jimdahl

People are questioning what the next two weeks will be like, so here's how I see the world: 1) The board is moderated. Trolls will be dispatched eventually. 2) Disliking UND, claiming some other team is better, or predicting that UND will lose does NOT qualify someone as a troll -- that is legitimate discussion. If you disagree with their post, argue back with why you disagree, do NOT attack the person for being a Gopher fan (filling the board with bickering garbage instead of talk about Sioux hockey is the exact goal of a real troll!) 3) Being a new user with one post in one new thread that reads "hahah sues sux" (particularly after a loss), DOES qualify someone as a troll (notice the lack of any substantive discussion or argument). GDM or I will take care of it; your best bet is to ignore it until we get to it (see #2 above). 4) Merely being unable to spell Sioux or Gophers correctly does not constitute reason for banning; it just makes the poster look young/stupid and thereby weakens their argument. I don't understand why someone would intentionally do that, but we will discourage it if it becomes ridiculous to the point of distracting. 5) New members are very welcome. Stopping new Sioux or Gopher fans from posting on SiouxSports.com during the part of the season when people are most interested would create an old-timers club atmosphere of exclusivity that I'm not interested in. While a lot of the people jumping on the bandwagon now may fall right back off, we're not going to prejudge people for having decided to sign up in March instead of February. Comments / arguments?

The remainder of last night's results are (finally) in. Not looking good for me.

The link is good, just at the time I mentioned it on the message board there was a problem with the page that prevented it from rendering in IE (worked fine in other browsers). It should be good now. Wow, over half way in, but still no upsets -- hopefully tonight will break that trend!

Ack, I have Michigan as my first upset of the tourney... Looking at your picks, as long as you don't cheer for BC tonight to help your bracket, I can let it slide

With the higher seed winning each of the first four games, not much separation yetin the leaderboard. Today should shake some people out as Harvard and Maine were popular upset picks.

Mea culpa. The original implementation of the brackets this year was hurried, as was the resolution of the rearrangement of the semifinals. I wasn't able to dedicate the time I would have usually liked to ensure usual quality control. Sorry for the invconvenience, and I apologize for this feature deviating from the quality standards I usually hold up for SiouxSports.com. It should all be displaying correctly now, everyone's picks are fine.

The Tarleton box score lists official attendance at 727. That's quite likely tickets sold; which, given bisonguy's description, could be quite different from turnstyle count. That also would imply that no more than that many all-session packages were sold. That's about in line with my expectations and others' concerns, though undoubtedly a bit disappointing for REA. The championship game on a weekend afternoon could be a bit better.

Bryant def. Mt. Olive 84-69 Watching the bracket graphic at REA. Bryant: Promised to send fans to cheer for the Sioux in Worcester if we cheer for them. Mount Olive: My favorite Cinderalla in the ACC's shadow in the heart of Tobacco Road (and makes me think of pickles). Update: Bryant's recap of their 84-69 win NCAA recap Tarleton St. def Cal. Poly Pomona 58-56 NCAA recap

SH usually count, as do ENG, because neither represent a rule-imposed offensive advantage.

No surprise here -- GPL fans think their picks look more realistic, while Sioux fans think SS.com's do. Unfortunately, even once the matches are completed, we won't know, because it will have been a single sample. I would say UND at 50% is as realistic as UND at 1.6%. KRACH gives them about 5%, which is about 1/10 SS.com's guess but about 3x GPL's guess; however, I'm quite comfortable claiming that KRACH underestimates UND's chances by that 2x gap (by equally weighting losses in January with a March winning streak). Both samples are super-homerific, as I would expect. They overfavor the schools that they're familiar with that aren't their archrivals (hence the love for CC); understimate their rivals (did anyone pick Wisconsin?), and give no love to the out-of-conference powers (poor Cornell!) Since UND has been on a tear lately and Minnesota has been awful, Sioux fans are willing to overweight UND's chances a little more than Gophers fans overweight UMN's chances, though both are showing the obvious proclivity to align their predictions with their desired outcomes.

