bincitysioux

Thanks, NDSUgrad for the vote of confidence. It says alot when a fan of a FCS school feels that a DII team can assume a game against a fully funded FCS team from the strongest FCS conference will result in a sure win for the DII squad.

Coach Lennon was defensive coordinator for UND from 1990-1996. I believe he is the one who installed the 3-4 defense geared toward thwarting NDSU's veer offense.

Herald article about DI scheduling for baseball and soccer.

I think you mean my new Chopper. But I'll let you take it for spin at about a quarter after 10:00 tomorrow night!

I have to disagree with you here Hammer. Most NDSU fans like to blame Bob Babich for the "demise" of NDSU football in the late 90's and early 2000's, but that just isn't fair. Rocky Hager and Dale Lennon were the real culprits. Hager will never get blamed because he took two of Earl Slomonson's teams to the promised land but then Lennon showed the rest of the country how to beat the vaunted "Veer" offense. The only really really good NDSU football team in the last 16 years was Babich's 2000 team. His reward?......... A trip to the Super Bowl and the everlasting disdain of Bison fans across the country. You can claim all you want that going from 2-8 in 2002 to 8-3 in 2003 was the reason for a 17% increase in football attendance for your inaugural year in DI, but if that is the case, what was the reason for SDSU's 35% increase in football attendance from 2003 to 2004? The answer: hype.

I wasn't arguing that and I don't know that Youmens is a better player. I think that Bledsoe and Youmens are extremely similar players in almost every way. They are both shooters and scorers. They both think score first, pass second. But I think all season long, Youmens has been asked to be the "quarterback" of the offense. Despite being almost a mirror image of Youmens, Bledsoe has not been asked to do as much in his starting role as Youmens was, Coach Jones adjusted and started splitting point duties with Boyce. It is probably because Bledsoe is a freshman and Youmens is a more seasoned junior. Personally, I think Youmens has been one of the most unselfish players all season long. He was used to scoring 25+ points per game in JC, but has worked hard to adjust to playing the point and getting more players involved. Despite Bledsoe's wonderful effectiveness over the last 3 or 4 games and the promise he has shown since being inserted into the starting lineup, he needs to do more to involove the rest of the TEAM.

But is that because Bledsoe is more willing to distribute the ball than Youmens, or is it because Youmens was being asked to play the point whereas Boyce has actually been playing the point since Bledsoe has been starting? Both Bledsoe and Youmens obviously have a scorer's mentality. I would guess a true point guard will be on the top of the recruiting list for next year.

Coach Jones said on the coach's show this week that Koenig is day-to-day with cracked ribs. I don't know about Dryburgh, but a puncured lung sounds pretty serious. Can we realistically expect him to participate in practice or games again at all this season?

Is Youmens still not playing because of suspension? On the coaches' show this week, Jones said he hoped that Youmens would be available this week. But he never mentioned anything about injury. Obviously I don't know the circumstances behind the altercation that caused Youmens and Lenhertz to be suspended, but if Lenhertz is playing, why isn't Youmens? I hope it is not just because Lenhertz is a big guy and we are desperately short-handed down low. I don't think Youmens' absence was the cause of either loss, although having him contribute would have surely helped. The USD game was vintage Sioux basketball of the 2006-07 season: control play throughout the game and then give it away in the final 7-8 minutes. That has to stop, and time is running out. The UMD game was just a bad game against a bad team, it was the entire team's fault. UND is a much better and more talented team than the Bulldogs, even if they were shorthanded. This team could just as easily be in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place in the leauge. Before the final homestand started last week, we were in perfect position to get fourth place and get a home game in the NCC tourney. Now the chances are slim and none, and after last night slim may have left the building. Except for the game in Vermillion, UND has had the opportunity to beat the top 3 teams in the leauge, narrowly losing to Minnestoa St. twice, USD once, SCSU once (and beating them once). If we could have gotten that first round home game, I would have liked UND's chances of getting into the NCC final four and having a serious chance to win it. On a positive note, Travis Bledsoe has really stepped up since being inserted into the starting lineup, not only being effective, but being effective in pressure situations as he was last night when he hit two 3-pointers in the final minute. It will be alot of fun to watch him play for the Sioux over the next 3 years.

