ND-fan

Not much comment about last night game. I just had chance to watch the game it was another game where referees wore out there whistles between fouls called and travels the game just had no flow to it. We were in foul trouble most of second half. Neither team was playing much defense either afraid of fouling out or just slow moving to play defense. UND was lucky that Kacie didn’t foul out. The total fouls for the game were 48 and total turnovers were 37 meaning we had nearly two stoppages per minute of game. Pemberton , Kacie, Aumer accounted for 51 points for the game. What was nice to see Beal have better game again I think she needs more playing time and it was good to see Aumer get a start. Pemberton and Kacie are getting better at playing together. They had Ibrahim play and I think if they can work with her this off season she could become quite player at 5 position. Hurst again got herself in foul trouble and when that happens she then plays very little defense. I don’ t see how they can continue to start her, but turn her into bench player that could provide offense punch coming off the bench . The way it looks to me we’re going to end up 6th seed with us probably matching up against either ORU or USD and it will take better game of basketball that we’re playing right now to beat them. it appears we have plateaued for the year if not regressed some and we have not gotten into any consistent rotation of players with exception of Kacie and Sammiyha and DJ. We are need of true point guard to run the offense and can score from outside or make something happen driving. Next year is going to be interesting on how they will play and who is going to step and lead this team.

I watched Izzo and Mcfeely today on end of women's game and men's game some of their remarks were full of conflicts about the rivalry between us and NDSU. NDSU coaches and Fargo's opinion is game between the universities are not that big of deal and Grand Forks and UND consider major victory. I think the difference is that Fargo after wanted to project that they are above UND, and they had all this success on division I and they want to become this national power in sports. The 10 championships in FCS football has played into that mind set but what is happening now NDSU success in football is not going to be that dominant as it has been because of new rules in college sports with transfer portal and NIL money coming to college sports it's become more like farm system for top schools that are semi-professional sports teams. The second half of Izzo and Mcfeely discussion about the games was in fact UND vs NDSU games and actions by coaches and even there reporting on getting more people to the game were examples they are important games for Fargo even though they hate to admit it publicly. I don't think Fargo realizes that UND is rival, but they are good for each other because it prepares us to be better in athletics and improves both of us by each of getting better and preparing us to beat other conference foes. This is what we had in back in 70's and 80's when we were both at top of NCC conference in major sports. Gene Roebuck has stated this number of times how NDSU and Amy Ruley made them better and prepared them to win national championships. We need to get to back to this and Izzo and Mcfeely should do a little history study themselves and see how students were involved in these games and how the state followed these schools plus all the fringe benefits of having packed games to use for recruiting and fund raising for athletic programs.

I was getting to think I was to hard on Hurst but I see other are observing some of things she needs to improve upon. I watched her interview on Midco at half time . I can see how she is difficult to coach she has enormous confidence and if she has any offensive success this what basketball is about to her. I can see why we recruited her she has tremendous athletic ability but question comes can she be convinced playing complete game that is learning how to play defense. This is will be on coach Bernhard to get done or to move on to another player but I.think Bernhard sees some of herself in Hurst. i don’t think it matters one bit where players come from and this having players coming from Michigan is just fine if they are committed and fit into the program. I think players on this team are fine individuals and I believe they have been working at getting better. I have no idea how they mesh but that is for coaching staff to work out the differences. There is a lot of talent on this team and overall it still is young talent and for the most part this talent hasn’t learned to play discipline basketball for forty minutes. This has been difference between us SDSU players they recruited ,they have learned to play much more disciplined game and it seems to happen earlier in there late freshman year and definitely in their sophomore year. If you go back 25 to 30 years ago you would see our teams had very young teams that played very disciplined basketball we’re very successful and coach Bernhard played back in that era latter years so I know she knows what it takes be successful. I have been waiting for her to coach her team and make this jump in her coaching to achieve that with the program.

