jimdahl

You can view the other thread for a lively discussion of the move. I think most UND fans' primary concern is the cost. The way NDSU is moving (no conference affiliation) adds tremendous cost to the program and there is some debate from the fan perspective about whether this will result in superior games/opponents. Clearly if a lot of the NCC could move as a group, that would dramatically reduce the expense, just leaving the question of what benefit the schools receive for that additional expense. Is being a small school in D-IAA a product that North Dakotans want more than being a top tier school in D-II? Are they willing to pay more for tickets, have athletic budget shortfalls, and probably cut a few non-revenue sports to achieve that? Personally, I suspect the majority answer to those questions is, "yes", and hence UND will cave to the tremendous pressure to move up that it's fans and media will create in the coming months and years.

First, I agree entirely that there seem to be problems in the division system. However, that's an NCAA-wide problem that UND can't solve. Forced to make decisions within the existing system, I think the right thing to do is follow the group of teams that UND wants to play. Sure, I wish that Division II was the same as it was 20 years ago and that we were playing against Montana, NDSU, Northern Iowa, UNC, etc... However, UND can't make that happen. We have to decide whether to follow our traditional opponents to D-IAA or stay in D-II and play Crookston and Duluth. On to the NCAA's viewpoint: I don't think they see it as a problem. Basketball (the only other sport REALLY important to the NCAA) benefits from having a diverse field of 300+ teams in D-I. The Cinderellas who win a round or two in the NCAA tournament make the NCAA a LOT of money and draw in fans across the country for the entire tournament. Sure, no one expects NDSU or UND to ever win the NCAA basketball tournament, but just making it a few times would generate many more basketball fans in N.D. I don't think D-I will have the same "watering down" problems as D-II. In D-I, Duke will just choose not to play against UND or NDSU. No problem. Staying in D-II leaves UND with the problem that there's no one BUT Crookston to play. Also, the watering down of D-II and flight of the top programs has led to a situation in which many of the teams want to lower scholarship limits, a problem that will never occur in D-I.

We'd clearly need to find a couple more members to make a D-IAA NCC, and I don't know who those members would be. That said, I really think if we can make a D-IAA NCC, then UND should jump. If we settled on that as a plan, we could probably get NDSU to wait (or at least not join some other conference) while we rallied USD/SDSU and tried to find another couple members. Jumping to D-IAA as the NCC would dramatically reduce the associated expense and let us move forward with some traditional rivals. The bottom line is that D-II is changing. The best members are all leaving for D-IAA and the bottom is filling with former D-III teams ascending. The editorial in the Herald a few days ago by a formal football coach was very interesting -- his take was that UND should have jumped twenty years ago when our non-conference games were still against teams like Montana and UNLV. If we stay D-II, we will play more and more teams like Crookston and our talent pool will quickly dilute as even more players head to neighborhood D-IAA teams.

It was very interesting to me to read press coverage today (Saturday). The administration of NDSU seems to be intentionally slowing down it's transition with the hope that the other premiere NCC schools (particularly UND) will join them. That's really the only way the move makes sense -- if the top of the NCC all moves. It would maintain rivalries and keep costs manageable. NDSU also pledged not to move without a conference affiliation, yet no conference seems willing to take them. They keep talking Big Sky, but what is their incentive to fly to Fargo for games? I think three years from now NDSU will be a member of the Mid-Continent conference. Is playing Oral Roberts, Southern Utah, Western Illinois, etc... really that much more impressive to Fargo fans than playing Mankato, UNC, and UND? I hope so, because travel costs will have quadrupled for that "upgrade". Also, I hope NDSU fans are comfortable with having to cut a lot of programs. Budget problems will inevitably force them to cut non-revenue sports because of the increased expense of those non-revenue sports. Back to my original point in this post -- I think if a large part of the NCC (5 members?) moved to D-IAA at the same time it would make sense for UND to be a part of that. Travel costs wouldn't change much, we'd have traditional rivals. Scholarship limits would increase somewhat, would be the biggest expense. I wish NDSU had tried harder to build support among the NCC's "big" schools to get a simultaneous move, even if it meant NDSU losing a little of the prestige of being the first to "upgrade".

In the press conference NDSU pledged to continue it's rivalry with UND. Moving to Division I-AA won't magically make NDSU a better football team overnight. So, the question is: will NDSU really schedule games against a Division II opponent who is likely to beat them? For a while, the rivalry will exist, but in general you don't play lower conference schools who actually stand a chance of beating you. It's not good for your record. Of course, they're ineligible for post-season play for five years, so it won't matter much. In the longer run, will having a D-I football down in Fargo hurt UND's recruiting significantly?

As anticipated, NDSU has decided to move to Division I-AA in football and Division I in all other sports. I'll have more news as it develops (though I guess there aren't really many other details worth reporting). Though the decision had already been made, Northern Colorado also announced their intent to leave the NCC today. Done with the news, and on to the opinion front: If NDSU and UNC are successful in D-I, it seems likely that UND will have to more seriously consider moving within a few years.

Since UNC is actually further along (having already decided to go D-I), they will finish 1st. NDSU, being next closest to a D-I team will clearly finish 2nd. UND, as a non-supporter of the D-I movement, will finish 4th at best, behind schools with bigger visions.

So wait.... Goon. You're trying to tell me that you just go to the message board WITHOUT reading the site? I'm a little off-topic here, but Glenn will probably let it ride. I find this whole "NCC is falling apart" thing fascinating. UNC is gone for sure. Looks like NDSU also. It's crazy. I've been working on an article analyzing the financial impact for UND to jump to D-I, but it's been a tad more complex than I initially imagined... I'm quite curious, because I certainly haven't made up my mind yet whether UND should jump or not. The Hurled hasn't exactly been covering the issue well, either.

