside kick out when middle is jammed up. I think best guard if she can get setup is Garvey but she's has weaknesses on defense so your caught in catch 22. Right now they have so few options at guard when you don't have Borowicz, Kepler, and Anderson all out and this new Lane girl not ready to play yet. It looks to me this team is going to be challenged to get a win this season. I look at Western ILL and look how they pushed South Dakota this weekend were not close to showing we can do that so i see where we could loose those two. Then following that is going out to Denver never easy place to play and reading about them they have excellent guard play so how do we match up with them. Then it comes down to Omaha other team without any wins in conference but were playing on the road if we haven't won a game by then we will have probably sweep to play in Sioux Falls because split i believe would go to them even if they are winless because they would have higher win percentage because of playing fewer games than us. I believe we will be fighting for win this season in next three weeks and i sure hope it comes sooner than later for longer it goes harder is going to be to get that win.

I just hate this i have both Midco plus and ESpn Plus and i don't think i can get game unless you buy another access to Jackrabbit sports which i am not going to do. I miss when we were part of Big Sky and free access to their games on Big Sky tv and Pluto tv. This is something that Summit needs to work on getting where a person can watch their games on consistent provider. If Midco want to televise these games they should televise all the games its a way to grow the brand of the Summit conference.

The Jacks on paper should run away with these games especially at home but this year seems to be different in that its tough to come up with back to back wins. I also think that all time the Jack have had off is going to affect how they play as much as you want to replicate it in practice its not the same as actual game. I do think UND is going to have match up problems with the Jacks and i worry we will get into foul trouble. The big question for me is how Wilson plays if he has all his game like he did last year Grand Forks it will be long night for UND. Because last year he scored from three point land and when you came out defended he blew by for bucket inside i am hoping his outside game in not quite there yet. I also think if couple of UND players are on going to make it difficult for Jack to match up as well if they play up to their abilities. This series comes down to whether if UND can elevate its game to play with the Jacks because they are most complete team in Summit just ahead of NDSU at present time. I think UND can become one teams considered for tournament run but they need to now show their abilities on consistent basis night in and night out so far that has not happened. Also they are going to show they can shoot like they did last Saturday.