UND 53 USD 52 7 minutes left

UND leads South Dakota 34-32 at halftime

I don't think any UND fans are or should be pissed off because NDSU football attendance is double what UND's is. NDSU was arguably the most successful DII football program of all time. It is a football school, located in a football town/metro area that also just happens to have roughly 3 times the population than that of the city where UND plays football, which is a secondary sport in that city and at that school. I agree 100%. And it will likely happen. What was the attendance difference when both schools were DII, a couple thousand? NDSU and SDSU saw sharp spikes solely because they moved to DI, and I don't think there is anything that would suggest otherwise for when UND jumps up. If I were an NDSU fan though, I might be a little pissed that it took the novelty of a move to DI to create such a disparity in attendence, when Fargo has had a fan-base that is potentially 3 times larger to draw from.

Got em', thanks!

Looking for 3 in the lower bowl for this Saturday against Duluth. Offering $30/ticket. pm or email: jci@invisimax.com

The way that this team has played this year, they could just as easily be sitting with a 5-2 NCC record this year rather than at 2-5. When the NCC tourney starts, nobody is going to want to play this Sioux team. Looking ahead, we have home games left against Auggie, Duluth, and USD, and road games against UNO & Duluth. It is not entirely out of the realm of possiblities that UND could go 4-1 over their last five games. Augustana still has to play Minnesota St., SCSU, and USD. If UND takes care of business, we could possibly finish as high as 4th and get a home game in the NCC tourney. A win against Auggie this week would put us in a tie for fourth place. I see in Bakken's blog that he said that the reason Youmens & Lenhertz are suspended was due to some sort of "skirmish".

With only 3 home games on the docket, I'd say at the very least the door is somewhat ajar.

It seems as if swimming & diving has the best chance to find a DI conference home early on, and hopefully continue to be a successful program as well. They will most likely be the two programs that are designated to qualify for the post-season early. While the Horizon would be much more attractive, I'd still prefer to forge an early association with the Mid-Con, which could also use swimming members, to strengthen our chances of getting all of our teams into that leauge. That is of course only if the Big Sky doesn't add UND.

I wonder if they'll have the webcasting service up before the end of the basketball season. I'd assume it will be home games only that are webcast, and there are only 3 regular season home games left. Probably get a few more NCC tourney games for the women. Too bad this service couldn't have been up earlier in the school year. Looking forward to it though.

More at McFeeley's blog.

We should also not forget that this article in the Herald said that the contract for the 2006 football game against UNI contained an option for two more games with the Panthers should UND move to DI.

Excellent points, good sir! To many, the unparalleled success of hockey at UND is a tough expectation to live up to for several of the other sports at the University, and probably rightfully so what with all of that ESPN, CSTV, and Fox Sports coverage that the University of North Dakota is forced to endure year after year. Yes indeed, partly due to hockey, the bar is high at UND. Currently, UND has some of the most dominant programs in its class in football, women's basketball, and swimming & diving. As far as undermining support and funding for other sports, thanks mostly to UND hockey, let's not forget that UND basketball and volleyball will enter the DI ranks with some of the finest facillities that any NCAA member can offer. Not to mention that little thing called "tradition"........how many NBA draft picks or hall-of-famers have gone through the state of North Dakota to get there? How many of those went through a school other than UND to get there? More recently, we have administrators from some of the most prominent and largest schools in the country (UMTC, UW) with long-standing policies against competing against such a school as UND lobbying their superiors for the opportunity to compete against UND in sports other than hockey. Yep, DI hockey certainly appears to be a severe detriment to UND!

I see your point!............................................

What did you say that was true?

Ugghhh! Gothmog, get a clue. You are making yourself and alot of other Bison fans look like bufoons for no reason. Know your role.

Anybody hear anything on the extent of Josh Doyle's apparent knee injury last night? Swyg said he looked like he was in alot of pain and didn't put any weight on it when he was helped off the court. I missed it if anything was said during the post-game show, and there wasn't much elaboration in the paper this morning.