UND Fan

I understand that Mara is making progress and a full summer in GF should continue to help his development. There are four scholarships available.

You are 100% correct!

Someday you will learn all that Kris does for UND athletics and UND athletes!

Funds are being raised to establish a Women's BB scholarship in Katie's name. Any contribution will help! Here is the link.... https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fundfoundation.org%2Fkatie-richards&data=05|01||81652bb17bfa410c051b08dbf7968a3d|84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa|1|0|638375998174825784|Unknown|TWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D|3000|||&sdata=5SWEcjyev2JIBCcdzWQNxafCe%2BgpleuwILOBA6Y4yRM%3D&reserved=0

Thanks for posting - I live in Jacksonville and was not aware of this!

I had hoped Aumer might step into that role but, not tonight, at least.

We are down by 2 with 5 minutes left in the 3rd.

Kacie is unreal - she does need some help. I think she will get help when some of other girls settle down/settle in!

Any other observations?

I have purposefully not read any posts on a football thread since the start of the Boise game. I know I would have been frustrated by many of the comments about our play, the play of Schuster, our coaching, etc. I would guess that many of the observations were "right on" while others, as usual, got carried away with petty, naive and just plain stupid comments. I will make a few observations before concluding with the point I think we must all (those of us on ss.com, the UND athletic department and the football staff) understand and address: I was very disappointed in our play. We certainly didn't look like one of the better FCS programs in the country. Tommy did not have a good game. It sure appeared he lost his confidence/composure in the second half. That said, our offensive line (one of our strongest positions) did him no favors - he had very little time to do much of anything. His lack of mobility was very apparent against a team like Boise. I sure hoped we would give Boise a good game but any expectations to win this game may not have been well-founded. Despite their 0-2 record, they have a lot of talent and seldom lose at home. If you go position by position, you could count on one hand (maybe a finger or two) the number of superior football players we had compared to Boise. They were bigger, faster and more confident than our players. Before UND-FB-FAN gets on my case for not implying we should not expect UND to win some of these games and, if not, play a good game and gain everyone's respect for how well, how hard and how disciplined we play. I fully agree that this is what we want to our program to be and we need to get there as soon as possible. Now my primary point.... for UND to compete at the level we all want, we need to recruit better athletes. I have been following UND recruiting very closely for many years. We continue to sign very few highly recruited prospects. For us to be successful, we need to land kids that many DI schools want. I do think that a lot of our not-highly-recruited players turn into pretty good contributors but we are not going to be a championship level team until we get more studs to decide to play ball at UND. It is too bad that Wiki is not still available. Over the last 10 years, you would see 1) most of our recruits had few, if any, other DI offers and 2) that we seldom landed kids that had offers from NDSU or SDSU. While that is a criticism of our recruiting, we must realize that it is difficult to recruit kids to Grand Forks do its rather remote location compared to other schools we compete against. Fargo is only 75 miles from GF but, with their years of success, recruits and their families do not mind the distance. We can't do much about UND's location but another problem has been our facilities. It isn't that long ago that we had a locker room that should have been condemned 10 years earlier. The Pollard Center has been a great improvement but with a locker room across the street, a so-so weight room, etc. has not impressed kids that we need. With Phase II finally becoming a reality, it should help a great deal. No more excuses! We also need to do a better job of bringing in talented transfers - much of the above applies to transfers as well. Do we have the coaching staff to recruit better players, I guess we will find out! Regarding Phase II, you will be hearing about a LHB&F (Let's Help Bubba & Fritz) campaign quite soon.

We were about to launch a Let’s Help Bubba to purchase the equipment (storage, shelving, etc.) needed for the inside of this trailer (and maybe the paint job) when someone offered to pay for it. This is a good step forward - much better than trying to load everything onto an airplane. I don’t know what the airline charged for loading, transporting and unloading the plane but it must have been substantial. Additional football equipment can now be efficiently transported to away games - whether the game is in Brookings or Boise! There will be more info on a Let’s Help Bubba soon.