Hmmm... first game seems to be March 25 at 4:30pm ET, so I guess I should shut down new picks then.

With just over a 100 guesses tallied so far, whither the Gophers? You'd expect our picks to be quite homerish (I certainly find it hard to predict the Sioux's demise), which influences our picks to be overly pro-Sioux/anti-Gopher. However, having received only 62% of the vote in the first round, Minnesota is the only #1 seed to get less than 98%! Admittedly, Mercyhurst and Bemidji St are no Maine, but Sioux fans are overwhelmingly happy to give Denver a win over at-large participant, Colgate. Reflecting a more somber fan base, only 50% of us see a UND championship, compared to ~90% last year.

Argh. Thanks vindy. That's what happens when you rush; I just punched in the teams by seeding (e.g. W1, MW1, etc...) into last year's bracket ASSUMING the bracket would stay the same shape. Edit - OK, all fixed now. Unfortunately, that makes any old picks garbage. If you made picks before this post, redo them. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Back for the second year. Link from front hockey page (watch that space for a switch from entries to leaderboard once the games begin). I notice on USCHO that a few more sites have set up similar things this year, but I still say ours is the coolest Feel free to spread the word, more entrants = more fun. Last year we had about 250 entries.

This one? (Link updated to point to complete original thread)

It's just poorly worded, he correctly identifies the situation and points out a fascinating trend later in the article:

W've got pictures. Linked from the hockey front page. Thanks John.

Scroll down just a little to see quite a bit more discussion on this.

I wouldn't say nobody Not much has changed since then, I still don't think UND's core crowd is >10k and I think attendance will slip dramatically during a sustained period of true mediocrity (dropping out of the top 15 for one week this year is nowhere near what I'm talking about). Thankfully, so far the Sioux continue to prevent my theory from being tested by contuing to excel. Regardless, I think we're going to see some modest declines in coming years as the "new thing" factor wears off REA. This is why I've questioned the apparent business strategy of maximizing revenue now instead of using this surge in popularity to try to lock-in more hardcore fans; fostering loyalty could produce a lot more consistent revenue in the long-run than trying to extract an extra dime from each fan when times are flush.

UW Free Audio Broadcast Given the problems with UND's broadcasts the last couple years, I think I'll put together a database of all our regular opponents' broadcasts so they appear with the game info on the front page.

The mailings are sent out by the UND alumni association. Cindy Filler (cindyf@undalumni.org) will be able to help you or direct you to a more appropriate contact.

Usually you can find a partner link to Times stories or a specially coded link that bypasses the registration, for example: Tired of TiVo? Beyond blogs? Podcasts are here Also mentioned in the article is Dave Miller's "Miller Report", from which he has another link: grandforkscity.com. I've seen it claimed many places that most podcasts are not actually used by people with portable music players, rather its people on their PCs. The claim is that the increase in popularity now is because of the ease of recording and serving open formats (e.g. mp3) instead of traditional licensed formats. As to the value of an iPod... I personally find the sweet spot to be around the iPod mini. Tiny device (iPods are a little big for a pocket), 4Gb music, ~$200. I own no such toys, but my wife does, and it really is dramatically easier to carry a mini than the corresponding 20-30 CDs into the car, into work, to the gym, etc... I personally have no need for a 60Gb+ $400 music-only units, because I usually choose what to listen to so don't need (or even really want) every song I've ever owned with me at all times.

I know you all get these in the mail, but a little reminder never hurts: Saturday, February 26, 2005 Fighting Sioux vs. Wisconsin Badgers Gametime: 3:35 p.m. CST UND Alumni Association satellite parties Bismarck, ND Boise, ID Cedar Rapids, Iowa Columbus, Ohio Durham, NC Madison, WI Mesa, AZ Portland, OR Rock Springs, WY San Diego Seattle Twin Cities, MN Washington, DC Troy, MI North Milwaukee

To quote the avatar upload page: I'm not sure how generic the error message you received is, but if it's accurate, it sounds like you have an incorrect file type (not one of those listed as allowed).