ND-fan

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.

I don’t like this about where our recruits come from because if the player we recruit has talent and ability to play division I basketball it doesn’t matter. The Pemberton and Horne girls from Canada look to me have the talent will only get better if they continue to work hard. Last years recruits of Beal and Hurst have struggled this year but I think they could develop into good players but each of them are having different problems. I think Beal needs playing time and what she needs to work on is her shooting and she needs to slow her game down because most of time she rushing her shots. I think right now her defense is acceptable but needs to work more on team concept of defense but again you learn most playing. If she can put this all together she can become outstanding player. Hurst has a lot of talent but her problem is she wants to be a star always putting up shot and when she has been doing this whole team suffers. Second she has not worked at playing defense and this makes her such liability for whole team. I think she needs to buy into the team but I am afraid she has her eyes on playing big time she thinks she is point guard or shooting guard but I think this going to be hard realization her talents don’t fit for playing these positions. In my opinion she could become tremendous inside player using her size strength and using her shot making ability to open high percentage shots inside. Also she could become player controlling the boards on both ends of the floor. Other players for UND have talents but it’s going to take time for these players to learn their roles. The problem right now so many of our players need to figure out there roles and then need to work hard developing those roles. The shooting problems is some of the above and some comes from UND on getting these girls prepared to shoot in game situations. Like something is happening because these players have performed before is preparation, or physical problems shooting the basketball, but since we’re having multiple people trouble this needs to be followed through looking how we can correct these problems.

Maybe this will be turning point in the season and this group of girls need to start playing as a team. Definitely hurt not having Pemberton but this team needs to work on the basics. Bernhard is going to need to simplify this down for this team and work on some basics on shooting is the first place and by this find where each individual player is getting their shot and that is where they work in the off-time shooting. I have theory and i may be all wrong on this but our conditioning program I can see where we are physically stronger with number of these players, but I also wonder if we haven't slowed them in their quickness and finesse which leads us back to our defense and shooting where both these are needed to be successful. All I know is we have long way to go if were going do something in the Summit conference. Getting back to Mayville they have been knocking on the door last three times we have played them and give them credit this time they didn't cave under pressure. NDSU played them and they beat them by 23 but the game was close until the fourth quarter when they finally broke it open and other night South Dakota State had all they wanted with Dordt college and were down most of the game finally winning by 12 another NAIA school but rated 2 in the country. The separation in women's sport is not as wide as it is in mens sports between the various classes in women's sports and is one of the reasons like women's sports because one or two players often times is the difference between various classes.

The shooting is horrendous but that can improve second half, but Mayville is quicker to basketball and have quick hands when playing defense. UND has been lucky that Mayville has committed as many turnovers as possible by unforced defense and there outside shooting is off tonight. The team that cleans up their game will probably win this game and this could go either way in my opinion. Its matter who want it more and right now it hasn't been UND. Pemberton is not dressed anyone know the reason.

I have questions for UND-FB-Fan i would like to know if were born and raised in North Dakota or Norther Minnesota because you seem to have aversity to power structure and how the politics happen at the UND. I am saying you're not wrong on some of your ideas but it's the attitude that your 100% correct and you seem to think your criteria for job is W and L. I think community, School, and Alumni do care about are W and L, but they also care about student athletes' academics and type of individuals that represent them on the field. The references to facilities that have been built are reflection of backers of UND football that believe in the program and have supported this coach otherwise money would not have been here to build these facilities. I still think a lot dissatisfaction is we have had not experienced the glory that the university to South has experienced in last 15 years and we have not caught up to them and surpassed them. The history of between the Two universities goes way back and each of them have had their dominance and other behind other. The late 70's and 80's UND was dominant in hockey and Fargo was trying to catch up build hockey program until they finally drop whole idea and put money forth into their football program. There rewards didn't happen until we see them build into division I program and become the dominant program they are today. We have been trying to catch them ever since we went division I but problem has is they have established name recognition and parlayed into having big recruiting advantage over most of area teams. The exception now SDSU has made inroads on this front, and we are starting to win a few recruiting battles but very few. This is where i come from you have seen some of Missouri valley teams hyer this flashy coach they bubble up for year then they fall back to bottom league trying to rebuild their program and nobody is coming to games and supporters are know where to be found. Example of this is Missouri State. Und has had one period of this in my lifetime and nearly took 20 years to get back to where they were dominant program. We were one coach of this happening before Bubba came in had support of long term to get program heading in right direction. This is why people in charge may seem slow to younger fans that want immediate gratification because you have no experience or history of what it takes schools like UND to build program and stay in the upper tier of that sport. The majority of schools in FCS don't have resources or money if things blow up to just turn around do it again because what usually people resources disappear with big time failure. The University to South is exception and they want even to move higher in Football and they may very well achieve that but i have my doubts on that because of where we located.