I hope some of you see how Forum Communication has been affecting Und athletics there interest has beenHockey and just tear down the other programs here because it doesn’t fit with making Fargo and NdSu premier town and school of North Dakota. This is bad thing and especially when they are trying to eliminate all competition. Midco has been best thing possible for it has given us media outlet for UND athletics but even there the announcing you can’t but help see they never criticize anything about NDSU it’s not like when we play South Dakota schools and they have their announcers. My hope is that we eventually get competition for Forum Communication and looks to represent all of North Dakota. My leading contender will be Bek tv stations if they continue to grow and start developing their coverage and news rooms across the state. UND needs to have better media people promoting the various athletic programs through various outlets locally, regional, and nationally.

This team had couple steps forward but now we have taken couple of steps backward. Last night you could see they spent mor time on defensive schemes but then would have mental breakdown leading to score. The offense was pretty much none there last night with exception of second quarter. The turnovers just make it impossible for them to have any offense consistency. The offense is just impatience trying to force the offense instead of working the basketball and reversing around to create open shot. Bernhard and coaching staff last night wasn’t quick enough to make changes when we getting beat by mismatches on the floor. NDSU is going to eat our lunch on Saturday if we play like we did last night. I could see loss of more than 30 points and Bernhard better have game plan to get the offense going. I see our athletic ability and you here it by opposing coaches but so far we haven’t reach point where we play smart enough to take advantage of of this athletic ability and I wonder if it’s going to happen this year. I believe this is crunch time for Bernhard for her its time for coach this team to fix these problems become more of elite.coach by getting this team to step up and get to another level. If she can’t do this her longterm future becomes question because she needs to she can compete with other top coaches in the league. She has been in league four years and it’s time for her to show this growth because she has had time to find players and coaches to prove she has put together winning program.

Like I said I thought Chaves would extend Bubba with hire of Landry to give him some security with coming here. NDSU job opening would give more job security and is better job over UND with where both programs are now. If this turmoil continues all of you here on this board better live with consequences because we’re heading for loss of number players leaving this program and it will be blue chip players going. This will put us back to worse position than we were in 2013 and all we will hear then how I we wish we were back to where we are now. The money for the program will drop because of less attendance and our local reputation of becoming contender will be gone putting us in loosing position . There are so many think all it will take is new coach that will be messiah that will just turn this program around but we have lost our players, revenue drops and how this effects us setting up NIL program, and how players in the region percieve the program if it’s school that they want to come to. I might be little negative but I don’t think a lot of people here on the board realize that Und does not have reputation as sports school with exception of hockey. That is why I have not as critical of Bubba because has reputation of being fair to players and how he has been invested in UND to better the program not just stepping stone where who ever we get is looking to leave in couple seasons and then we’re trying to rebuild again with another coach unless you have lot of money and is destination where players want to come usually ends in major disaster. I am done for while commenting on football I will just sit back watch this train wreck so many of you wanting it to happen and I believe it’s because school to South’s success and you haven’t understood how the schools have separated on football and where the programs have grown apart because of the paths school have chosen and being in division I sports and communities supporting the schools are not as close as they were 25 years ago.

Denver game referees calling of this game leads to ugly ending. Und wins by 10.

last night we took a step backward and I hope the team learned something when things fell apart in the third quarter there was too much individualism and trying to force the play and ORU took advantage of this. Also was our rebounding we would box out have clear chance to get ball we had players watching each other to make a play on the ball and I don't know the reason for that. I still don't understand why we have Hurst play outside as much as we do when she has clear advantage catching and driving to the basket from the low post. It would clear outside for our players to have more open 3 look. Defense at times was much better but ORU shot poorly for most first half, and I couldn't tell if it was the defense or were they shooting that poorly. Kacie last night was again trying to make the perfect pass and it was resulting in turnovers she needs to slow down and let the offense playout more and then when she has these mistakes, she wants to come down make up for that mistake right away. I though Bernhard let game get away there in middle of the 3 quarter and she needed to have timeout earlier and get them settled down and run good offensive play where we would get good look and high chance of scoring. I also think Beal needs more playing time, but her offense has been not there it's like having whole in my bucket but until she learns how to be more productive, and I think it's going to take more consistent playing time. Pemberton showed she still young player where we are going to have ups and downs and learning to adapt her game when people play her different. Horne is also going to be very good player but it's going to take some time and she just needs to keep playing. The team chemistry still needs work and I have my doubts if that is ever going to get fixed this year. In regarding to the subject forementioned I think Bernhard is going to have address that before next season and maybe it will fix itself in the offseason. Thats all I am going to say on that. The last thing i will say ORU has been difficult to play for UND women over last few years and some of that i believe when we get to ORU and KC we get different type refereeing and we have difficult time adjusting to that calling. I think you see that with all other teams in the Summit when they go South to play

