star2city

You are like the horrible house guest, who thinks he's staying at the Holiday Inn Express, and just never gets the message to move on. You are welcome to come over periodically for a cup of coffee, but to stay in our guest bed for days at a time .... not.

The other benefits don't count. Each athlete on a full scholarship would get handed a check for $2000 each year, if the conference allows it and the school implements the policy, no questions asked. For the NCHC schools, the cost is 18 scholarships x $2000 x 2 (for gender equity) = $72,000 / year. If the NCHC really expects to compete, they will need to pay up, just to keep up with what the Big Ten will be doing.

The NCAA is authorizing annual $2000 stipends for full scholarship athletes. Each individual conference will have to approve the stipend for their schools, otherwise a school in a conference that hasn't approved giving stipends can not give out the money. Obviously, the money-ed conferences will immediately approve, but some of the smaller conference may resist, as hard-pressed schools may not want some of their conference mates to benefit. For UND, this would cost at least $360,000 a year if implemented in the Big Sky, NCHC (hockey), WCHA (w hockey), WAC (w swimming), Great West (baseball), MPSF (m swimming), and America Sky (men's gold). For UND, if just the NCHC approved the stipend, UND still wouldn't be allowed to give out the stipends because it would violate Title IX requirements (the WCHA or the Big Sky would also need to allow stipends to ensure gender equity). For example, the Summit League might reject stipends (USD, UNO, IUPUI, IPFW, Oakland, and UMKC would probably vote no based on the state of their finances) The Big Sky may allow stipends (although the Big Sky also has schools that would be hard pressed, but Montana and UND might demand the stipend option) All of sudden, there is a different recruiting dynamic. Will a total of $8000 over the course of four years influence the school kids pick? Also, the NCAA is authorizing guaranteed 4-year scholarships. So one school might authorize a guaranteed scholarship, while another may not to the same athlete. http://www.boston.co...meeting/?page=3

Bellarmine - the next Summit League invitee. You mean you haven't heard of them?

NCAA approves $2000 stipend for athlete's living costs as well as multi-year scholarship guarantees: http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2011/10/28/ncaa_approves_major_scholarship_changes_at_meeting/?page=3 Would expect the NCHC to allow the stipend. The NCAA rules require each conference to allow the stipend before their members can issue the stipends. The Big Ten will immediately authorize the stipend. Would this stipend impact recruiting vs Major Juniors?

Alerus is a perfect facility for it. Tailgating in April. Big name schools. All types of H.S. lax players in the Twin Cities and West Coast and in Canada that don't have many options. With the Summit almost certain to poach Great West baseball teams - and with HBU likely going to the Southland - UND could very well be stuck as a baseball independent.

Michigan is starting lax now. A new league could be: Great West Lacrosse Ohio State Michigan Bellarmine Detroit Mercy Denver Air Force North Dakota Rumors remain that Southern Cal and Stanford will also start men's teams. Denver and Air Force are currently the only men's lax schools west of the Mississippi (in DI).

West Virginia officially in the Big 12: http://www.big12spor...DB_OEM_ID=10410 Although there simiply aren't that many Big 12 choices, this addition is a bigger cultural mismatch than TCU was in the Big East. Since part of WVa is in the Washington DC media region, and DC gets a lot of WVU games, that probably played a role. WVU is reportedly paying a $21 million exit fee in order to start Big 12 play next fall. If it had stayed two more seasons, the exit fee would have been $10 mill (the league had just raised it from $5 million). WVU also knew it had no hope to ever get in the ACC (UNC, Duke, UVa detest WVU's academics) or the SEC (which wants in the Virginia and NC markets) Louisville and WVU battled big time with US Senators intervening behind the scenes to gain that invite: http://content.usato...tside-big-12-/1 Looks like Boise St, Air Force, UCF, Houston, and SMU will get Big East invites next week. The Big 12 is making a play for Notre Dame - again, and promising football independence. BYU, Memphis, Navy and Temple are also possible. Utah State and San Jose St may get MWC invites soon after Boise St and Air Force leave the MWC. So Boise St and Air Force will officially be shopping for conferences out west for their other sports: the Big West hasn't yet indicated it is an option. Boise St could transcend the laws of physics by being in the Big East and Big West simultaneously. A Big East basketball split looks like it won't happen, so the Horizon and Atlantic 10 probably won't be part of the domino effect, which helps the Summit League keep its eastern members from being poached by the Horizon. The CUSA / Sun Belt / CAA as well as WAC situation may become a total mess. Look for a lot of CAA teams as well as Appy St, Jax St, and Ga Southern to go FBS.

