ND-fan

The lack of height on front line is showing especially on the road. All conference losses this season have one thing in common we are getting out rebounded on the road and we are getting more fouls in our attempts to box out and when we do loose the rebound on defensive end were also picking up additional foul defending. Today with size and length that ORU had it showed very much. The pressure we showed getting back into the game was great, but we need to be able to expect and play our taller younger players expect quality minutes out them. They are showing improvement to week to week but i still believe they needed to play more minutes in the preseason to help these players get farther along for the conference season. Bernhard will need to recruit some more length either through the portal or with high school recruits that she has the confidence in making the jump to college basketball. With the exception of South Dakota all our losses are to teams that have length and athleticism we haven't had people to match up with them. Also, other conference teams have seen this weakness and are game planning with their teams to take advantage of this weakness. This why we experienced such close games with Ohama and Denver they used their size against us. I believe the key for us down the stretch will be how effective Beal, Hurst, VanderWall, and McCarthy can step up play quality minutes to help relieve our starters down low. This means not just playing defense but also to provide some offense to free up Kacie and others, so they won't be double teamed. Since Kacie was freshmen, we were strong our frontline but couldn't get good guard play and now we are totally opposite.

ORU is going to be very difficult game for us today and we are going to need to play offense today and as well as defense. This is exact type of team we have hard time matching up against they are long and fast team built to beat us and match very well against SDSU which they proved early in the season. If we are to beat this team, we will need to shoot ball well and get them in foul trouble early. I think our freshmen are going to need play some significant minutes and make jump in their level of play. If other players on team can create some offense this would help Kacie create her offense and have much higher shooting percentage because we need to start improving out percentage this has been reason for the close games. This should be fun game to watch.

I will consider this win if we can keep this game in twenty-point game but i am afraid that may be bridge to far to expect. After watching play the Bison this is team put together for the NCAA tournament with addition of couple transfers to last year's team. This team is made up 22- and 23- year-old players they have Abmas and McBride from outside or they can drive and shoot. Then they are either big on front court or powerful depending on who they bring in plus this team is deep in talent. By far they are the class of the Summit this year and i believe they are much better than SDSU was last year. I base this on the Bison game because the Bison played as good or better than last year's team against ORU Thursday night as they did against SDSU last year that was close game but against ORU they held it close for 3/4 of game and just few minutes ORU just blew game wide open. It still should be fun game to watch because to see the talent on floor and what they can do.

I was afraid this was going to happen again at KC we have hard time matching up with them especially on the road. Again we did not have good offensive game and we need to play better offensively to play defensively. Last year when we played this road trip we looked tired and tonight we did again. Second when we go south we get different style of reffing which we are not used to I se it both in the men and women’s games. The sad part we now go to ORU next and this is another team we don’t match up to very well. I thought tonight when we pressed with Beal on the point we were starting to turn things around. Beal needs to work on her shooting if part of her game would come around she could become feared player in the Summit. Somebody scoffed at KC earlier on the board but they may want to rethink that especially when they are at home.

I agree he was fun to watch play and for me i miss that style of basketball not the game we play today. He shined in that system because he played game so intelligently and they most of the time took high percentage shot and they played good defense.

It was a good press conference, and he is right that they are playing very young team out there we have no elite junior or senior player to build around on this team. I would criticize him on couple of points but being assistant coach, he does not have final say on construction of this team. I look at this roster wonder why they didn't look for one transfer that would give them team leadership from point guard position. The goal seems to be to build this team with high school recruits and that continues again with next year's recruits. This is not the answer a lot of people who are on this board are looking for because to do this means were at least looking at another year before we can look to move to upper half of the conference. I have to believe Chaves has had to sign off on this as well or Sather is putting himself at great risk with his job. Even on women's side they are basically been doing the same thing only difference is they do have elite player in Borowicz and now number of senior players this year but there again they didn't replace starter that transferred but went with high school players to replace with for this year. I believe this is philosophy of athletic department and it comes from the AD and University President must have signed off on this as well or fully approves of this practice. We do need a win because these players are needing to get some confidence back. I wouldn't be surprised we see two-year extension of Sather's contract especially if we start to get a few wins before the season is over.