I think this will be trend in the near future for the top teams in FCS that head coaches are going to be leaving as soon as possible it's no-win situation for them with transfer portal and NIL money. Your expected to win and now you may recruit the talent to put together winning team and FBS will just come in take that talent with life changing money and portal makes it easy for them to do this but its one-time portal so the chance of stealing player being under-utilized is not happening if you have sit out year. The last few power schools of FCS are jumping ship with few exceptions like NDSU because of our location and demographics making it hard for them or other Dakota schools to move up to FBS. The Missouri Valley and Big Sky may like i have said may need to form their own FBS conference from the top teams out of both of these conferences or accept what FCS is becoming old Division II of the 70's. College Football is changing and i wouldn't be surprised near future large number of schools will be looking to drop it because of the above and economics of trying to make yourself competitive is going to be to high.

The expansion of division I sports in last 15 years maybe coming to end and number of schools that are division I may be not able to maintain that level going forth. School enrollments across the country are declining and with that funding at colleges is also declining and the costs to maintaining division I sports department money is probably not going to be their for number of schools. Now division I schools are going down the road of NIL for number schools they lack resources and communities support the level funding to make this work. NDSu appears heading down this road and trying to move up to FBS and they may have enough community resources to make this happen but can they maintain this over long period of time. Already they are seeing declining enrollments and budget problems on academic side of the school. i look at last few years how number of schools that have been talked about in conferences that have been struggling financially falling behind facilities and funding their sports. Even Und has experienced this with loss baseball, women’s hockey, men and women’s swimming and is still factor in our remaining sports. This sounds negative but I also believe we’re coming to the haves and have nots in division I sports upper tier will just set up standards that will just force have nots to lower division just another division. It will be what division II was like 40 years ago. The fact is where we are at division I we play division I schools like us we have chance to compete but our chances with competing with power five schools having reasonable chance of competing is dream. Yes there always Cinderella every year but closest I can remember with one winning was Indiana State with Larry Bird but even then they didn’t win. Football we play already at lower level. It’s going to be interesting period of time going forth in next several years where this all shakes out but number on this board will not like where we may end up competing at.

If this team doesn’t get to where they work and take a good shot instead of settling for 3 it’s going to be long season. Plus they need to play defense every time down the court. I will even go out saying Friday game against Mayville is going to be hard win if Mayville plays like it did against NDSU we could find ourselves down like today. On Bernhard you could tell frustration she is having with this team but our freshman are making mistakes but they are playing hard and Hurst just took herself out this game with her frustration and she is just not playing very good defense not combination you need to have out your experienced player. I think Bernhard is going to have some tough decisions coming ahead with this team on player roles for this team.

It is there day where they bring in grade school students and the place is full of fans. I don’t know how this works for these grade school students on if it’s free for them but I think it’s good way promoting your basketball teams and getting kids wanting to come ro games .

It would be interesting to see this game officiated with calling all the pushing that went on inside the paint today and clutching and grabbing. I think if game was back here in Grand Forks this would have been different game. Still could have won this game we need to shoot better free throws if we had just shot 75% would have been coming down being only down one changes whole game would have been playing ahead at the end instead of down 4 to 6. I still like how were playing and never giving up and were not get blown out even when we go down by 10 in the game. This team could be very good at the end of the season.

