star2city

Kind of thought this was interesting. This map is being developed by http://www.commoncensus.org and it definitely needs more votes from North Dakota and NW Minnesota to better define the boundaries. Currently, Fargo is shown as part of the Twin Cities sphere of influence, while Grand Forks is within Fargo's. Interesting that a big swath of Central North Dakota considers Washington D.C. to be the most influential on their daily lives. If you look on the website at earlier snapshot maps at 6000, 12000, and 24,000 votes, low population areas like North Dakota and Montana have changed remarkably as the sample base gets larger.

In the long run, I believe the delay is totally appropriate for the program because within three to four weeks, IMO UND will likely be headed to DI. It is really only fair for the players that sign to know the direction of the program (DII or one year of DII and a transition). A DI UND position might attract a different set of coaching candidates - some wanting DI, others wanting to avoid the transition period. IMO, Buning wants the selection process of the coach to be after the DI decision is known. The bigger question seems to be why Kupchella doesn't make an announcement now, rather than later? That way the men's basketball situation could be resolved more quickly. A possible answer to that is UND's DI announcement may be timed from a media standpoint to most impact the Big Sky President's meetings in late May. Also would like to add that a still-DII UND transitioning to DI would have major appeal to JC transfers that are not DI eligible. A DI decision may entice certain JC transfers that would otherwise never have a DI opportunity to play for UND (even in a transition).

In the last expansion round when UTEP left the WAC for CUSA, the WAC offered North Texas, Louisiana-Lafayette, and Arkansas St and all turned down the WAC. The only remaining real option for the WAC was Idaho, so the Vandals were offered. North Texas seems to have its eye on Conference USA, but Southern Methodist is supposedly blackballing them. Agree that Texas schools would be much more on the WAC radar (like Texas St, if it went DIA) then Great West/Big Sky schools, but none of them seem interested after Rice, SMU, TCU, and UTEP have all left. It is all but inevitable that La Tech will leave the WAC. When that happens, have to agree with MplsBison, the WAC will look to the Big Sky / Great West for its next addition(s).

The following is a College Baseball RPI ranking by Conference. What is striking is the ranking of the Big 10: its ranking is on par with the three least respected southern conferences, the Atlantic Sun, the Big South, and the Southland. Every other exclusively northern-based conference is ranked lower than the Big 10. If all the money and facilities the Big Ten has at its disposal yields it baseball medicrity, why would it make sense for UND to even attempt DI baseball? The Big Sky schools seem to recognize this issue, as it is the only conference not sponsoring baseball (numerous other individual schools in the North don't sponsor it, like Wisconsin, the Big 12's Iowa State and Colorado, WAC's Idaho, Boise State, and Utah St, Mt West's Col St and Wyoming.) Rank Conference Rating - Bold indicates northern conference 1 SEC 0.591 2 ACC 0.589 3 Big 12 0.577 4 Pac 10 0.571 5 C-USA 0.557 6 Big West 0.554 7 Sun Belt 0.529 8 WCC 0.528 9 WAC 0.526 10 Southern 0.521 11 Atlantic Sun 0.516 12 CAA 0.509 13 Big Ten 0.509 14 MVC 0.507 15 Big East 0.506 16 Big South 0.506 17 Southland 0.494 18 Mt West 0.494 19 MAC 0.473 20 Patriot 0.463 21 Indies 0.46 22 Atlantic 10 0.454 23 OVC 0.45 24 Horizon 0.444 25 MAAC 0.435 26 America East 0.433 27 Ivy 0.431 28 Mid-Continent 0.43 29 MEAC 0.418 30 NEC 0.41 31 SWAC 0.399 With the great facility NDSU has in Newman Field, they haven't been able to translate that into much DI success (#258 of 293 teams). Without a new baseball park and training complex, can't imagine how UND would do that much better. Division I Overall Rank Rating W L W L Team 258 0.412 2 26 3 27 North Dakota State 259 0.412 9 18 13 20 South Dakota State UND needs a spring time spectator sport and sadly, baseball does not seem to be the answer without expensive facility additions, whereas lacrosse could be.

The majority of this nation (North, West) never endorsed segregation. Segregation in the South was really only instituted well after Reconstruction. The main problem was that the majority of people (in the North and West) did nothing but sit on their hands while segregation was instituted late in the 19th Century. The problem of the majority in this country is most often not their will, but their passivity.