I had idea but i may be way off in my thinking to help move the conference up in standings and i would think number of other mid-major conferences and even some major conferences could be open to this that halfway mark of conference season play couple of non-conference games. Because once you start conference season it's pretty hard to move very far in the net rankings when you are playing conference teams in some cases your net rankings can even go down if you're winning. Also, if your conference would have success in these later season games could pull all teams up in their net rankings. The way it is now if your young team which most mid-major teams are you have poor preseason you have zero chance in play in post season tournament. This would be way to determine how much each conference has made from the beginning of the year. Instead of conferences and teams are rated by past year results or early season results. I may be way off here but as it stands now there is not much reward for improvement during the season unless you can win the conference tournament at end of the season. This something i have been thinking about for some time and would put the conference season into two seasons letting teams have break in conference season and then have that final push to win the conference or improve their chances play post season.

The only way possible for two from the conference would be if somebody upset SDSU and somebody else gets automatic birth. Which I don’t see likely and it would result in low seating hurting chances to get very far in the tournament. My hope is other teams get invites to wnit and wcbi tournaments would help in recognition and recruiting talent.

SDSU the way they have shot ball in Frost pretty much going to be a blow out. Johnson also taking advantage against top contenders in last three games by burying them at home to shake confidence of these teams that they can play with them when they get home. They shot 60% against Usd for the game and had 60 plus in second quarter and then third qtr shot 70 plus. This was pretty much what they did against us. I see USD board they are complaining about defense but with sdsu size and then when they are shooting the 3 at 60% this is going to happen and they are playing 9 deep and little fall off with their players. I think Bernard after seeing this we have seen change in our rotations we are seeing us now play our younger players more. I believe this is only way we will have chance getting to upper tier in the conference it gives us different looks and gets longer to compete against some these teams in conference. This coming week games are going to be critical in winning if we want to finish top 3 in the conference. Both of these teams are long and will be critical to control boards. If we win here would have good chance bettering our last years record.

We’re going to need to work on our offense we had several bad games of shooting can’t rely on defense to win on always. When we played against good offensive teams the past two weeks if you get down you have to score to get into the game. Glad to see us playing some of our young talent. The game is starting to slow down for them. Beal is starting to show why she was highly reguarded recruit. She gives us more length and no doubt she is very athletic. We were very lucky to win this game and we still have to go there. We are going to have to keep winning at home to improve our conference record over last year.

I just got to believe were due for complete game but like you say this Omaha not a place where we shine. I think we got to choose starting 5 and top 8 and go with it take our lumps we need to have players having confidence that if trying to make a play they aren't going to get immediately pulled and sit on the bench. Then we get what been experiencing players to afraid to push their skills because if they fail, they know they are on the bench. I think you have to ride with group players and even if make bunch of errors you live with it and clean it up game to game. This is young team and only way they are going to learn is through mistakes and you set yourself up for this when you constructed this team when recruiting these players. This is fact that young teams make mistakes, and they don't look good for portions of the game but only cure for this is to play the games keep teaching and cleaning things up. The experienced players on this team many of them don't have talent now to help this team and some of them i believe reason is from injuries and are not fully recovered from their injury. Sather has gone route of building a team from very young players that will take several years to build into quality team, but many here think it's failed. It definitely has serious setbacks but to be fair change in college transfer rules and loss of quality players may be the case. The biggest fault i have seen with Sather he has not been able to recruit the diamond in rough guard that Jones did over years and i don't know the reason for this and would love to hear from college coaches if there is reason for this in that Sather is looking for something different in his guards. All I know were in for another frustrating season but i would like to see where were starting to see were turning corner with this team. i'm older and i believe i have more patience than younger generation and i have found in life to be successful at things it takes time and patience and success that comes with fast changes never lasts and usually digs deeper whole to dig out of.

Omaha vs. UND, we need to get back on track tonight and regain some of their confidence in playing defense and to score the basketball. This is very winnable game if we play defense and limit our turnovers. We should be quicker on front line which should offset their size at center and i believe that VanderWall could get some playing time against Pilakouta would give her some experience playing against physical center but one she should be quicker and have height advantage against. Gordon should be able to front her and if brings ball down have very good chance of stealing the ball. Hurst should be able to play physical with her and be way quicker on offense and Pilakouta comes out to defend should result in layup for her or assist if somebody comes over and helps. At the guard level we will be challenged because very quick and will need to get back on defense. I believe this should be double digit win for us and if not i will be surprised.

