bincitysioux

Results, 1/31/13: 66 Weber St. 51 North Dakota 79 Southern Utah 67 Sacramento St. 78 Northern Colorado 63 Idaho St. 72 Eastern Washington 68 Montana St. 81 Montana 68 Portland St.

Just did a little house cleaning and merged the "Big Sky Stats & Standings" thread along with the "Opponent Scores" thread.........

The ladies beat Weber by 5 last night to get back into the win column. Lauck had 16 points.

I wasn't able to watch tonight. Weber had no answer for the zone played by Montana or Montana St. and everybody knew it. Are you telling me we were'nt playing zone defense?

Darrell, its on 970 tonight too, just for a back up plan. I had trouble with the last telecast from GF, but that has not been the norm this year. Big Sky TV has been great for the most part!

I will have it some day...................

I've got a Samsung plasma, magnavox LCD, and Mitsubishi DLHP (projection). I like the Samsungs picture the best. But they are best placed in a dimly lit room. The LCD's picture is not as crisp, but works best in a bright room. The projection is actually my best TV for the money. Picture is better than the LCD, not quite as crisp as the plasma though, but doesn't have nearly the glare that you can get from the plasma. If a guy isn't hung up on a flat screen to hang from the wall, I think these newer projections are great. Mine is a 72" that cost $1,200 two years ago. Probably cheaper now.

And that has improved alot over the last several weeks..................

I really enjoy your blog. It is nice seeing independent coverage of the Big Sky, rather than just relying on news releases from UND or the Big Sky. You do an excellent job!

I don't have a problem with play by play crew. Hammer is comparable to Sweeney to a casual hockey guy like myself. I just grow tired of Hammers nicknames for all the coaches, but it is not a big deal to me. The few broadcasts I've seen have improved from the beginning of the season, but it is a fact that Midco's SD picture is not as clear as FSSN/WDAZ's was. But it is fine. SD is what it is. It is great that the games will be in HD next year. Woo-hoo for the Wall Drug Power Play clock. I rarely noticed it wasn't there before but that's just me. I also understand that losing FCS coverage next season has nothing to do with Midco, but UND should be held somewhat accountable for that. The most marketable member of the NCHC should have had enough pull to avoid the atrocity that will be that conference's TV deal. I don't have a problem with Midco producing the games, so much as I do with UND's apparent willingness to rely predominately on often unreliable web-based platforms to deliver programming to its fans. Unless you are one of the FEW Midcontinent subscribers, a person can't even watch the weekly coach's show on local TV in North Dakota or NW Minnesota anymore. IMO, it's just been a huge step backwards in the TV marketing area compared to what were huge strides in the preceding 10 years for UND.

I took the liberty of moving the last 15 posts that dealt with TV coverage to here, since it was more related to TV coverage in general rather than the UW game.

Big Sky Midseason Review

I'd gladly swap out the power-play clock for the ability to view the game.

Weber definately has the bar set as far as basketball pedigree goes for the Big Sky. I fully expect North Dakota to join the Wildcats and the Griz as the third conference power sometime in the next few years! Question for you Wildcat, what is the overall concensus as to how most Weber fans feel about North Dakota and SUU joining the Big Sky?

By my count, Weber has 8 NCAA tournament appearances with the last one coming in 2007. They've one the regular season title 18 times.

Wish I lived closer to GF, I'd be there. I had this game and Montana circled on the schedule since it came out as Thursday games that I wanted to attend, but kindergarten is kicking my son's butt so I think his teacher would frown upon me keeping up until midnight on a school night. I plan on making it to the rest of the Saturday games though. I wonder if my wife wants to celebrate Valentines Day at the Sioux Center? Then I could make 4 of the last 5 home games.

Wildcats look to rebound from back-to-back losses up north You can't convince me that the North Dakota-Northern Colorado road trip is more difficult than flying to Sacramento, then flying to Phoenix and having to bus 2-3 hours up to Flagstaff to get to NAU, and then back to Phoenix again..................

I've never understood why some feel that state funding should be equal between the schools.

I can't emphasize enough how impressed I am with Troy Huff this season. He has really grown as a player and improved in some key areas. In addition to the increased scoring output, he's doing it more efficiently as well. Last season he shot just 39% from the field and this year is shooting 45%. A career 63% free throw shooter, he's shooting 76% from the charity stripe this season. From beyond the 3 point arc, Huff was a career 26% shooter coming into this year and was an abysmal 19% last season. This season he's hitting at a 35% clip from 3 point land, and seems like he often hits them in critical situations. And I've said a couple times this season, even when he is having an off night offensively, the kid works so hard defensively and on the boards. He just flat out hustles every game. It is apparent that he put in alot of time in the offseason to improve his game and become a better player. Too bad he missed pretty much the entire non-conference slate of games. Several games could have potentially turned out differently had he been on the floor, specifically UMKC, SDSU, and Hawaii off the top of my head.............

Game Notes

Here's a look at all the known Big Sky non-conference games............... Cal Poly: San Diego, @ Fresno St., @ Colorado St., Yale EWU: @ Oregon St., Western Oregon, @ Toledo, @ Sam Houston St. ISU: Dixie St., Western St., @ Washington, @ BYU UM: Appalachian St., @ UND, Oklahoma Panhandle St., @ South Dakota MSU: @ NDSU, @ Stephen F. Austin UND: Valparaiso, South Dakota St., Montana NAU: @ Arizona UNC: CSU-Pueblo, @ Wyoming, Northern Iowa PSU: @ Cal, @ UC Davis SAC: @ San Jose St., @ Arizona St. SUU: @ Washington St. UCD: @ South Dakota, @ Nevada, Portland St. WSU: Stephen F. Austin, @ Utah, @ Utah St., @ McNeese St.

Apparently, Gopher fans are nearly as distraught over the Herald's reporting as Fargo U fans are. Here is Schlossman's rebuttal: Gopher Puck Live

Where is the Big 10's tournament going to be held?

YAY!!!! Actual football talk rather than "North Dakota-FU Newspaper-Gate" discussion!

One of the many things that I think makes the Big Sky rather exciting is the unbalanced schedule, and the potential advantages/disadvantages it may create for the teams in the conference. Based upon 2011 win-loss record, Cal Poly had by far and away the easiest schedule in 2012, and they rode it to a 7-1 finish, a share of the conference title, and a playoff berth. Here is how the toughest schedules shake out for the upcoming season, based on 2012 opponents winning percentage: Montana (.594) Weber St. (.532) Northern Colorado (.532) North Dakota (.516) Northern Arizona (.500) UC Davis (.500) Montana St. (.500) Southern Utah (.485) Idaho St. (.485) Cal Poly (.485) Portland St. (.469) Sacramento St. (.469) Eastern Washington (.438) For teams that had identical opponent W-L records, I took the liberty of ranking them based on my own subjective standards. For example 3 teams have schedules with .500 win percentages (NAU, UCD, and MSU). However MSU only plays one of last season's co-champs, while NAU and UCD both play two of the co-champs. NAU has to travel to both games, while UCD gets one of them at home, so I gave NAU the nod as the team with the most difficult .500 opponent schedule, yadda, yadda, yadda............... Couple interesting points: EWU has the easiest schedule in 2013. They had the toughest in 2012 and still managed to go 7-1 and win the conference. Montana and Weber are the only teams that play all three 2012 Co-Champions Just something kind of fun to consider when making predictions about how the conference race will shake out as the off-season progresses.