dakotadan

That is my point. The green looks too dark and looks very similar to the NDSUA&AS green than it does the lighter/brighter Kelly green that UND has been great about using on all of its uniforms for the last decade+. And where is the collar on it? It should have a green collar band. Just my opinion. Nothing disgustingly horrible but nothing great.

Meh. And the green is way off.

I'm guessing this is supposed to be a lame joke. But looking at the pic I wouldn't be surprised if he is the NDSUA&AS water boy or even one of the kickers. Assistant coach? Wait, is that Gene Taylor?

What I have yet to see the people complaining mention is that the original turf that the CITY purchased before the Al even opened did say "SIOUX" in one endzone. I'm pretty sure UND didn't pay a penny for GF to put that there. If the name hadn't been changing, I'm sure the new turf would say "SIOUX" in the same endzone. And in the 11 years of the previous turf, I don't remember the lack of a center field ND ever being this big of a deal. And speaking of name placement, I don't remember ever hearing or seeing anyone complain about the ice sheet that the UND hockey teams play on saying "Ralph Engelstad Arena" and not "North Dakota - Home of the Fighting Sioux" at center ice because he had every right to the naming and it's placement. However, I have said before that it would be nice to see "University of North Dakota" on the boards in front of the penalty boxes to show up on TV similar to what the Kohl Center has. But I also realize we live in a corporate sponsorship world where advertising and name placement rights pay the bills. It's a corporate world. How about we just be happy and say thanks that Alerus Financial and Altru Health are helping support UND athletics and helping us grow into a full DI athletics department.

Once again, the details are in the contracts. UND & the Al/GF's original contract required the Alerus Center to replace the turf at their own cost after 10 years. Very reasonable since the Al purchased the original turf and owned it 100%. Because of this it makes sense that the Alerus Center has final say over what logos can go on it. When UND & GF were negotiating the current contract, both sides had to agree to the terms. The 2 came to a mutual agreement & one of those agreements was to put off the turf replacement for a year or 2 while they discussed the turf replacement & the upgrades UND was requesting & working out who would cover the costs of the additional upgrades. If it had been as simple as buying a better turf I'm sure the Al/GF would have replaced it with the newer version turf. But it required rebuilding the entire turf pit & conversion system to get the turf that UND wanted. The two sides came to an equitable agreement where the city paid for basically the turf replacement and the two sides split the cost of the pit/conversion system replacement. But in order for UND to come up with the $$$ to cover their share they had to find a donor. Altru Health stepped up to cover UND's costs. GF saw the benefit of the upgrade & gave UND the right to give Altru logo placement on the turf system that Altru, an independent 3rd party, was willing to help pay for. On top of this, UND & GF agreed to extend the current lease contract an extra year to cover the 10 year life expectancy of the turf. If you ask me, the three parties came together very well and worked out an agreement that was in the best interest of all three parties!

The placement of the Alerus Center logo on the turf is contractually obligated in the naming rights contract that the city of GF and Alerus Financial agreed to before the Al even opened. If people on here want to pony up the $$$ to buy out the naming rights contract for even more $$$ than Alerus Financial is paying, I'm sure the city would be interested & put whatever logos on the turf that the SS.com poster(s) who buy it out want.

I absolutely love the black endzones! I said last year I would have loved them to be balck! But is it just me or does the turf look like it needs to be watered? It's looking a little dead and dried out. Maybe they are going for the authentic late-fall-dried-out-brown NoDak grass look to try fool people during FB season that it is real. Or maybe my screen's color resolution is slightly off.

Shirvani criticizes heads of NDSU, UND, Minot State I can't say that I disagree with the assessment that Kelley doesn't have much of a vision for UND. While there have been good things that have happened on his watch, it would be nice to see him be a bit more aggressive with growing UND's research and national rankings and lay out more visible goals for the university.

http://www.anygivensaturday.com/showthread.php?114429-UND-to-build-IPF!!!!!!/page5 Hmmm.

Call up the alumni association and ask them outside of NoDak and Minnesota, what areas/cities have the largest groups of UND alums. I can guarantee that the alumni association is extremely happy about UND playing games in Salt Lake City and Seattle. Throw in games against Arizona State, CU/CSU and the Ducks in the future and you have hit up most of the major UND alumni areas outside of ND/MN. Not coincidentally, the footprint of the Big Sky just happens to cover the geography of our alumni pretty well too!

It should be an amazing atmosphere!

And annoying. I honestly don't know if he has ever had a post that he didn't sneak NDSU into somehow.