It takes more than scholarship to attract players and right now we don’t have NIL program in place and second we just don’t have national ability to get media presence out nationally to attract players here. Not a lot of players want to come live here with the weather we have and just another FCS program with little national press so we are program fighting to just to get the even come and visit. Most of our transfers have either come from the area or have played in the conference all of the Dakota schools I believe have had this problem and we had least of media exposure.

If this outside hire like I said earlier I can see where Chaves is not only needing to put in place extension of Bubba giving year extension to attract a new hire outside and if it’s highly reguarded applicant that could become head coach he may do that. Who knows there may even bigger moves in coaching under Bubba. I got to believe if they are going to go after somebody they also will want to shore up compensation with other coaches to get full commitment going forward. I still think Chaves and administration believe they are close to moving forward and don’t want to start over falling back to where they were before fighting battle of getting talent to come here against NDSU and SDSU recruiting. They are looking at there sister University of South Dakota what they did last year they didn’t fire there coach but found offensive coordinator coach and kept things in place. I know the same people here would have been calling for things to blown up at USD because hadn’t. Moved forward because of there past performance. I think this mind set here too blowing things up are just to costly and to get back to where we are now might take years to just get here and they as administrators will not survive complete over haul. It’s easy for people here to say make sweeping changes it’s not your lively hood and effects it will have on family not to mention the coaches and people working athletic programs because this could have effect on all athletic programs.

Und has turned this around in short period of time and they have done this by playing team ball. Kacie and Sammiyha today lead by example by doing little things by boxing out and rebounding, playing good defense and working hard to be right positions to score or feed the basketball to someone else. Pemberton is starting to figure it out to play at this level. Hurst had good day and today's foul trouble i believe were from poor calls against her, but she did have quality minutes when she was in playing. Aumer is starting figure out her role and continues to work hard coaches dream in a player. Oberg is playing up to her potential and it's nice to see. Vanderwal didn't play much not team she matches up with. Horne didn't play much either not sure why probably worried about her ball control. Davis had good game playing defense and moving the ball in half court. This is very good game for us and now it's time to see if they can make this happen on the road and tough road trip it will be going to ORU to Denver. Will know much more after this next road trip.

They played as team tonight and it showed with number of assists, we had tonight, and they were hustling for the ball. I didn't know until tonight we were last in assists in the Summit league. Hurst played with some fire tonight and she was working to score inside she can be exceptional player if she continues to play inside and not to be looking for outside 3. She played much better defense and did much better helping her teammates when they got beat. Still needs to work on boxing out to rebound she starts watching the game to much. Pemberton going to be exceptional player before she is done playing. Horne is improving and she just needs to learn what she can get away with playing defense and selling referee when she gets fouled shooting it will come. Beal even scored tonight she needs to get some confidence back on the offensive side. We have come along way last few games but it's going to get harder again when we start playing better competition again. I don't think there is that much difference teams 2 through 9 even Omaha will be better when they have all their players back. Bernhard is doing much better job getting the players in right place and right match-up where they can concede, and I think Kacie is doing better job leading the team with her play instead of trying to do it all she is making the players around her better. I just hope we can continue to improve we have such upside potential with this group of players. I also should say Hoskins also is making difference with her leadership on the team. B

I have gut feeling Chaves comes in next week or two and extends Bubba’s contract a year based on this past year. The under lying reason is to bring outside OC giving that person that will be some continuity in the program. This would guarantee at least two or three year commitment. Second if he doesn’t we loose players and have terrible season go backwards loss in revenues and having back to back seasons limbo could destroy the program even worse then 2013 year and then to get somebody to take over the program may set the program back even further. I believe Chaves wants continuity and having program maintains upper quality level with ability to get to championship level and within long-term goal of staying in budget. I wonder what will be reaction from people on this board if this happens.