With the Alerus Commission looking hard for new events, one would think a UND men's lax team would have the potential for a win-win-win situation for the Alerus / UND athletics / Greater GF community. When UND announces DI, a baseball/softball complex becomes a must have if the sports are continued to be offered. Unless a Northern League team is located in GF, a baseball stadium would be hard to finance and create further stress on the Alerus' situation, by drawing summertime events that might otherwise be at the Alerus. UND should use available facilities (Alerus in the Springtime) for everyone's benefit. Leave any baseball sweet spot for NDSU and wish them well in the sport; they are much better positioned for it.

In the context of how the earlier comment was made, not sure how my comments could have been misinterpreted as any thing other than your longer answer. There is no question that UND, if it declared 2006-7 as an exporatory year, would not be on a regular NCC schedule for 2007-8. The real question is if NCC schools would individually schedule UND for non-conference games.

UND Athletic + REA budget = 2 x NDSU's budget, 3 x SDSU's budget I post that just for awareness that UND athletics already receives from twice the revenue from its fans, relative to NDSU and SDSU. Would students vote for an increase? A good idea and one that would have much more interest if UND teams are traveling more outside the Upper Midwest. Agreed. Better publicity to give tuition waivers to in-state athletes than to women's hockey players, all from out of state. Not if we get in a conference immediately.

Actually, SDSU officially announced the DI move and gave the NCC notice one month before the school year. NDSU was the one that lost the year, because they waited for SDSU to make up their minds. It will be interesting how NCC schools treat UND for scheduling once UND has finished the exploratory year. If they choose to schedule UND, it will say a lot about how UND leadership dealt with the issue at the President's level. It is my understanding that Chapman and Miller didn't exactly handle the move out of the NCC with a lot of tact nor did they win popularity contests among the other NCC Presidents. A lot of the "crap" that the Bison fans like to talk about was organized muckraking by the Fargo Forum to gain public backing for the move.

If the Swarm can average 10,000 + in attendance in the Cities, thought it might be interesting to project LAX attendance at UND. Event ......TC Attend....UND Att.....% Gopher Baseball 891 261 29 Gopher Volleyball 3782 335 9 Gopher W Hockey 1306 443 34 Gopher M Hockey 10088 10870 108 Gopher Football 49025 9425 19 Gopher MBasketball 12228 2791 23 Gopher WBasketball 9703 2387 25 Minnesota Vikings 64121 9425 15 Minnesota Lynx 6673 2387 36 Minnesota Twolves 17181 2791 16 Minnesota Wild 18531 10870 59 Relative to the attendance of U of M or TC professional teams, UND's ability to draw attendance seems to be somewhat proportional. Excluding the lagard, volleyball, and the leader, hockey, all UND sports teams seem to draw between 15-36 % of what Gopher or Twin Cities professional teams draw, for an average of about 25%. If the Swarm lacrosse team can average 10,000 fans, it would seem reasaonable to project a UND men's lacrosse team could draw an average of 2500 to the Alerus.

So if there is 75 - 85 % that think it is non-offensive, that's immaterial? What seems so unspoken is the anti-democratic principles that seem to be applied and applauded. Those kind of quotes by a "learned individual" lead me to fear for the future of this republic. In my view, the NCAA's and Jackson's philosophy basically endose tyranny rule by fringe minorities (which conveniently are the intellectual elites- i.e. those with a media voice well out of proportion to their numbers).

With Jacobson wanting Glas for his basketball operations experience (supposedly everything but what happens on the court), and McDermott having praised Glas for all Glas tought him about handling issues off-the-court, it seems glaringly apparent that Glas' strengths and weaknesses are rather well understood. Why wasn't Herbst been able to convince Glas to cede him on-court strategy responsibilities, and let Glas deal with bigger picture issues? If Herbst has major differences with Glas in strategy, why did Herbst stay in a position where he couldn't even further refine these strategies? If Herbst has never been able to implement his ideas in the time he's been here, why in the world would Buning hire Herbst over someone with a winning proven philosophy? With Glas not exactly having the best reputation from a tactical standpoint, why would Herbst not have taken an offer from other schools if it gave him an opportunity to prove himself? Doesn't that call into question Herbst' judgement? If Herbst had left and proven himself at another school, Herbst would be a prime candidate now. If Herbst was an understudy in a successful basketball program (e.g. UNI), I can understand staying, but UND has seemingly underperformed for two decades. These questions are not meant as a knock on Herbst, but they deserve answers.

