nodakvindy

This "bowls make money" thing is a crock. I was in Nashville last year and the Music City Bowl was crushed when they learned Minnesota would be in. The Gophs don't travel well and that bowl lost a ton of money. If the bowls were swimming in cash they would pick teams that deserve to be there, not ones who travel well and get the tickets sold. Most of these places have bowls to attract tourist dollars. Well, neutral site NCAA playoff games would do that, just like the hoops regionals do. If you want, you can still have the minor bowls (Humanitarian, Independence, Ft. Worth, etc.) for non-playoff teams, serving a purpose similar to that of the NIT.

The rule applies in every sport except football and basketball. So a total of three (BB mens and womens) of the more than 50 NCAA sponsored activities. Who is the exception? The point of IAAA schools was brought up. At least they conduct all their sports at the DI level. Maybe NDSU should just drop football and then they would be a legitimate DI school across the board.

My dad is watching in Garrison.

Can you say Lee Goren?

Ashamed to say UNAGRAD is right on the money here. Even the original posts quoted by Goon were at least limited to football. The responding stereotypical attacks were pretty lame and for the most part off the mark. Let's leave the personal cheap shots to God's Gift to IAA. I have to admit that prior to 2001 I wasn't too fond of UNA. The 1994 semifinal was an ugly game and that team ran so much smack it was unbelievable. But UND's trip down for the 2001 championship proved a chance to rehab that image. The folks down there love DII football and the hospitality was great. I would like to think we can return the favor for their trip up here. Perhaps we can all fly on one flight back to Florence after Saturday's game. North Dakota Fighting Sioux - The only ndsu opponent still playing football in 2003

It's Grand Valley all over again. Long play in late going. GO SIOUX!!!

Winona just scored to make it 14-7 late first half. Lueck had a 72 yard punt return TD and Caleb Johnson scored on a short TD catch. In the East, Grand Valley beat Saginaw Valley.

bisonguy, I'd agree the disparity in scholarships between the haves and have nots is more pronounced now, but in the 80s there were few teams at max scholarships, NDSU being one. That is what made the Team Makers such a pivotal part of the program. NDSU was able to load up on talent much like Nebraska at the Division I level. They devoted a lot of resources to the football program and were rewarded with championships. This was the same time UND hockey was experiencing its 80s Golden Age and that's where UND chose to devote resources. To the Bison fans out there: Has there been any decision yet on what sports will be added or cut to facilitate the new football scholarships. It would seem that decision will need to come fairly soon or a Title IX lawsuit is right around the corner.

What is there to defend? Most of your bogus top ten was just repeated whining about the regional nature of the playoffs. Do you also dislike the North Dakota high school playoffs, which have a similar structure? All four major pro leagues have playoffs that are split arbitrarily, are they bad as well. In terms of attendance, the logical extension of that argument would be that the BCS is the finest means of determining a champ, as attendance for the BCS Bowls blows IAA out of the water. Also your claim about no Bentley's is wrong. The non-scholarship Patriot League actually gets an autobid. Colgate, this year's champ, received the #4 seed in the playoffs. And finally, as Sicatoka pointed out, the criteria are clearly laid out. I'm not here to run down the IAA playoffs, just trying to point out that they have just as many faults as the D2 playoffs. There didn't seem to be these problems in the 80s when the Bison were the New York Yankees of the Division, riding their scholarship advantage to National Titles. With the playing field leveled, the Bison are now just a nice team that gets to the playoffs on occasion.

What's better about it? MEAC Champ North Carolina A&T was jobbed similar to So. Illinois. They defeated Bethune Cookman, but hit the road while Bethune Cookman gets a home game. What good is winning the league if you aren't rewarded? I'll agree the region thing is weak, but that affects one, maybe two teams at most. Who would you have replaced in this year's D2 field if it wasn't regional, and who would you replace them with. If D2 had a playoff system like 1AA, there would be 8 autobids, likely to the following: RMAC, Lone Star, NCC, MIAA, Gulf South, SAC, GLIAC, PSAC The 1AA system might let one more deserving team in, and might allow conference foes to battle for a national championship rather than a regional final, but there is little practical difference.

Bison fans that think fleeing D2 means an end to playoff politics may be in for a rude awakening. A close friend of mine who is a Southern Illinois alum has been following the Salukis closely all year. They finished the season 10-1, co-champs of the Gateway Conference, their only blemish a 43-40 road loss to Northern Iowa. For this they earn a trip to 11-1 Delaware, the number two seed in the playoffs. Meanwhile 9-2 Northern Iowa hosts Montana State, a club with five losses, including one to Northern Colorado. Also, Western Kentucky (who the Salukis beat) and Montana each host games despite having three losses. Just goes to show that this stuff goes on at all levels.