Chaves since being here the athletic program is mirroring or very similar Eastern Washington where athletic program can’t support it sports and there has been proposals there shutting down its football program. Und may be heading for similar fate even though we put all resources into all infrastructure in the football program. They just forgot people running the program and now we’re faced with loss of people. Don’t forget last year we lost one of our coaches to Fargo because of pay. Danny move may be right for him looking at it because he going to get paid more to support his family, he still remains in Dakotas to raise his family, he’s at elite FCS school so if he wants to move on it will be much easier to get good position at FBS program. The problem here at UND until powers to be don’t want to come realization that when one program so dominates the funding of athletics like hockey has become there is know way any other sport is going to achieve success what people want on this forum. Bubba has moved football forward here at UND from when he took over by getting donors and powers to be to invest infrastructure but now things have changed where you need money to bring quality coaching plus money to attract top players and it isn’t here program is sliding backwards. This is true for other sports like basketball and volleyball. I wouldn’t be surprised at some point in the future the proposal will be to cut football to try to save other programs without touching hockey. Think about it last 20 years when hockey went big time how how we have ate up athletic program to balance the budget. We have lost baseball, swimming men’s and women’s, women’s hockey, and go farther back wrestling, and then quality of other programs have fallen from being elite to bottom of the conference teams. So Danny just did what was best for himself and Bubba has fought battle received criticism of not moving program forward and by some here not dynamic enough to do this and you wonder why he is disgusted. He knows this is last chance he is getting to try national champion but he can see this slipping away because he not Superman and support is not here and I beginning to believe it may be gone. I wonder if we’re not going to head like western Illinois just having difficult time putting respectable team on the field. I have been optimistic before but seeing actual funding for football and need for additional money for NIL I am beginning to wonder if we’re in no win game because we don’t have enough big time supporters for our athletic department.

I think everyone on here is chicken little that Sky is falling and I don’t get it like you want whole thing to fail. I want to think on the positive side that if we have successful off season getting some key positions filled and adding depth we will be team that will be able to compete in Missouri Valley for the coming season. I think most of you forget to get to next level we need to get to where we are getting a seed and playing at home. Otherwise we’re going to end up with Big Sky opponent that is equal to us in quality of team. South Dakota went through this for years and was looking in from outside and now they have built their program to where they are same as NDSU. The strength in FCS is in the Missouri valley and Big Sky and rest of competition is not to the level of these conferences. The way FCS is structured now getting to that level is even more difficult because of transfer rules and NIL money players want to go to schools where they get proven national attention.

Improvement yes, nobody has said anything about shooting but there was improvement in that they were shooting a better shot than they were month ago. Our 3-point shooting has improved some now with us shooting in high 30's instead a lot of 20's shooting. Yesterday game was one of poorest we had in few games, but we also played better defense. This team as young as we are improvements are going come in small increments and learning to play together. The problem is the season will be over by time they get to level to compete. Sad part is Kacie is having to finish her season here rebuilding and not competing to play for post season experience. The roster management has been biggest fault we had here at UND there seems to be no long-term plan on type of team they are building and how these players will fit together, and the players leave because they see where they do not fit into the team. I look at South Dakota State and I am constantly impressed with how each year they recruit players that fit into team they want to put on the floor and how quickly they develop as players into their system. I then look at us we have this collection of players that are good, but we are asking for them to play out of position because we lack that player, we need to fill that position. Last year was prime example when we had both Hoskins and Gordon playing 4 and 5 positions way undersized and nobody that was ready to play these positions. This year we now have nobody to fill the 2 and 3 positions with experience besides Kacie. I could go on about this but I have come to realization we have young coach that was not prepared for this because inexperience in doing this so she is learning this on the go and may take her couple cycles of players and learning how to recruit to play type of game she wants to play. I look at the programs that are successful their coaches have been there 10 plus seasons up to 20 years.