That little glitch was my fault. The normally low level of reliability around here gets even lower in the summertime when I get to experiment more. Unfortunately, a new program wiped out the whole site so I had to restore it. That involved two steps: Pull it off a May backup (hence the part 2) Reapply the incremental changes since then (should now be complete) I promise to be more careful in season

My understanding is that those numbers are the amount of revenue that the venues guarantee to the NCAA. If that's the case, it makes sense for smaller market venues to make higher guarantees. The NCAA has few fears that a regional in Minneapolis will make it enough $$$. A regional in Grand Forks, on the other hand, has to make higher guarantees to appear competitive.

That is he signs again, not quits (re-signs, resigns, very tricky). http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/news/ap/200206...wild-roche.html

It's nice to see a well-funded organization primarily devoted to hockey. UND is (finally) doing a pretty good job on it's web site, but the guy still has to split his time between all 16 or whatever varsity sports. Sports schedules wallpaper - clever. A monthly calendar that included all sports, but changed each month, would be pretty cool. Though clearly outside of REA's interests.

I'm a big fan of the reduced crease size (I understand it's being changed to become identical to the NHL crease instead of the current half-circle crease used in college). It's way too easy to get a crease violation yet be nowhere near interfering with the goaltender (the entire point of marking the crease). Right now, if you're coming from behind the net to the non-action side for a setup, you have to consciously skate around the crease that's jutting out to the side of the net.

I definitely agree on the "big losses at home" and "big wins on the road" being poor indicators. I don't see how either of those provide additional insight about the quality of the team. The fact that it was a win or loss is already recorded in winning percentage. The strength of the opponent is already reflected in RPI. Why over- or underweight a game because it's subjectively considered "big"? Of course, bringing in worse teams who manage to win the "big" games does make the tournament more exciting (and, hopefully, thereby increases revenue).

I actually interpret the proposed rule changes as removing some of the current bias toward weaker conferences. It makes sense to make such changes now that CHA was granted a berth (there's a BIG gap between WCHA and CHA in talent). The proposal to change RPI from 35-50-15 (wins, opponent wins, opponents' opponents wins) back to 25-50-25 makes strength of schedule more important. The increased weight on strength of schedule will favor middle teams from the big conferences over top teams from the small conferences. Similarly, changing the definition of TUC (teams under consideration) to .500 RPI instead of .500 record will also favor the big conferences. The other considerations (such as adding a strength of schedule to the last 16 games criteria) also seem to be part of the movement to favor teams who play a more difficult schedule.

They do specifically mention hockey as one of the nine "sports with large, loyal and passionate audiences". However, as they mentioned, they seem to be making deals on a conference-by-conference basis. That seems likely to favor the supports that are played under the umbrella of the basketball conferences (i.e. Big Ten). I wonder if having it's own conference schema hurts college hockey in its ability to negotiate television contracts. Big Ten can make a collective bargain for all of its supports, whereas WCHA comes to the table with only one sport (or two, if you want to count it that way). Anyway, a place for more obscure sports to get airtime is always a good thing

This is clearly premature after just one .500 season, but I was pondering how long it would take for the Sioux hockey bandwagon to unload? I remember going to games in the early 90s when they could barely fill half the 6000-seat Old Engelstad. The new Engelstad is a sellout because of both the recent success of the team and the novelty of the new arena. How long will the REA continue to sellout, and moreso, require large donations to the Fighting Sioux Club to get good season tickets? It strikes me that a county of 66,000 people can't support selling out a 11,500 seat arena in perpituity. Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing some of the fair weather fans shakeout so it becomes possible to pickup tickets to a weekend series when I visit G.F. However, it could be genuinely depressing if in two years the attendance at Sioux games is 3,500 people in the new Ralph. Of course, when the Sioux put together a winning season next year, this is all moot.

Not much new in the article except to note that they're soliciting comments from the athletic directors of member institutions. The article also mentions SCSU's protests and the SI article. http://www.ncaa.org/news/2002/20020401/active/3907n02.html

I think I want one: http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,53%7E458922,00.html

I'm inclined to agree, Kirk, that the +/- seems a little high.

Gotta say, I'm not offended: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm....ities_2 A bunch of students at Northern Colorado have decided to name their team "fighting whities" in an attempt to offend white people who don't understand how native american names are offensive. Personally, I find it demonstrates just the opposite -- I'm not offended at all. Frankly, "whities" is kind of a stupid name, but I would be similarly unoffended had they gone with a white ethnic group ("Fighting Norskes", "Fighting Irish", etc...).

More commentary on the Harris poll cited in SI (from the Mankato Free Press): http://www.mankatofreepress.com/columns/bo020311.html

I understand putting in single-season players. The goal, after all, is simply to name the best players who ever played in the WCHA. One would expect some of them to have left early. If you start to draw a line, do you disqualify someone who left after 3? On a related point -- if there's no bias against single season players, how did CuJo make the list but not Belfour?

The final group was released March 7. It included two additional UND players: Karl Goehring (G, 1997-2001) Bill Reichart (F, 1954-57) That's a total of 7 of the top 50 players in WCHA history from UND. http://wcha.fansonly.com/sports/m-hockey/s.../030702aaa.html

My biggest fear of moving to D-I would be the budget. UND would clearly have to cut a lot of the negative revenue sports because the costs would go up dramatically and football/hockey/basketball would not be able to subsidize them. I think UND is doing the right thing by sitting and waiting. Let NDSU/SDSU/UNO/etc... dip their toes in the water and see what happens. If NDSU comes running back to D-II, it will have been an expensive and embarrassing mistake they made. If all of UND's premier competitors go D-I successfully, then we can more easily and confidently follow.