I thought the current regime that was put in place was to build twins organization into organization that could draft build farm system that would supply pitching like where they came from in Cleveland but they have been since 2016 only top line pitcher they have had is from previous regime developed. My question where is the accountability for the head office by ownership and management when we have had no success in player development. Most of the talent can be traced back to previous GM in the Twins organization and they have spent fortune on modern technology but very little results. Now were heading down path of signing high cost free agents can we now afford to go this way.

I think Juliet Gordon has yea r left because she has medical waiver on one of her previous years. She has lost two years of playing time because from being injured and she would have her Covid year eligibility to be considered. I could be wrong on this but this what I think she has year left.

Following this thread, we have 3 commits i believe of Kiera Pemberton 6' guard, Paris Bass 6' guard, and Mahogany Cottingham 5' 8" guard. Looking at the roster we should have four scholarships available for the coming year for sure. Then we have 4 players that could use their extra year because of covid they are Kacie Borowicz. Maggie Manson, Sammiyah Hoskins, and Juliet Gordon and i assume that will be done at the end of the year. Do we have other offers out there yet to be accepted i haven't been following on this. I believe this incoming class is going to be important in whether we can catch the teams ahead of us.

I see Amanda Roach our recruit this year is now at Lake Superior State back in Michigan a DII school.

You forget about ORU we will have tuff game against them on the road. They are another team with length and have quick guards and we will have hard time matching up against them. I also think we may have another loss or two against rest of the league. This is best team we have had in the Summit and if we were in the Big Sky we would be contending for title. I look at this team we are just lack length and athleticism in front line to compete n the Summit. That is my opinion and I will still be rooting them hoping they are better than what I think. I was really impressed with Aumer today she’s going to become very good point guard. Hurst and Beal are also going to be very good players just need to work on their play which is experience. Vanderwall should continue to improve but will struggle when she has to play against Mobil post players. I thought so at beginning of the year we could become number two team and no worse than third but watching them I think we will have to fight hard to be fifth seed just my opinion. Bernhard is going to have as good a recruiting class this coming year or even better if she wants us to catch up with SDSU looking at talent they brought in this year.

SDSU looks to be to much for us. I don’t get it now we are playing the freshmen with the regulars why didn’t we do this preconference season. It looks like we’re going to be at the best 5 th seed in the conference and what I was afraid of is we need at least one more experienced post player. The Summit conference looks to be above average in quality teams.

I would agree with you but now show me how many schools at the mid-major program field winning programs across number of sports and that's the reality of it being at the division I level unless your one big schools in division I sports. Hockey is the number one sport at UND, and it gobbles up majority of resources for that program, then we have football that is number two sport which is not fully funded but requires large portion of resources here at UND. Then we come to Basketball resources are split between men's and women's doesn't have the following that basketball has in many other schools because of popularity of hockey here at UND. Even with that we are better at drawing then number of the other schools in our conference. The problem is Basketball is competing for advertising dollars and donor sport at same time hockey is in small market. I am not picking on hockey but pointing out that UND is unique in this and only other team in conference that has that situation is ST. Thomas and they are only making shift now we will see how they make the transition. They have big advantage in that they are in much larger market. But getting back to UND how do think administration should respond to this for the athletic program to fund these various sports to where we are competitive. I have some ideas, but it would be interesting to hear from people complaining about what's wrong but also how they would correct this and where the resources are to come from. The one thing i have thought even since we jumped to division I, the major reasons many schools wanted to compete at division I level sport was they had one sport they wanted to move up in but rule if you moved up then you moved all sports with exception of hockey. I wondered why NCAA didn't allow that for other sports as well and if you moved up then you had to provide enough resources to where you were equal to other schools already at division I. I would bet there would have been majority of the schools would have kept their status at division II in upper midwest with exception of moving football up and some of the Basketball only schools would have moved up for basketball. This is why see problems the NCAA has now, and big schools are looking to cut other smaller schools out selling themselves outside of the NCAA cutting off sharing this money with the smaller schools.