Changing the subject from how poor we are as team by people on this forum to something I think is more relevant is what progress has UND done on NIL group together support athletics. I know we have been working on the Alston awards, but it appears we need to be looking at Group that will put together organization to fund NIL money or benefits to athletes if we are compete at the division I level. I know this is going to be difficult thing to pull off, but I really believe we might as well start working on this. Personally, I think this is going to lead to end of the college sports as we know it especially for Mid-majors there just is not enough money at this level, I believe to compete with the large university that have access to big TV money and donor support. I think were heading for area where corruption enters college sports especially with legalized betting that is being done on college sports. But getting back to NIL money even small amounts would be helpful to retaining players or to get even more recruits coming here to play sports. I think area with most potential would be adding additional players by paying their tuition in effect increasing our scholarships and taking chances on developing players. If were going to be farm system for FBS we might as well build your team up with number players that could play several years for you before they move on or should I say being called up. FCS maybe should be lobby for every one that transfer up to FBS school needs to refund or pay them for developing their player especially with all money coming from tv rights. We could call this sharing of the wealth.

Pemberton has really helped getting her back. Horne is starting to show her athleticism but has long way to go learning to play defense and getting rebound position. It still good step forward played much better defense but game was lost rebounding and missing layups. The big difference playing together as team and getting shot in the paint. Also Oberg looked much better today should help going forward. VanderWahl is playing much better she helps so much in the middle. Beal is finding role but she needs to work on her offense by finding a place she can score. We will see what happens getting back to the Summit where overall teams are quicker than we saw in Big Sky.

I watched the game it was a good win but Idaho is pretty much like us in record and we matched up well against them. Pemberton played and she makes such a difference she can score and rebound for us. She also quick and she moves well to get herself open with the ball or without the ball. VanderWahl had good game and she matched up well against there post. Ibrahim played only a few minutes but did make impact on defense. Hurst started game and made a pair of threes right away but then missed next three and then late when she was driving for the basket she was fouled several times leading for 6-6 free throw shooting. Cottingham played a few minutes I think she can become a good guard she quick and plays defense. Horne played some but didn’t get many minutes Hoskins played 37 minutes leaving very few minutes for Horne. Beal only played 2 minutes. The future of the team I believe lies in Pemberton, Horne, VanderWahl, Ibrahim, Cottingham, Beal, and maybe Hurst. I hope we can put a few wins together yet this season but we need to shoot better and run offense as team, if we’re going to do this. But last night was a step forward.

The reason is our girls are young and they have not gone through couple of years being built up by strength and conditioning people. Second we have change in strength and conditioning coming and I wonder what effect it will have on various sports programs at UND. I believe Horne wasn’t here this summer and I think several other were not either which has put us back in development. I believe both the men and women could use a coach on developing shooting with their players based on last several years performances. I believe we have talented enough players we should be shooting better than we are but like playing defense there are techniques that should be taught to help improve performances. I believe person just working on this could improve us.

