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Dartmouth won their game over Clarkson today (and momentarily jumped UND in the Pairwise), so the season rides on tonight's game. That should be all the motivation the team needs.

The other women's game today is huge for UND. Game 3 of the ECAC quarters, Dartmouth versus Clarkson. Dartmouth is just behind UND in the pairwise and the only team that can still flip a comparison and move into the top 8. As long as UND wins tonight, it should make the NCAAs if Cornell wins the ECAC tourney and either BU or BC wins the Hockey East tourney. UND can't really move up from 8th, so it would have to win the autobid to be assured of making the NCAAs. If that doesn't happen, then it's a matter of pulling for the favorites in the other leagues. Hopefully the team gives a more inspired performance than last night, and with the season on the line I would expect it. It would also be nice to see a decent crowd at Purpur. I'd guess there were only about 500-600 last night, with about 50-100 of them Bemidji fans.

Warroad scores five unanswered in the third period to beat South St. Paul 5-1 and defend their title. All the future Sioux looked pretty impressive. Definitely some good years ahead for this program.

Couldn't disagree with this more. We see the same conference teams all year, and then have respective conference tournaments. The last thing I want is to meet up with a conference team again right away in the NCAAs. I think the no first round matchups is a must, and would like to see it extended to the second round as well. If four teams from a conference make the tourney, they should all be in different regions.

I thought the last penalty called on the Sioux (immediately following a blatant Minnesota penalty not called) was nearly as bad as not reviewing the bad goal. Wasn't a sterling effort by the stripes either night.

If we end up with four (or five) straight against Tech, the coaching staff will really have to make sure the team stays focused. Can't pick up any bad habits against an overmatched team going into the most important games of the season.

Huge win puts the Sioux back to #8 in the Pairwise. Really need to sweep Bemidji next week to keep the RPI up. If they can do that and Cornell wins the ECAC and either BU or BC win Hockey East they can make the NCAAs. Of course, winning the autobid would accomplish that as well.

It was about a mile north of the Buxton exit. There was a lot of great "artwork" on that building over the years.

I think 10 FCS games is the key. That 11th game can either be a D2 home game or a FBS game. We need to be doing a better job with FBS games. It's foolish to try and schedule these with any intent of winning and counting toward the playoffs. I'd much rather play a BCS powerhouse for a huge paycheck every couple of years, then use that money to get more home games in other seasons. Plus, a game versus an Alabama, Penn State or Nebraska actually has the environment of a major college football game. I just don't think that's the case for a Northern Illinois, Idaho or Fresno State. Montana does this perfectly - occasional FBS games against big time opponents. Getting home games and rebuilding the following is critical, games against MAC or WAC teams for middling paydays is worthless.

That season opening 46-game road trip will be tough. Seriously, this is the result of not having a viable conference. Hopefully things will look better when we are in the Sky, and we can get some conference home games. The weather is also an issue, but the Alerus is an option that should be looked at if it's doable.

I don't believe there will be divisions, because there is no way to split the divisions so you play each opponent in your division and still have all teams play the same number of conference games. Similar problem with basketball - a division split would create conference schedules of 15 and 16 games, vs 20 for a full round robin. No way would mid-majors want to try and schedule that many non-conference games. I think the same would hold for volleyball, however you might see it for some of the smaller sports as a cost containment measure.

Used to go to Five Guys in Arlington, VA all the time. They have held up pretty well at the locations out here (been to both Duluth and Bismarck). The fries are amazing.

If the WAC is down to the following: San Jose St Idaho N Mexico St Denver UTSA Texas St an ideal scenario would be to get the Dakota and Montana schools, along with one other (Idaho St. maybe). Then get San Jose St. a Hawaii-like setup in the Big West. That would give you East North Dakota North Dakota State South Dakota South Dakota State Texas State Texas-San Antonio West Montana Montana State Idaho Idaho State New Mexico State San Jose State (football only) Denver (all sport except football) It would struggle at first, but you have a large number of flagships (admittedly small states, but only BCS conferences would have a similar number of such schools). This new WAC could quickly rebuild into a pretty legit Mid-major conference in short order. Virtually no likelihood of happening, but it would make a lot of sense and have a ton of good rivalries built in and created.

With a move to 11 teams, an 8 team tourney seems plausible. A nice variation of the current format would be Quarters and semis would be played on Saturday and Sunday At 2 seed 2 vs 7 3 vs 6 semifinal between two winners At 1 seed 1 vs 8 4 vs 5 semifinal between two winners Championship on Wednesday night at highest remaining seed. This guarantees the final will be played in front of a partisan (and therefore hopefully large and tv-friendly) crowd.

I'm hoping maybe the Robert Morris series is tied to a return for a tourney at the Penguins new arena. That is the site of the 2013 Frozen Four and likely a future regional site, and it wouldn't be terrible to play a couple of games there prior. The Sioux did that in 2003, playing at the Punch Imlach tournament in Buffalo, but unfortunately didn't make the Frozen Four. I'd imagine you could see a tournament with Robert Morris and maybe Penn State against North Dakota and some other big name team, perhaps Michigan, Ohio State or a Hockey East club. That would be a decent holiday or early season tourney.

UNT is North Texas of the Sun Belt. Haven't heard anything of UTSA or Texas State backing out of their move to the WAC.

Sioux sweep UTPA 3-0 in Great West semis to move on to the Conference Championship.

Great West semi against UTPA. Sioux up 2 sets to none. Just won set 2 29-27.

50-29 Sioux 13:30 left 2nd half.

Sioux up 26-13 with 6:30 to go in first half.

With the addition of Fargo Davies, Class AAA was at 13 schools this year. NDHSAA wanted to get it back to an even number, so Devils Lake had to move up as the AA school with the largest enrollment. The enrollment figures are the current 7-10 male enrollment except for private schools and those on the reservations. Next year's full plan is here http://www.ndhsaa.org/files/11_12_FB_Division.pdf Dickinson Trinity is playing up to AA and Harvey and Velva are playing up to A. State Champion Velva has by far the smallest enrollment in the division.

The game is on both ESPN and ESPN3.com. They aren't going to keep Dickie V on the sideline for their marathon broadcast. Sioux will get a chance to pull the shocker on the mothership. Update: Yep, link posted above shows it as being on both, but ESPN's schedule shows the Butler-Louisville game (certainly can understand that). It's a surprise then that they are putting their top announce team on the UW-UND game. I wouldn't be shocked if the game shows up on channelsurfing.net That will likely be an option to watch it.

Gotta figure a way to show some sort of passing game or expect Montana to just sell out against the run in the second half.

If you can't draw on the deer opener, then you should request a road came or bye week. For a rekindle Sioux-Bison game, I much prefer Labor Day Weekend - as a season opener. Bill it as North Dakota's biggest end of summer party, with like a 4:00 start time on Monday. That gives plenty of time for tailgating and is also an attractive TV slot for FCS or another broadcaster.