Not saying he is even a possiblity, but this type quality DII coach would be great for a DI UND basketball program: http://www.lopers.com/mbball/coaches.htm He put on a coaching clinic against Glass the last time UND played them. There are great DII coaches out there that don't get a DI chance.

So make that 9 million. And when we get in the Big Sky, that will save all of us (even your school, Bison_Dan) $1 million / school a year on DI expenses and revenues.

Seems to me, just the act of UND declaring DI intentions will antagonize NDSU and SDSU and certainly many of their fans. Half of the Bisonville posters will have to change their haughty signature lines about being the only DI school in ND. Can't imagine the magnitude of the coming outrage from SU fans when it finally sinks in that UND leadership reallly has outmanuvered NDSU leadership in the DI transition. Unfortunately, all the scorn will be directed at UND leadership for displaying leadership traits like patience.

Interesting that Idaho is planning to convert its Kibbie Dome into a horseshoe by knocking out the walls on one end: Spokane Spokesman-Review

I don't have a candidate in mind, but there have to be numerous highly qualified head coaches in DII that would love to get a chance at the mid-major DI level. Someone that's been around the block, knows the X's and O's, but has never really been given a chance with a decent budget. This article was posted earlier, but is worthy of repeating: Little Big Bang Theory

Bigears: When NDSU beat Wisconsin in basketball, there were only positives posted on THIS site about NDSU's win. When UND lost in the NCAAs in football, women's basketball, and hockey, there were bona fide celebrations ongoing within Bisonville. Which response is "nasty", "ugly" and "dysfunctional"? Case closed.

More on Zajac, this time from the Winnipeg Sun

Having a media-ready Ralph and Alerus is an important consideration for the Big Sky. With many of the Big Sky games broadcast on the Altitude network, they want more venues with minimal setup expenses for television. Agree that the Fighting Sioux Sports Network is another consideration. If UND goes DI, expect most BB home games to be on the FSSN and more cable systems to offer it. A decent viewable Dataflix wouldn't hurt either.

California schools are notorious in their lack of fan support for college athletic programs, but there is hardly a better recruiting ground. While Northridge was always a poor choice, both Portland St and Sac St really lost a lot of momentum when their programs moved up to DI. It is interesting that the Big Sky meeting will be in Missoula, whereas their typical meeting place in is Salt Lake. Wouldn't be surprised if the Montana president politely lays out Montana's alternatives - gives us a Montana-friendly Big Sky or IA WAC here-we-come. I applaud your reasoning and foresight, Bison_Kent. It seems more than a few Bison fans are double-minded on UND and DI: they want NDSU as the remain the only full DI program in the state, yet they degrade UND's DII status.

NDSU will be UND's travel partner. SDSU will partner with Northern Colorado, which doesn't have a natural travel partner anyway. Seems to me two consective trips to the Frozen Four and Seven National DI championships shows a lot of commitment to DI excellence. If the Big Sky is interested in UND, NDSU and SDSU leadership and fans need to get over their pettiness so everyone wins.

Having men's BBall games in the Ralph mean's Suiteholders HAVE to buy tickets. A DI move has to be paid for and getting the guarantees from the Suites brings in corporate money that the Betty doesn't provide. Not saying all games will be in the Ralph, but certainly most conference games. NDSU game - 8 - 9000 SDSU game - 5 - 6000 (travel well ) MSU/UM games - 4 -5000 (new rivalry games) Other conference- 3-4000 Non-conference - 2-3000 (in the Betty) Winning season - 3500-45000 average Losing season - 2500-3500 average Add an extra 500-1000 for the initial novelty of being in the Big SKy the first few years.

Basketball WILL be a tenant in the main Ralph Arena for most DI conference games. A Taj Majal attracts higher profile athletes (not suggesting UND basetball will become even top 100 RPI - but a 100-200 RPI is entirely reasonable). That would not have been possible with the Hyslop.

Agreed that IF both NDSU and SDSU go to the MidCon, the Big Sky would not consider UND.