I disagree with you that SDSu and USD are bigger than us 2-4 when we play Horne, Pemberton, and Beal at these positions but we are terribly young and inexperienced this year at these positions. We are also bigger at 5 position with Ibrahim and VanderWahl when we play these girls but again very little experience. The problem has been Bernhard has played a lot of minutes with Hoskins playing out of position for her size because of her experience and also played a lot of minutes with Hurst in these positions but she been slow on defense and doesn’t want to play type offensive role we need inside. Pemberton is 6’1”, Horne is 6’2”, and Beal is 5’11 and is lanky and jumps real well we should match up with these teams but all of these players are young and not played huge minutes and this year only have Kacie and Hoskins with experience to play with them. SDSU players in these roles are juniors and sophomores with a lot of playing time. Also the one and five positions are players with a lot of experience. USD players in these positions are not as big but most of them have a lot of experience playing and they can shoot the three very well. Then they have Larkins very dynamic player that can score in many different ways. Getting back to we have one senior and no juniors and then we have three COVID extra year players not very balanced squad in experience. We have had a lot of turnover in past few years and have not retained players we have recruited in several of the classes for various reasons. If had any fault with Bernhard she has not played these younger players in preseason before conference a lot of minutes because her having players making mistakes on the floor. This works when you have balanced roster for each of your classes but doesn’t work very well we have the roster we have now. I also think Berhard weakness is that she doesn’t have built rappor with coaches yet in North Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa to recruiting local players and her recent assistants have been not local either. She has relied on coach Moe contacts but that’s back in Michigan. Hopefully coach Bledsoe will help in Minnesota. This being case we’re at now our hope the above players develop this season and we can compete in the coming years and more talent again next year.

I think we still have some talent on this team we have recruited but right now they are either freshmen or not playing up to their potential. The problem is were not playing very good defense and teams are exposing this play. I don't understand how we have recruited many players that were high scorers before they came here and after being here for few years there shooting goes downhill. I will say again this season down fall started last spring with loss of assistant coaches and loss of some late transfer and the signing of players later in the signing period. This team needed to be here this summer and working on preparing for this season especially when we were going to be so young and most of the players having limited playing time last year. I think I would have looked for couple transfer to help this void but that's why we hire head coaches it their job to put a team together. I heard this most of last summer there was no immediate need to fill these positions of coaches there was plenty of time, but I don't think people looked at this team understood how under experienced they were going to be this year. This brings us to now and we are in no position to start conference season and expect to compete. The future of this team lies in freshmen players of Horne and Pemberton they are size and speed we need to compete in the Summit. Beal has athletic abilities to be very good role player in guard position, but she needs to work on her outside shooting if anything has gone downhill. Vanderwahl has role as player who can play the post if she is not matched up with quick mobile post. Aumer has gotten stronger and more physical, but I think it has cost her step so I wonder what her future will be with the program. Hurst has offensive talents but her defense I believe gives more away than she can do offensively. Ibrahim I think could develop into pretty good post player and it was bad they had to pull her redshirt because year of development would have been really beneficial for next year. Cottingham I have no idea what type of player she develops into other than she quick enough has enough length to play guard. Owen can fill several roles and I believe she has ability to shoot from outside. This team right now short-term goal is to play complete game and to play defense well enough to keep us in the game. I believe this team is probably going to have poorer conference record tan 2020-2021 team of 2 conference wins as it stands now. This team is now playing for next year and who will be part of that team future plans. What a shame that we will lose full season step back to where we were at the end of 2020-21 season.

I am so tired of same people or should I say same posters demanding a coaching change on this site. The fact is as it stands now the Administration and majority of people are not in line for changing of the coaching staff. Yes, we all want us to do better but I think majority of you wanting this change have underlining reasons for change and i think it's how this coaching staff process goes about improving this program. I still think large number people think all we have to do change coaches and were going to win it all surpass NDSU to the South. The fact is they have huge advantage over UND in football in that Fargo supports this program with more money than we do because it's their school number one sport. We have football but it's not our number one sport and that is Hockey and look at our budget for hockey program at one time NDSU wanted to be with UND on hockey and gave up on that went full out to football. This plays into our football program we have less resources and after Fargo's forum communication took over Herald and closed down our local tv station media is controlled by Fargo and very little exposure goes out on UND football to greater region. This plays into our recruiting it takes time and building relationships high school coaches and getting presence to get kids because there is very little media heard about UND football. Then you add in our location how not only NDSU uses that against us but also other Dakota schools telling potential recruits how winters and cold last forever and we had year like last year it just reinforces what they are saying. I look at SDSU they took years to get to where they are at, and they stayed with their coach to finally build the program up to what they have now. The conferences we have played in by far best conferences in FCS and if don't win one top conference spot gives you probably one tougher opening games of playoffs and usually opponent from Big Sky and similar team to you. These last two years have shown our defenses have not been up to playoff caliber and needs to be fixed and has been said by our coaching staff. We all talk we just need to go to the portal and get players we need but I don't think anyone of us here has any idea what it takes to get the type of player we need. From what i have been reading it takes NIL money, Media attention, right fit academically, and then place the recruit wants to come too. This gets me to instead of some people spending great deal of blowing on changing coaching staffs maybe should be looking how they can help give these coaches put more things in their bag of recruitment resources to get players we need and also retain players we need to step from 15 to 9 team in FCS to top 3 or 4. This is how I feel quit wasting this site on something is going nowhere for the present and do something to advance this program to compete with the teams above us no matter who is leading this team.

