bincitysioux

A South Dakota radio station interviewed USD's A.D. Joel Neilson today. There is a breif recap of what he had to say about the situation that USD is left in at the USD Coyote Fan Board. I would really like to see USD take the plunge with us. At the very least it would be one guaranteed entertaining football game and two guaranteed entertaining basketball games each year throughout the transition.

Thanks, Brandon. And thank-you for your dedication to DII Football. You provide one of, if not the best avenue for news and insight about DII athletics, including the University of North Dakota.

I was just surfing the web and saw on South Dakota State's site that seven different Jackrabbit sports can be heard on the radio in South Dakota, and the rights to each sport are split up between two separately owned broadcasting companies. http://www3.sdstate.edu/Athletics/Broadcasts/Index.cfm Perhaps this is what UND should have been doing. Offer the big draws of Hockey and Football together as a package, and M & W Basketball and Women's Hockey as a separte package. I know the Clear Channel network is great because it reaches so far, but Basketball games are on GF station 100.3 FM only. Good luck getting that if you're more than 25 miles away from Grand Forks.

It would appear so. The only game that doesn't conflict is UND vs. Winona, UMary plays a night game that night. I don't think it matters much, as long as KXMR still broadcasts UND football games, which is why it was stupid for NDSU to break off negotiations with CC just because they couldn't get KFYR. KXMR is probably the second most powerful station in the state, trailing only KFYR. I wonder if that means that Hockey will move over to KFYR? That would be a good thing for hockey fans.

I just heard the blurbs on the radio today, but WDAZ reported tonight that Chancellor Potts will ask the State Board of Higher Education to buy out Chapman's contract if he doesn't acknowledge Potts' authority.

That would suck.

They're saying on Bisonville.com that the reason NDSU cut off negotiations with Clear Channel was because they were told that KFYR would not be available to carry NDSU games. Why would that be? UND football has always been on KFYR, and according to that GF Herald article, will continue to be.

Whoops, you failed! Sorry, but I don't think that the DAC-10 schools are our peers. They are simply what is available to play in our region, along with NSIC teams. Our men's bball program is indeed in disarray, however they were only two games below .500 last year, and won 20 games the year before. I am excited about our new coach and a change in philosophy. The entire non-conference schedule consists of NSIC and DAC schools because that is what is available to UND to without having to pay large guarantees. And that is why a move to Division I is necessary.

I sure don't either. Arrgghhh!!! And I thought when last years schedule came out that it couldn't get any worse. I've been proven wrong, again. My freshman year at UND I had a close friend who played basketball at Mayville St. so I drove down for just about all of his home games so I am absolutely ecstatic that I'll get to watch UND play all of the teams I watched Mayville play back then. {note extreme sarcasm, beating head against monitor} And why have the Dickinson St. game on Dec. 8 start at 6:00 when the Hockey team is playing Wisconsin at 7:30? If they had an afternoon matinee game they could get a decent attendance for that game just because of all the people in town for the hockey game. I can tell you though that I ain't shelling out $12 to watch the first half of a basketball game against Dickinson. Same thing with Jan. 20th. Conflicting Bball game against UNO with a hockey game against Bemidji. The UNO game is a game that would actually be fun to go to, but alot of people won't because the hockey game will be going on next door. And Feb 10th Duluth is in town for basketball, Mankato for Hockey and the games will be played at the same time. If they're trying to generate interest in a floundering men's basketball program they're going about the wrong way by putting together this type of schedule and then pitting the team head-to-head against the hockey program on gameday. The only intriguing non conference game is obviously Northern St. I'd bet that one will be on the FSSN, that is if any of the non-conference games will be televised.

Today is the 12th of June, the last Herald article regarding the radio deal reported that today could be the day an announcement was made. Anyone heard anything?

Sounds quite similar to NDSU's 1st year DI schedule. It wasn't pretty, but they survived.

Because the NCC has an autobid and the great west doesn't. That was my assumption. How many years until a conference can get an auto bid? 13? I could be off a little bit but it goes something like this.......the same 6 full member schools have to be together for 5 years.

