star2city

With the loss of Centenary and their men's soccer program, the Summit would be down to six men's soccer teams. If the two most likely candidates, Oral Roberts or Oakland, get a call to a higher league, the Summit would have issues maintaining the men's soccer autobid (causing issues for UMKC, IUPUI, IPFW, Oakland, etc). Those schools were likely demanding that any new school have men's soccer. Most leagues actually sponsor men's soccer (with certain exceptions like the Big Sky, SEC, WAC, MWC.) I think the Summit League gave UNO a precondition for membership: add men's soccer. UNO had already planned to drop football to afford the move up, but the Summit's demand to add men's soccer probably caused them to drop wrestling, too.

By none other than Gene Roebuck.

Big Sky tournament hosting is not affected by the NCAA rule. Neither is WCHA hosting affected. Both conferences would have to institute some type of similar rule to bar UND from hosting conference playoffs - like this weekends series against Tech. Three schools in the WCHA are very antagonist against the Sioux nickname (UM, UW, SCSU, while UMD's President is outspoken against it too): none of the Big Sky schools have similar policies. Moreover, no school in the West (even Cal) or the South has ever come out with a policy against Indian nicknames. Only uber liberal schools in the upper Midwest and among eastern "elite" schools have adopted such policies.

Actually, I think Las Vegas and/or Phoenix would be more likely than either SLC or Denver. With Allegiant and other discount airlines flying there from most Big Sky cities and with many Big Sky fans wanting an escape to warmer weather, those two cities have strong merits. But that said, hope the Big Sky keeps the final four at campus locations.

The job of recruiting was much harder without the Big Sky relative to post-season game issue. Crap, three years ago recruits wouldn't even be able to go to a post-season game because of DI eligibility. This is a much lesser hurdle than transition issues.

UNO live chat on situation at 3 CDT

The opportunity to play in the post-season is worth any dollars at this point. Since the team is already in Orem, it probably isn't that difficult or costly to reroute their travel arrangements to Colorado Springs prior to returning home. The good thing is they've already been at elevation for almost a week, which should be helpful against AFA.

Omaha moving to the Summit will also likely kill any chance that Fargo will host the Summit BB tournaments. Now, Omaha and Sioux City will be much better positioned to host, especially since Sioux Falls' arena is such a dump. If UND had been in the Summit, Fargo's chances would be better. UNO dumping football and not going to FCS also keeps Nebraska and Kansas FCS recruits in play for UND.

This move by the Summit should put to bed any talk that UND will move to the Summit / MVFC, at least until Oral Roberts leaves. What's ironic is that UNO is moving to the Summit to solidify it's status as a hockey school. UND is taking the opposite approach: moving to the Big Sky to place more emphasis on basketball and football. The easy and less expensive route for UND would have been to go to the Summit. Going to the Big Sky shows a willingness and commitment to spend money on non-hockey sports.

That's probably safe to say. Since we are badly in need of more power inside, it will be great to say to potential recruits that we gained a post-season berth with four starting freshmen.

The sophomore class isn't getting much playing time. Four freshmen start and another freshmen is in the top five in scoring. UND has three point guards: while seems the Bison have none. If you would have at least had one point guard, maybe your conference season wouldn't have been a train wreck.

UND should at least be familiar with AFA's offensive set. Colorado Springs Gazette: Air Forces' Princeton offense running well

Are there any transfer players on UNO that could fill some gaps for UND? Would adding Behrns to the staff be considered?

What possibly misled people most about UNO's intentions is that UNO just spent $1 million on a new scoreboard for Caniglia Field. Guess the new men's soccer team will have a great scoreboard! Had posted this before, that Creighton would block UNO's entry into the MVFC, as the MVFC and MVC have the same administrators. Creighton absolutely does not want another DI basketball or baseball school in Omaha, and as the highest attendance MVC school, the MVFC will do anything to placate the Bluejays (and their money). UNO really didn't have a football conference for the FCS level. Adding all the women's scholarships and sports necessary would have been a budget killer anyway. So how do fans of NDSU, SDSU, and USD feel about adding a hockey school like UNO to the Summit, considering that most of them knock UND's hockey? UNO is acknowledging that it is a hockey first school, and the Summit is embracing them.