I do feel bad for Kacie I believe she thought they could do more as a team. Bernhard miss judged this year I believe in that she thought this group of sophomores would develop more and play better as a team this year. The Freshman players of Pemberton, Horne, and Ibrahim are going to be good players and are improving as the season goes along. Bass and Owen were players recruited for the future of program to fill certain roles needed on the team. Oberg on paper looked to be good fill for this year but she hasn't looked healthy enough to compete for what UND needs. My guess if you could get Bernhard to truthfully what she thinks now she would have looked to portal to experienced players that could have played right now like South Dakota has done this past season. Maybe in the long run with this group of players it will be best, but time will only tell. I also thought this was possibility of happening this year when I was arguing when they were losing their assistants and number of posters said we had time to replace people and I said this was going put us behind in development of this team. This team looks like it needed more time in development, and it begins with getting started early and everything in place and that didn't happen.

There are two significant problems I can see one is we are young and asking a lot of our freshmen to step up and play significant minutes. This leads to our second problem is we are playing poor defense. It always is problem when playing freshman to have them play good defense and usually it gets better with time, but time is running out on this season. We are playing so many freshmen on the court at the same time and we can't play several seniors to help a freshman play defense. Bernhard gambled on the Sophomore class could step up and fill in around Kacie and Hoskin, but the fact is they are not even playing as well as the Freshmen class. If look at today's game if removed Kacie's shooting UND would have only shot 24% and we ended up with still terrible shooting percentage of 31%. Bernhard recruited this group of players and as it stands now there little, she can do change make up this team. I think she has been right in playing the Freshman because to me they are the future of this team. The Sophomore class there's talent in that class and couple of them could become role players. Beal is player who has athleticism to become very good player and i think light is going switch on before her career is done but question is when. She also needs to work on her shooting i think she got by just throwing ball up in high school and she was so quick and athletic she would beat them to bucket for rebound but at this level other people box her out and she never gets that second shot layup. Vanderwahl can play if she isn't matched up with another 5 that can play outside and is quick, but she can be quite valuable if playing more typical 5 post player. She also has good attitude and is improving. Aumer looks bigger this year, but she just seems step slower and has no confidence in her shot. If this doesn't turn around difficult to put on the court but she is good teammate and maybe she will regain her step after year of building her up. Hurst has talent but she is, so offense minded that she doesn't play defense and is very lazy playing defense. I as a fan become very frustrated with her type of play, she has flashes of brilliance but if don't work hard on both ends of the floor flashes don't even offset the poor play on defense end of the floor. She often has good statistics but if you would look more deeply the bad side of her game more than offsets the positive side of her game. Bernhard has hard coaching ahead with her to get her play kind of game she demands out of her players and getting her to buy into that type of game. I think Bernhard will have to decide what are players of future for UND for the rest of season and it's going to be long season for us fans. This is what i see looking from outside and being on the inside it might be whole lot of other things i am not aware of or i could be totally wrong on my observations. I still like to think this team has ability turn this around before season ends but time is running short, and it gets hard to fix things in the conference season.