I just wanted to say that since this whole nickname issue fired up, I have a new-found respect for Dr. Kupchella. I think he has handled it very well in taking a hard stance against the NCAA. His latest letter just reaffirms my new opinion of him. And in regards to the hypocrisy (sp?) in the manner this resolution was implemented by the NCAA, I can't seem to find it now, but I believe I recently read that of the original 17 schools on the list that there are only 5 or 6 that are still on it including UND. That is pretty bad if you ask me.

Question: If a transitional school like NDSU or SDSU is admitted into a conference with an autobid, what happens if one of the transition schools wins the conference title? Does the 2nd place team or highest ranked non-transition team get the automatic bid? Question #2: Why is Chicago St. leaving the Mid-Con? I understand that they are in some hot water with some NCAA violations, but why voluntarily leave the conference? Did the Mid-Con ask them to leave?

Well I don't see a problem with 12 teams versus 10 teams, and I have no idea about the Mid-Cons expansion intentions. I just don't understand two divisions for a non-football conference. If you had 12 teams you'd just have 22 conference basketball games. My question is does the split-division format benefit any sports other than football?

What is the advantage to a split-division conference that does not sponsor football?

That would make so much sense for Sac. State (who we all know has an aversion to travel) and the Big West (bringing membership to 10). But how often do things that make sense happen in the world of NCAA athletics?

According to Wayne Nelson, South Dakota is the most likely schools to head for DI if UND does indeed decide to make the move. Link

I agree to a point. If UND joins the Great West, you've got 3 Dakota schools & three west coast schools (counting SUU). From what I gather from reading various message boards is that alot of fans of Poly & Davis desire keeping the GWFC viable and want members to join. I have no idea what the administrations of these universities think, but they're both good football programs that would benefit greatly from an auto-bid. With a GWFC autobid, down the road you could routinely see two, sometimes even three, Great West teams make the playoffs. The west coast schools could open to more expansion later, probably another west coast school (U of San Diego?), which in turn could open the door for another Upper Midwest school (St. Cloud, South Dakota?) Far-fetched? Probably, but I don't think Poly and Davis has as big an aversion to travel to the Dakota's for football as some think. Remember, they're travel expense for all sports except football (Big West members) is miniscule compared to any other GWFC or NCC members.

Here's an article about St. Cloud State, the NCC, and Divisoin I. Huskies, NCC Face Uncertain Future

Another benefit of associating with WDAZ-TV is the fact that it is carried on cable in Winnipeg & Southern Manitoba and is available in about 250,000 homes in addition to the 80,000 or so households it is in in North Dakota and Minnesota. I agree though that it would be optimal to get ForumComm's TV stations in Bismarck and Minot on board.

It is getting wild.

I am 100% in favor of a DI move. My level of giving will increase if the University moves up. I can't think of one UND fan, supporter, alum that I personally know that feels that UND is in the right place in being DII. The few people that I do personally run into that thinks UND belongs in DII are fans, supporters, or alumni of a different institution, and I would say that of all the fans, supporters, & alumni of a different institution that I personally run into where I live the vast majority of them even think or want UND to move up.

There has been quite a bit of discussion about DI on the USD Coyote Fan Board. Also, it sounds like Doug Fullerton will be interviewed at 4:00 today on a South Dakota radio station that is the flagship for USD sports, so they must be talking about it down there. You can listen online here. Personally I'd like to see USD move up along with UND (if we go).

Does anyone think that it could be a good thing if Clear Channel got both the UND and NDSU contracts? I wonder if it could lead to some more local sports coverage/talk shows during the off-season and non-gamedays. They'd have to have something for all those play-by-play guys to do (Hennessey, Hammer, Miller, Swygman), if they were all under one roof. I'm still pulling for Leighton to get the bid, though. Sidenote: Does anyone else think Scott Miller is the most overworked sports announcer in the area? Bison football, basketball, Primetime Sports, Redhawks baseball. He's a busy guy.