I saw that. Definitely a plus in my book. The earliest I'd like to see a game start is 4. I'm still not a fan of the Thursday night games. I understand why they do it, but it makes it nearly impossible for people outside of the immediate Grand Forks area to go.

UNC ended up getting 5 runs in the 6th. Now 8-2. Ouch.

Today's game is finally underway! Roll Tribe!!! UNC up 2-0 in the 2nd. Unfortunately no audio for tonight's Live video. Here is the GameTracker if people would rather just follow it.

If UND is going to sponsor baseball at the DI level, we might as well be successful at it. Hopefully we can build a winning program with some of these Midwest/plains players. It looks like this season was a step in the right direction. Now UND and GF need to work together on finishing the turf at Kraft. This is the biggest key to UND getting games played in early spring. Once this is done they both need to then look at upgrading the grandstand/game day facilities. And hopefully the indoor practice facility will be up in the next 2-3 years. People think of the IPF as a football facility, but it will greatly help out other programs like baseball, too.

I've been following the B1G baseball tourney at Target Field this week. Right now Minnesota and Nebraska are playing. Connor Schaefbauer is up to bat for the Goofs and is facing Ryan Hander who is pitching for Nebraska. Both are from Sioux Falls, SD. Just found it rather interesting. Looking at Minnesota's roster, they have kids primarily from Minnesota with a few from Wisconsin and California then other random states. They even have a player from Great Falls, Montana. Nebraska has plenty of kids from their home state with Iowa, Mo, Minnesota, Texas, Colorado and AZ mixed in. I've glanced at a few of the other BCS schools' baseball rosters while watching tourney games and there is plenty of players from the Midwest/plains that are playing for these schools.

It would be pretty disappointing if we were playing 12 games next year with only 5 home games. Since it appears the USD game is a media mix-up, hopefully they are working on another home/home that begins at the Al for next season to set up a 6 home - 6 away schedule for next season. It would be nice to hear more about the Mo State contract. I wonder when they snuck that on the schedule. It appears nobody knew about it until people noticed it on the UND website today.

Usually one of two reasons. 1. Most conferences have a buyout to leave. The longer notice you give a conference, usually the lower the buyout or if enough notice is given there might not be a buyout. So in some cases schools just have to decide if they are willing to pay the whole price to get out as soon as possible or if they would rather give notice and wait a year or two to save a few bucks. 2. On the conference side, it depends on how desperate they need the school. If they are losing a school on short notice the conference has to decide if they want them right away. The biggest concern from a conference standpoint is scheduling and if they can quickly redo sports schedules to fit a school in. For most sports that doesn't seem to be too difficult. The problems seem to pop up when football is involved. FB has a relatively short schedule compared to other sports and usually non-conference game contracts are signed years in advance. So there isn't a lot of flexibility. To completely redo FB schedules for the whole conference can get messy if trying to do it on short notice. Also, if a conference is desperate for a school, they might be willing to pay the exit fee or part of the exit fee for the school they are targeting. As far as Idaho, it was purely a money grab. They are in a unique situation because they and NMSU were the only remaining FB schools left in the WAC, so the two schools were splitting a ton of exit fee $$$ from all of the other football schools that recently left the WAC. By sticking around an extra year, they are getting a lot of extra pennies from those exit fees. I'm sure the Big Sky would have loved to have had them in this fall.

NJIT Tournament Home Page Live video

Bracket Set for 2013 Great West Conference Baseball Tournament Hopefully they cover this year's tournament as well as they did last year's.

While I have not seen any official word from the Big Sky, I am assuming that the BSC will begin sponsoring men's golf in 2014-15 when Idaho joins. That would be six Big Sky teams in UNC, UND, Sac State, S. Utah, Weber State and Idaho. The closest thing I have seen to confirmation of this is in the press release when Idaho announced they were joining the BSC and HERE: The more sports we can get under the Big Sky and WAC banners the better.

Add in the Brookings U game & we are 7 out of 9 and if you add in the previous weekend against NYIT we are 9 out of the last 13. The underclassmen are really doing a good job carrying the team right now! The guys should do well at home this Thurs-Saturday to bring us into our final GW tournament on a roll. The WAC (even as ugly as it looks compared to what we know as the old WAC) should be a good baseball league going forward. Has anyone heard more if they are fundraising to finish the artificial turf in the outfield at Kraft Field? That is something we really need to finish for recruiting & getting games actually played going forward.

I guess I never even realized that women's college basketball never had the 10 second back court rule. Maybe I need to pay closer attention at games.

Wow, the Brookings U and Vermillion U lackeys really are the just as obnoxious, red-headed little brothers of the Fargo U fans.