I think Sather could be coaching to save his job and I wonder if that is why he has been fooling around with so many lineup changes. Everyone one around here is so critical of Jones as coach but most of you kind of forget kind of talent he brought in here and we did play post season several years in a row. I also think to be fair with him he was asked to run program on shoestring budget where it was difficult to retain top quality coaches to help in running the program and to retain these coaches to develop consistent philosophy of style. But as head coach he was able to recruit and retain top players even after he left number of those players stayed and had good years here at UND. Jones wasn't perfect but remember being head coach at small mid major like UND is lot harder than you think with budgets they operate under and getting and finding good talent to come here were not there first or second choice for kids out this area that want to come too! Sather has shown he can be good x and o's coach but this year when we are basically playing four freshmen large minutes this not x and o's team this would be JV team of the past teaching them how to play the college game. HIs problem is finding kids with talent to come here and play here and i fear that he and his assistant coaches have been looking for players that want to come play type of game he wants but these are kids that are borderline between DI and DII. This was Jones strength he found DI kids with great upside, but he had to live with them not playing always style he wanted to play but he had to adapt figure how harness that talent into winning team. Sather when he finds these players it's hard for him to either play them or he wants to change them with how college basketball is today kids move on if they don't feel like this how they want to play. Getting back to Sather job i have to believe AD is hoping he can turn this team around by end of year and he can extend his contract for couple years to see how this class of recruits' fairs. If he fires Sather he will be looking for coach and that coach will be looking at starting from scratch because majority of these recruits would look elsewhere. Second, it's going to cost him alot more to find new coach because i believe were probably 50,000 To 100,000 off what other coaches are making now at mid major and to start rebuilding the program, you're not going to get alot applicants unless pay is higher and longer-term contract. If you go like some of you say, go with unproven younger talent and if that fails it could mean he could lose his job. This season is going to determine the future of number of people in this program if everyone believes we have lost faith in the coach. I wonder if that is case because there is large silent majority out there that haven't made up their minds. We will see.

Kacie should have had few assists with blown layups on some nice feeds. This game mirrors several of our losses against teams with length in that we control the game too late. I think size wears us down it shows up in our rebounding and our defense gettin in foul trouble. If we’re going to be factor against these teams our freshmen are going to need to step up and begin to play more minutes for us. Mallory is good coach but she has fault in playing starting five large minutes and I think Jory has taken advantage of this over the years. I do think we can take them at home if we’re healthy at that time.

This opening week for the Dakota schools pretty much held serve and only close game was SDSU vs ORU. I was impressed with ORU after SDSU game then they played USD and this was the team I had seen in the preseason so what team is closer to their level of play. It will be interesting see Dakota schools how will they fair as they go on the road in the Summit conference. Und continues to look good but I still have reservations how they will fair as the season advances and reason is how they will match up against Sdsu and Oru which have tall front courts and quick guards. The real positive right now I think they are playing the best defense in the conference roight now. Defense wins championships and that is my hope for this team. I also think this break will be good for the team gives them break to heal pre conference season bumps and bruises and still will have number days practice for the game next week.

I didn’t watch last nights game but looking at the box score where we lost the game was they had 22 off turnovers and we had 4 for difference of 18 points. I would say we need to protect the ball better and watching this team this year this has been big problem Turing over the ball and allowing other team to score off those turnovers. St. Thomas is one best teams to exploit other team weaknesses and are very disciplined playing the game and we on the other hand have not been. I wouldn’t be surprised that St Thomas isn’t going to be one or two in the conference this year. We continue to play a lot of people the reason for this nobody has stepped up showed they can play consistent game or they have major weakness in their game. Look at the comments by all of us on board about different players how they are so different from night to night so see why coaching has played so many fiferent players each night. I would say only player that has played consistent game or over achieved is Danielson. I believe they had hoped Suecker would have provided this but looking at him this year he’s not the player he was last year or year before..I believe what ever he hurt last year is either still affecting him or doesn’t allow him movement he had before the injury because he looks slow and doesn’t have the movement he had before. The hope is that some of these players figure it out by the end of the season. The only positive is this very young team and that’s probably why we’re seeing what we’re seeing.

Yes, important to hold home court and win these games if we want to be one of the top teams in conference. Last night upper tier teams all won by convincing margins. The exception was SDSU that played ORU and it appears after watching the game that ORU may be team that could contend for one of the top spots in conference. They did this last night without their starting center Moore. They play fast and have good size on the front line and extremely quick at the guards. This will be difficult team for us to match up against and I will be interested in how we will prepare and match up against them. The next two weeks we will have played most top teams in conference with exception ORU.

I agree on that, but they are getting back their point guard next week should clean up high percentage of their turnovers and give them good three point shooter and if not good at pentrating to the basket. If Myer gets back to level she was at last year Rabbits are going to tough to beat. My hope would be they get over confident and play sloppy game while were playing near perfect game to pull off upset.