bincitysioux

South Dakota head coach Ed Meierkort is one of the 10-11 candidates for the Montana State job. He did a phone interview this week. USD Board Meierkort has done well both at the DIII level and more recently DII the last few years with USD. If he is a candidate on the "short list", I'd have to assume that Dale Lennon should be too.

As a farmer, and seeing as how it was getting real dry, I love this weather!

I know this is against my better judgement, but I just can't resist to comment.............. Actually, after 10 years of Mason at the helm, I feel that I could have been named head football coach at UMTC and that alone would have sold out a game against Minnesota State Technical and Community College. At least that is what I gather from my uncle who is a UMTC alum, booster, and season ticket holder. The fan-base was very down on Mason. I agree completely. Maturi is a smart guy. Maruri was smart enough to get rid of Mason (despite his track record of fielding winning teams and making bowl games, he was taking UMTC nowhere), and smart enough to get rid of Monson and then convinceing the legendary Tubby Smith to take over a floundering basketball program. He's also spent some time over the past year lobbying the higher-ups at UMTC to reconsider their policy against playing schools with Native American nicknames obviously for the specific reason that he wishes to get UND on their sports schedules. Like I said...........smart guy. Considering that Maturi is such a smart guy, I wonder what he and UMTC fans think which is a bigger, more potentially entertaining and profitable rivalry to pursue is: One that dates back one season to a single game, or one that goes back 70+ years and has routinely had conference and national championship implications? Hmmmmmmmmmm..............................................

It takes money to win. There's nothing wrong with exposing our kids to the highest caliber of opponent as we possibly can.

Only thing I know of is Montana St. at the Betty on Dec. 28.

What about the rivalry?

Assistant Coach Ryan Moody was on Tim and Swyg this morning. He said the schedule would likely be released in the next few days. He mentioned the Iowa St. Game, and also said that UND will host a tournament over the Thanksgiving weekend that would include UM-Crookston, Western Oregon, and I think he said a team from the south which has been to the Elite 8 or maybe just the playoffs for the last 4 years, anyways he said they were a very strong opponent. He also said they'd be playing Adams St. from the RMAC.

IIRC, last year's schedule wasn't released until late June or early July, so I wouldn't expect anything for at least 6 weeks or so.

I agree that alot will be expected from Benter. I also think/hope that Ben Lenhertz will have a bigger role this year. He was somewhat effective in his limited playing time this past year. I really feel that to succeed in the NCC, you have to have an inside presence. Koenig can provide, and Gutter did. Just look at USD last season, big physical team, had alot of success. I like the way our program is headed, but I also feel that we are getting somewhat small. Youmens, Bledsoe, Dumas, Monsebroten, and presumably Doyle will all be fighting over minutes this upcoming season. Hopefully Dumas or Monsebroten can emerge as a true and steady point guard for this team for the future, something UND has lacked over the past few years.

I'm disappointed that Gutter won't be back. He showed alot of improvement last year as a junior, and was physical inside presence on a team that doesn't have much of that. Hopefully Koenig will be fully healthy next season.

I might be wrong, but wasn't Ralph's gift the largest athletic gift to a any University in the U.S. until recently when I think I read Oklahoma got like a $175 million+ gift from an alum in the last couple years? Like I said, my memory is foggy. At any rate, the REA must be right up there in the top 5 or so isn't it?

I posted this in another thread, but it should probably go here too....... IAC I've always thought that the Alerus should be made more available to UND as a practice facility for not only football, but for other sports like baseball, softball, and track & field....................and Lacrosse??!! If it had field turf, it could be used for soccer, too. UND is key to the potential profitability of the Alerus. The main arena is not that busy throughout the year, why not make it available to UND for a variety of things? At higher rental price of course than it pays currently just for football games. It seems like utilizing this great space would be better (for both UND and the city of Grand Forks) than the talk of abandoning this fantastic 6-year old facility for building an outdoor football stadium (let's at least come close to selling out the Alerus consistently before we seriously consider that), an indoor football practice facility, a soccer field, a T&F facility, etc. I think the Alerus is great. Let's use it. Knowing its history, I'm sure the city is willing to work with UND.

I'm not surprised. I'd suspect that UND will select Mens and Womens swimming and diving to be eligible early, and there is little revenue to be earned from those sports. USD is relatively competetive in T & F so it makes sense for them. However, I wouldn't mind volleyball being selected because it does have the potential to generate at least some revenue. The problem is an adequate offsetting men's sport. Lacrosse, anyone?

I disagree, going from a fledgling school in the Mid-Con to UW-GB in the Horizon is a huge step up. The Horizon is easily the most prominent "Mid-Major" conference in the country. They take basketball very seriously in Wisconsin with UW, Marquette, UW-Green Bay, and UW-Milwaukee. I'd guess it was an easy decision.

Herald article on UND releasing schedule.

UND press release on today's spring game. Sounded like Freund was pretty sharp.

It appears that would be the official 2007 schedule. Bummer, I was still hoping for an 11th (6 home game) schedule.

Sorry, I guess I can only read words that are underlined. My guess is that it is partly because this is UND's last year of DII. There were lots of quality DII's looking for games (according to D2football.com) this off season that would have been very attractive for UND. North Alabama, Washburn, Emporia, Tusculum, to name a few. But most of them were looking for home-and-home agreements. With the SUU game, UND needed at least one more home game for 2007. If we didn't have an FCS already on the schedule, I wouldn't have been surprised to see UND travel to one of those places and get the return game for 2008, when it'll be even harder to get home games.

I would say pretty slim at this point. But maybe they will or already have something worked out. As it stands now, they'll have two bye weeks in the month of September.

C'mon Walrus, you know I'd never hold that against you!!!!!! Please reconsider, there are already enough "less opinionated" people in the basketball forum.

This begs the question: Does the NCAA think that T.J. Oshie himself is offensive? I hope that they don't make him transfer to Central Michigan.

Thanks for the update, Walrus! There's a couple articles in the Herald about spring ball today too. Sioux defense dominates in first scrimmage From rivals to teammates