If that is case if it’s determint to what you trying to do as team and your not playing up to your potential then you have tough choice ahead of you as coach. Yes, she maybe offensive threat but doesn’t put into position where you can win no matter how much talent she has you as coach are paid to win. Then you need to explain this as coach and I believe she has to understand this may affect her playing time because you have to be control of the team and she is not dominant type of player that can be dominant all over the court which is my opinion. She is not like SDSU player of like Mya Selland or Chloe Lamb of South Dakota that were complete players on both sides of the ball. I hope your wrong on this because this team needs to get these players play rolls that are best suited to their talents.

Eastern Michigan game had few minutes or flashes of playing team offense but again relying to much on standing shooting the three ball. Even Midco announcer and former coach Val Sussex even wondered why didn’t they move Hurst into lower post in the fourth quarter. Hurst has talent to be really big factor if she uses her ability inside and be facilitator for others on team to create scoring. VanderWahl is improving and if her Hurst could work together in the post Und could become very good in the middle. Pemberton I believe is going to be special player and I only see her continuing to improve. My thoughts is Bernhard is going to have to settle on 7 or 8 player rotation soon and but this may cause some ego’s getting Bruced. I just don’t see right now where we compete with top four or five teams of the summit as we are playing right now I think we will be loosing games to these teams by 10 to 20 points. I still think this group can become good team but they have to play team basketball forget worrying about there stats. I guess bottom line is can this team mature and play together this year or are we going to struggle learning this in the end look at rebuilding year.

What I watched today had no assemblence of any organized offense we come down shoot a three or we drive the ball create maybe one on one but usually desperate shot thrown up. Also I don’ t understand having Hurst at top of key instead of getting her worked down low and giving her screen where she put up with position and probably get fouled.same thing with VanderWahl but more of shot over defender in the paint. I don’t know if the plan is to run and gun but I don’t think it will work. i wonder if after this weekend if Bernhard goes back reevaluates what they are doing especially now with Kacie down and develops offense more of team concept rains in everyone to more of team concept. I was optimistic on this group but I think tim3 is running out to develop into what I thought they could be. This could be repeat of Mallory’s first year when we had a lot of talent but never did gell as a team. I guess time will tell but time is running short for this years team.

That could very well be the case and not only for the players but also for the coaching staff they are looking for her to much and not demanding more from other players to step up lead as well.

It was terrible performance and i have to agree with most said above. This group needs to start playing as a team and start running some kind of offense. This coming down and taking 3 from outside is not going to cut it. We need to run some kind of offense where we get good shot from the paint. We have nothing so far to look take of our size inside when we have taller players on the floor. We need to look to inside to score and if not then kick out for good outside shot. I still think this group could get to become good team, but they are going to have to play team ball and not look for their numbers otherwise were never going to win this even goes down to Kacie. Bernhard is going to need also decide what type of basketball team is she going to put on the floor today she started small and then went back to bigger but it's time to settle on style then work from there to get performance out of this group of players. I knew were going to struggle with this group of young players and not having point guard that could control play but i thought we would be getting better by now.

Only transfer is Oberg and I was expecting more but looks like she is having back problems. Last two recruiting classes of freshman there looks to be some talent in several players from each class but they are still young and developing. Even Kacie didn’t show much until late in her sophomore season and that is what I am hoping we see this year with last years recruiting class. This team is going to take time to develop and we’re looking at Kacie, Hoskins, and Davis with some experience to build around it would have been nice to have couple more experienced players to help build a team around. Like somebody said they need to start play more as team and I think it will happen but Berhard is going to have settle on rotation and also to get Kacie to lead this team and get them playing together but this will probably mean Kacie being less of scorer and more facilitator for the team.