USD and SDSU wouldn't go for it: their budgets simply aren't high enough yet. San Jose St and Utah St in all likelihood are both gone. As a 12-team league with north / south divisions, that would be perfect - and actually has a slight chance of happening.

"College" in Canada means very different than in the US. Canadian kids go off to University, not college. College there can mean prep school, vocational school, or JC. A HS in Canada is often either a "collegiate" meaning university track or Tech for a vocational track. Vanier is both an English prep school (for French speakers going to English University) as well as a JC and vocational school.

The WAC would almost have to lose a bunch of teams, and then the Montana / North Dakota schools would have to be added for this to happen.

From 2010 study: http://www.ndhfa.org...s/williston.pdf The numbers from this study are already grossly out of date - as projected rigs have doubled and projected oil wells have doubled. More recently, the number of oil wells is projected at 48 - 60,000, which would yield 200,000 people in western ND. The study area doesn't include Bismarck or Minot. If the Tyler, Birdbear, Madison, Red River, and/or Lodgepole formations are economical, that number could be doubled yet again. In fact both the Bakken and Three Forks formations have additional benches that may require drilling, which would add even more jobs. Satisfied.

That's probably true, but if the MVC needs a school for next season for some reason, ORU has already paid the Summit exit fees ($250,000) and would only have to forfeit the Southland entrance fee ($100,000) to move on (like TCU did with the Big East). ORU always wanted the Southland, but the Southland some some presidents that didn't want private schools. The students and alumni ORU wants to reaches are in Texas, Arkansas, Lousiana, not the Midwest. Institutionally, the Southland is a 10time better fit.

Those numbers are not now - I never ever stated that. Those numbers are projections of what the western ND will be like in 2025 or later. If you are reading Federal Government studies, they are a joke. The Federal Government doesn't even acknowledge Bakken as a major oil find and is underestimating it's potential by a factor of six. Williston is at at last 20,000 people now, with almost 10,000 in man camps outside the city. Eventually, many of those in man camps will move their families to Williston - that's 30,000 more people right there - with all kinds of support jobs needed. And there are more jobs and expansion just waiting on Williston to catch up on infrastructure and housing. Dickinson is just now entering the phase Williston experienced two years ago. The Billings newspaper was projecting Williston as a city of as many as 100,000. Read the history of Midland-Odessa and the Permian Basin.

The Summit has a big job on its hands to compete for a share of a voice in the east - meaning Minnesota and Wisconsin. It has none now, so why is the Big Sky any different? Those weren't census data but projections of growth due to the Bakken. There's a chance ND's population will actually exceed 900,000 or even a million in the next census. But guess what, that is still 1/5th or 1/6th of the populations of Minnesota or Wisconsin. ND just doesn't have enough potential DI recruits to justify one DI school, never mind two. Montana as a state is just under 1 million, and relies on Washington and California for a lot of its recruits. Idaho as a state has around 1.5 million, and all three DI schools have to import athletes from the West Coast. Minnesota and Wisconsin are actually underrepresented in DI schools, just like Washington (4 DIs) and California (even with like 23 DI schools) are underrepresented, with only around 1 school for every two million people.

WIU is in the footprint but adds almost nothing. WIU would need a shiny new arena plus basketball fan support to grow by a factor of 10. There's a reason that WIU is the sole remaining founding member of the Summit. The three Summit schools that are most vulnerable to poaching are IUPUI, IPFW, and Oakland - who would all jump in a second. The Horizon would need to lose two or more to the A10 (or Big East in Butler's case). If Detroit Mercy leaves the Horizon - Oakland gets a bid. If Butler leaves the Horizon, IUPUI probably gets in if they agree to play outside of the HS gym. IPFW has a chance to get in if other Horizon schools leave.

If USD or SDSU played in Sioux Falls and Sioux Falls had a new arena, those two school might have a chance. No way does the MVC look at Vermillion or Brookings unless the conference splits for some odd reason. UN-Omaha doesn't ever get in as long as Creighton is there. The two most obvious holes in the MVC footprint are St Louis and KC. SLU, now in the A10 with "outlandish" travel (according to NDSU/SDSU fans), prefers the mostly Catholic A10 for now. UMKC actually fits and - because it plays in KC - might actually get attention one day. But going east and south there are all kinds of schools with larger markets that would fit: Oral Roberts (Tulsa), Belmont (Nashville), UALR (Little Rock), SIUE (St Louis), SE MO St (Cape Giradeau), Butler (probably a long shot), Wright State (Dayton), Valpo, even Bellarmine or NKU (after they have stabilized in DI). Memphis has even been talked about - if it needed a place to park its non-football sports.