This doesn't belong here but didn't want to start a new thread.... A good article on Amani Hooker. He is Q's brother. It would have been great to have landed him - we tried! He went to Iowa after receiving no interest from UM. https://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/pro/minnesota-native-amani-hooker-got-passed-over-by-gophers-now-hes-starring-in-the-nfl

Check your PM

It will be announced soon.

Some of us old farts remember when Frenchy increased his regular price of a pitcher from $.75 to $1.00. Some of us were so distraught, we didn't go to class for days!!

I don't disagree with your last paragraph at all. My only point is that anyone is naive to believe that the staff didn't try to address these needs! If it is your opinion that we could have picked up someone in the portal that could have truly helped the team and we elected not to do so, I guess I need to respect your opinion!

You continue to say things like the highlighted comment above. How in the hell do you know they didn't "address" those issues? Any decent coaching staff knows what they need and will attempt to address those needs. Being successful in bringing in talent whenever/wherever it is needed can be a whole different story!!! Any college basketball coach in the country would agree!

I agree that this thread should get back to recruiting but…. let me know who you want to talk to at UND and I will set it up for you!!

How about the $60K+ that ss.com (LHB) has raised for the FB program??

I posted the below message a couple of months ago. Since then, I have heard from quite a few of you, some wondering if health problems might be prompting me to pull back on my ss.com, Wiki updates, Let's Help Bubba, etc. activity. I appreciate the concern and am pleased to say that health is not the issue. As stated, I am tired of the constant arguments and smart-ass posts on ss.com. But a bigger reason is my concern about UND's athletic fundraising, especially the Champion's Club. The upcoming facility improvements will help recruiting and player retention but, until we have the money to truly compete with our competition, we will not be able to consistently challenge for championships in non-hockey sports. I am going to contact Armacast, Zink, Chaves, etc. with examples of my concerns. Other ss.com members have indicated that they weren't contacted to continue CC membership and others have indicated that they had expressed interest in CC or other athletic fundraising efforts but did not hear back from UND. If any of you can provide me (either on this thread or by PM) with specific examples, it would be appreciated. Please don't exaggerate your example. I will not use any names in my discussions with the UND brass. I live far from ND and have one generic question about CC membership efforts. There are obviously many businesses (inside and outside of GF) who are CC members, many at higher levels. That is great but are we actively encouraging the owners and upper management of these businesses to be CC members? I get the impression that many of these individuals feel that their companies' involvement means that they do not need to individually become CC members. These folks are likely quite well-off and/or are well-paid. I am not implying that these folks don't care about UND's athletics needs. I just don't think they understand how much the need is and, if enlightened, many would become CC members, some at higher levels. Heck, I guess another question is: do we know if anyone from UND is actively knocking on doors soliciting CC memberships. The bottom line is that CC does not come close to providing enough $ to cover all UND's scholarship costs on an annual basis. And UND seems satisfied/proud to raise about the same amount of $ every year even though tuition increases every year let alone helping with the ever-increasing costs of running a DI program. One other item - I have been asked about future Let's Help Bubba campaigns. My involvement in LHB efforts (and other personal contributions) will be dependent on the result of my discussions with UND management.

Just landed a 6’4” All-American MB from Indian Hills CC.

It is a little concerning that Amar hasn't received more attention/offers. With that size and his rebounding stats, you would think he would be receiving a lot of attention!

I guess it may have come across that way - it certainly wasn't my intention!

You may have seen that I wrote a bit of an epistle over on the FB thread. I will not do so here but many of the issues I stated about UND fundraising, the recruiting challenges and dumb banter between members goes for BB as well. I have done the Wiki for M & W BB and VB for the last few years. Hopefully, someone will take over these duties. I made the comment over there that you can "go to the bank" with what iramurphy has to say. That goes for BB as well. You can also be assured that SD UND knows what he is talking about.

You may have seen that I wrote a bit of an epistle over on the FB thread. I will not do so here but many of the issues I stated about UND fundraising, the recruiting challenges and dumb banter between members goes for BB as well. I have done the Wiki for M & W BB and VB for the last few years. Hopefully, someone will take over these duties. I made the comment over there that you can "go to the bank" with what iramurphy has to say. That goes for BB as well. You can also be assured that SD UND knows what he is talking about.