They came out flat today, but the second half was better with more hustle and played better defense. Hurst looks like she is playing hurt from what I saw today. Also, she needs to get better shape could tell she has been limited in working out on the floor to gain some endurance running. The offense side of the game needs to be work on get some rhythm and better shot selection. Kacie was trying to do too much and resulted in turnovers and bad shot selection. As badly as they played today, they came back and had chance to win this game against very good opponent. I think you could see from last game they had worked hard on defense with these younger players but then you see what happened to our offense. This is very young team playing out there, but they are improving from game to game, but they need to start putting together more complete game. The shooting needs to improve, and it will if they start running offense that puts them in good position to shoot the basketball. Pemberton and Horne look like they could see significant minutes if they continue to improve from game to game. Aumer to me is struggling right now and I don't believe it's not from working on her game skills. To me she has improved her athletic strength but in doing so she has lost some of her natural flow as athlete but that may come the more, she plays. Und is going to need her this year provide minutes in guard position. The freshmen getting playing time to me she's not ready yet to play needs more playing time and work playing guard position. I think we will see big difference by time we reach the break before Christmas and even then, we will have long ways to go before this team can counted on to win games on consistant basis. I still think they can be force by end of the year.

I agree with most of your analysis and this preseason conference schedule is going to be important in that they need to continue to improve and for them to gain confidence. If not we will go through similar season Malory had as interim coach. I believe that Kacie needs to be part of the offense but others need to work at becoming as important as is kacie is now. What I have seen lately there is to much standing watching Kacie to create some offense. This team has a lot athleticism with Kacie, Hurst, Beal, Pemberton, and Horne. Adding to this VanderWal and Oberg at post we have size depth to match up with most of teams in the conference but now comes hard part of getting this group to jell play as team and play up to their potential. That is why I’m so optimistic on this group because I think this group are winners and they want to reach goal of playing and being winners.

I am not delusional, but I see lot of talent on the floor for us but it's so young needs playing time and that is what we're doing. Hurst will help but will not turn this around for us. This team is going to have hard preseason especially with quality of the teams they are playing. I thought i saw some improvement over the Wyoming game in our defense but still a long way to go before you can call it average to good defense. Tonight, we played very good opponent that will more than likely will be in NCAA tournament could reach round of 16. This is squad put together of portal players with goal to win now and no building for the future. They can do that with NIL money and location recruit portal players. I would guess shortly number of players being seen on floor will shrink and we will start putting players that will become the nucleus of this team on the floor. So far i am impressed with the freshmen on the team its big transition to go against experienced players like we saw tonight and not to mention our sophomores who have to play as veterans for players who have not played alot of minutes. I still think we can be in top of the Summit if they develop and gain confidence in themselves. The big thing is are they going to wear down as the season progresses its long hard season and young players are not prepared for that mentally or physically. I liked how they played hard to the end.

I have feeling we win 28-14 but our offense will need to control the ball in the second half. USD has good defense but if our offense plays like it can we can control the ball. Our defense just needs to prevent big plays and stop them one or two times this game will come down time possession who is most effective in red zone. South Dakota has won conference games by getting lead and playing defense and winning close games. We need to do this them but with our offense controlling the ball on methodical drives keeping their offense off the field and keeping our defense rested and making their offense play catch-up instead of them playing keep away from our offense. This is what they did to the bison and sulki’s .

South Dakota State is experiencing wave of injuries for this season they have lost Timmer and Theisen for the season and now have Behrens one of their new recruits out for some time leaving them with 9 players. I believe this is going to make Summit dog fight for who could win the conference. So it’s important that this group of players come together and have a good season chance for them to win the conference and play post season basketball.

I thought this year Bernhard has done much better recruiting longer and more athletic players in Horne, Pemberton, and Ibrahim all are long look to be athletic. This is much bigger team than we have had in long time. Beal may a little under six feet but her long arms and jumping ability matches her up with a lot of six plus players. Then we have Hurst strength and ability to score inside and Bass looks to be similar player. The question is can we play better defense in post area and I believe that will come. Wyoming experienced team took advantage of that in the post but was good game for us to learn from and get better. i am more concerned about our offense it was good see Kacie score but we need her to have less points from her and more from the rest of the team. To win we need scoring from the team and having only Kacie scoring is not recipe for winning.

I see Hurst isn’t dressed must be injured and unable to play. Beal is really showing some offensive moves tonight. Und is showing a lot of athletic talent tonight. We have ways to go on defense and to get them all on same page. This group needs to get some confidence now with playing together.