Exactly - for lower RPI leagues, it is imperative that the highest RPI team makes the NCAA tournament, otherwise the a 3rd or 4th place conference team will be consigned to a 15th or 16th seed in the NCAA. A 15th seed has about a 1% shot at winning, while a 16th seed has essentially none. Going to a neutral site for conferences that will only get one bid is a recipe for NCAA tournament disaster. There should be a reward for winning a conference championship - home court in what is essentially an NCAA play-in game. The Big Sky some years ago used to play on a neutral floor (Boise). Later, they gave the post-season tournament venue to the winner of the previous years regular season. Neither was fair, and both methods hurt the Big Sky's seedings in the NCAA tournament. With a bad seed, the conference's team can't advance and conference forgoes a shot at even more NCAA money. The Summit likes the idea of the "neutral" court for three reasons, all monetary: (a) the Summit has cities/corporate bidding for guaranteed money (so even if tickets don't sell, the tournament makes money), (b) the teams going to the tournament can buy super-saver airfare tickets well in advance saving huge $'s, and © most Summit campus locations wouldn't be capable of supporting an ESPN telecast on a week's notice. The Summit simply doesn't have the campus or league or monetary infrastructure to go to a campus location tournament.

There are few issues in the ND legislature that show more of a partisan breakdown than the Sioux vote. The Legislature more often votes along rural vs urban, or west vs east, than Republican vs Democrat. With regard to the Sioux nickname, the overwhelming support for the Sioux nickname is from Republicans, not Democrats. Democrats voted almost unanimously against the nickname both in the Senate and in the House. These are the facts: ND Senate - nickname issue Repblicans 27 yes, 5 no, 3 not voting Democrats 1 yes, 10 no, 1 not voting In this case, since the legislature has made this such a partisan issue, using your logic, perhaps Siouxsports should suspend all discussion of the Sioux nickname.

Tom Dennis' editorial on nickname, with reference to Bisonville It's absolutely hilarious that Tom Dennis is using Bisonville conventional "wisdom" to make a point. Perhaps Tom doesn't understand that Bisonville has a proven track record as an anti-oracle. Unlike the Oracle of Delphi, Bisonville is always 180 degrees wrong: 1. NDSU is a lock for the Big Sky. 1.5 The Summit sucks: oh wait it is really a wonderful place. 2. No CST zone school will ever get in the Big Sky. 3. UND will never go DI, as Kupchella will never allow it. 4. UND doesn't have the money for DI. 4.5 UND hockey will never allow the rest of the sports to go DI. 5. Grand Forks can't support DI. 6. UND's television capability will not help it get in a conference - what a joke. 7. UND will never ever get in the Big Sky. 8. The SIoux nickname will prevent UND from ever getting in a conference. 9. Chapman is an honorable president, and not a crook. 10. Douple is a wonderful commissioner: he would never lie. 11. The NCAA is going to evict UND from it's membership. 12. UND will lose academic accreditation. I personally hope Bisonville keeps predicting UND athletic's demise.

And we can all thank John Q Paulsen's penchant for deception for much of the legislative antagonism towards the SBoHE.

Beating a team three times in a season is very difficult. For that reason, I liked the matchup with UVU. For the same reason, I hate the match up with USD. Psychologically, it will be very difficult for the Sioux to pull out this win.

Considering that the legislature is the very body that funds the SBoHE, the SBoHE is just a paper tiger with no real power. Even if the legislature doesn't move to abolish the SBoHE constitutionally, the legislature has the power to defund the SBoHE including Goetz and Backes' salaries. The legislature is still angry over the corrupt legacy of John Q Paulsen. Based on what happened, who could blame it?

dlsf: It's really going to be all right. Promise. Seems you are especially emotional about this because it's essentially a Republican vs Democrat issue (with few exceptions), and we know you have your heart with there. Believe or it, sometimes the "hick rural" Republicans actually get it right.

KXnet's Backes quote: With Backes spreading this type of fear, seems he really needs to go. The NCAA already has a policy for a school that doesn't follow a nickname policy. If the NCAA ever went after UND for more than post-season ban on home playoff games, North Dakota could sue the pants off the NCAA. The school that really should be getting a death penalty is Ohio State, after this weeks revelations that Coach Tressel not only did not report two of his players were involved with a federal drug trafficking case, but Tressel even hid the information from the Ohio State compliance officer. Lawyer who warned Tressel about players drug involvement now subject to death threats from Buckeye fans

That's nothing more than the ongoing match between the SBoHE and the Legislature. Since the Legislature controls the purse strings, the SBoHE will at some point direct UND to keep the name, much to Kelley's chagrin.

Beautifully written!! "Divisive" issues - faith vs atheism, moral vs immoral, tradition vs modernism - have always been part of the human existence. Too bad the supposedly intellectuals among us (Jacobs, Kelley, Haga, Omdahl, etc) can't grasp that. They just can't separate current events from their emotional glory days of the 1960's. The 1960's generation has been dethroned, and their responses won't be pleasant. Would love to see the professors from UND march on the capitol and shut down the proceedings.

The NCAA has nothing to do with IP licensing of its member schools. The NCAA does however believe it can control the content of IP at its own tournaments. Collegiate Licensing (a corporation) and other licensing companies distribute member schools IP to vendors and apportion royalties, not the NCAA itself. For t-shirt sales at NCAA tournaments, the NCAA has to license those symbols from those IP corporations.