South Dakotans, which look to Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas City for economic growth and opportunity, really don't understand the rivalry between ND and Montana. (Minnesota is important to both states.) Why is there a HS all star game between ND and Montana, and not ND and SD? Historically there are more transportation, cultural, economic, and political ties between ND and Montana than between ND and SD. A high % of Montana natives were descended from North Dakotans. In the total scope of things, in spite of sharing a long border, there really isn't much economic or cultural interaction or people movement between ND and SD, except for a ND county or two just north of Aberdeen.

Someone from Pierre giving lectures on travel? P.S. UND's athletic budget is more than twice USD's. I can understand USD's issues and concerns with the Big Sky and the travel situation.

UND will always depend on Minnesota and Wisconsin for the bulk of recruiting. But unless and until the Summit League includes teams from there, the Summit League won't buy us anything. Any Summit League media presence stops at I-94 just outside of Moorhead and I-90 at the Minnesota border. In fact, the Summit League as is would hurt UND, already disadvantaged as the most northernly school, because we will be less differentiated from the other Dakota schools. Our location demands that we become different to succeed. Agree he is a hack, but Stu Whitney has written the same kind of garbage over the past year. The Sioux Falls media is so infatuated by the Summit League because Sioux Falls gets to host the Summit Tournament. Those writers think they are really in the big time because one game a year they get to hob-nob with the 10th-string ESPN2 announcers. Absolutely unreal, isn't it. The MVC turns down Air Force (which is appealing just on academics and stature alone) and NDSU fans think they can get it? Hilarious. Not sure why there would ever be a private/public schism. Creighton (Big East possiblity) or Mo State (CUSA possibility) are long-shot flight risks. Had been talk about Illinois State going FBS, but the state of Illinois is an absolute basket case financially now. The MVC has been holding out for St Louis (Rick Majerus has been pushing for the MVC). If St Louis doesn't get in the Big East basketball conference, that's the move the MVC would make.

And Boise State, a school in a city near the Oregon border, may be joining the Big East. West Virginia, a school in the Pittsburgh market, may be joining the Big 12. The maps do show that ND is a bordering state to Montana, which has members in the Big Sky. So your point is?

Kupchella and his people actually believed UND would get in the Big Sky. Not sure that Kelley did, until it actually happened. UND travel in the Big Sky is really no different than UND in the Great West. But with the transition over, we actually get reimbursed from the Big Sky when we had to pay the Great West to operate as a conference. The real question is: where did we get the "extra" money to travel in the Great West compared to NCC days. (And the answer is student fees + more reimbursement from the Ralph). It's about all revenue sources: Fighting Sioux club membership, tickets, TV, advertising in arena, corporate sponsorships. Next year in the Big Sky, UND football will draw better than D2 days. The only FBS option is west. The MAC has way too many options in the population rich east (UMass added, possibly Delaware, ,James Madison, Stony Brook later), to ever look west. Million dollar question.

Thank you for posting a map that looks very much like the key to major UND alumni locations. Mpls: Have you overcome the trauma of the Summit League losing Oral Roberts? That was a big blow to the Summit. Do you think the Summit will add Chicago State?

The WAC has reportedly turned down Boise's (and Air Force's) overtures, as the WAC still thinks it can get to a 12 basketball / 9 football arrangement. Without the WAC, Boise's options are just the Big West and Big Sky (which would have to modify its rules.) Boise is likely doing everything it can to avoid the Big Sky (not wanting to be at the same level as Idaho State). To get interest from the Big West, Boise will probably have to subsidize travel, just like Hawaii was required to for admission. Boise recruits mostly in California for all sports, so on that level it makes sense. If the Big West is still keen on UC San Diego (for its stellar academics), that might leave out Sac State in any move to 12.

Actually, Montana and Idaho had just been evicted from the PAC8's precursor (USC, UCLA, Stanford, Cal, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon). Montana and Idaho had to form a new league from scratch. At the time, they reached out to the Dakotas, but air travel wasn't at the state then that it is now.