Yo! Winona State won a playoff game, so I don't think they have to prove anything. I thinks it's the weak MIAA that now has something to prove. Duluth was no slouch last year in the playoffs. Top to bottom the NSIC is clearly weaker, but their top teams are playoff worthy. They aren't like the Bentleys or CW Posts.

Winona moves to the Regional final. Congrats to the Warriors

OK, from the left field department, how about the Abracadabra Line, because they are like magicians with the puck. The Steve Miller band song is a pretty obvious theme and you could have a fan group dress like magicians, complete with top hats, ready to be thrown on the ice when one of them gets a hat trick.

I think chanting "2 and 6" might be a nice way to send the Gophers back to Minneapolis.

Coach Blais says they will score 100 goals, so maybe the Century line. Or along the lines of 7-11 and a little nod to our generous benefactor, the Vegas line.

If you read this and the other articles on the series, there were a few blasts at North Dakota. The story on Saturday's games took a thinly veiled shot at the academic integrity of UND. Hopefully this stuff doesn't continue, I don't want to be known around the country as the Florida State of hockey.

I think part of the problem is a lot of these policies border on the old saying of "Penny Wise and Pound Foolish". If you want to bleed every last cent out of your fan base you can make that choice, but what happens during an off season or two or when the newness of the Alerus and Ralph wear off. You can only rely on the good will of the fans so long and to continually burn bridges is a bad idea. Since the opening of the new area we have seen ticket price increases of more than 200%. And while the new arena brought a much greater variety of concession options, there was a considerable price increase from when dining services controlled concessions. How much longer can that continue? I think there is validity to the concerns of pricing out you constituency. I say this despite being a season ticket holder myself who still finds my tickets a good value. However, I am concerned over the ever-increasing role of REA in the UND athletic department. It seems everything has been ceded to them, and I'm not sure that is such a great idea. I dread the thought of an O'Keefe halftime show at football games or something similar.

Didn't mean to come off as snarky in my last post, and for what it's worth, even removing UND's hockey points, it would still have almost certainly finished higher than SDSU each year. The only year it was close, 2001-02, the hockey gave UND a goose egg for Director's Cup points. Another thing is that the Director's Cup is OK as a reference between teams in the same conference or generally geographic region, but due to the number of sports it heavily favors Sun Belt and West Coast teams. There are a high number of warm weather sports (like water polo), or outdoor sports where a longer season is beneficial to southern teams (like baseball). Conversely skiing and hockey are the only sports where Northern climates are at any real advantage. For this reason, high finishes by schools from the Big Ten and Big East (other than Miami) in the overall standings are all the more impressive. So UND has shown in recent years that it could certainly be competitive, and the only real barrier to being DI is historic and geographic.

Thanks to Jim for posting the Sears Director Cup standings of recent years, but in the interest of full disclosure, UND's results do indeed include hockey. The D2 Sears Cup scoring system includes a "wild card" due to the generally smaller number of sports offered at D2 schools. UND has received points in this category, and other schools receive points for things like water polo, men's volleyball and skiiing - sports not widely sponsored by D2 schools. This year's DI men's volleyball champ was a D2 school. There are also several D2 schools who are DI in wrestling, and I believe their DI results are counted.

Nice selective use of stats there CRH. UND had been near the top of the Sears Cup standings the last several years. This year was a slightly down year overall for athletics so the finish was lower than recent years. As for the NCC all-sport standings, it's a little misleading since not all schools contest all sports. It's no coincidence that the top three finishers are the only three schools that sponsor all ten sports. Also I note you left out the NCC women's standings where UND finished second and SDSU was near the bottom. This where nearly all schools sponsor all sports. SDSU finished below even NDSU which doesn't have swimming or tennis, and at 8 sports hasn't the fewest in the NCC. Finally, the only crowd of 8000 I could find last year was for the game against South Dakota, a school you consistently denigrate. The listed crowd for the USD-SDSU game in Brookings wa 8481, while in Vermillion it was 8482. Wouldn't be surprised if both schools were padding the totals in a little gamesmanship. So I'll take UND's consistent crowds of 10,000+ for hockey versus your one game a year against a rival you are leaving behind and trying to burn as many bridges as possible in doing so.

Greg Lotysz's story is on Outside the Lines right now. You see the old NFL guys who are beaten and broken, but it's even sadder to see in a guy in his 20s who has to live with those injuries for the rest of his life. Hopefully, the legal system can provide a remedy for Greg and his family.

This should be a nice move. Murphy has a good chance of playing with Nashville, joining former Sioux star Greg Johnson. The Preds are a fun team and its a good place to see a game. Their crowd is reminiscent of a college crowd, with Cell Block 303 being great. Best of luck to Curtis. He was one of my favorite Sioux.

He already may be traded, going to the Chicago.

Those are some eye-popping numbers for Radke, and I like that we are moving back into Western Canada. Hopefully he can follow in the footsteps of guys like Travis Roche and Curtis Murphy.