MplsBison

I would strongly advise you not to become another one of "those" teams that plays their bball games in the football dome.

Impossible. The Georgia Dome, Metrodome, Edward Jones Dome(Saint Louis), Rogers Center (Toronto), etc. do just fine with it.

I would think that "4 home and 4 away" would signal something in your head about "football". But for that matter, any even number above 10 works just as well. Going about 12 or 14 (depending on who you ask) gets a tad absurd, but still accomplishes the same as far as scheduling goes. I honestly don't know how basketball scheduling works, so I can't really comment on the ideal membership for basketball leagues.

Just because you don't play one conference member every season doesn't mean that you cycle through every single conference member. Maybe it's just the farthest 2 conference members that you don't play. Rivalries can always be accomodated. And with that point taken care of, there isn't an AD in the country that would rather schedule a NC game in the middle of conference season vs. not playing one of the conference teams.

9 conference members is hardly perfect. It leaves a conference member with a NC game to schedule each week of the conference season. 10 is ideal as it still gives each team 4 home and 4 away. The only negative there is you don't play one team each year. That's less of a negative in my book then having to schedule a hard to find NC game in the conference season.

The Fargodome Authority decides what to do with the money in the Fargodome's accounts.

Fixed.

Sure, post a bunch of stories about the explosion of high school lacrosse. Growth is logrithmic. It starts out very fast and then slows down. How many high school students in the country participate in lacrosse vs track and baseball/softball? Still not even close.

Indoor lacrosse basically is grass hockey. I mean, the Swarm use the exact hockey set up, just turf on top of the ice. Outdoor lacrosse, OTOH, seems a bit more like soccer.

I think I saw somewhere that UT Brownsville (same conference as HBU) was also thinking DI. I wonder how much longer the NAIA has? 10 years before every school is a member of the NCAA?? As far as HBU goes, adding M/W xcountry, indoor track, outdoor track, and golf would be an easy and cheap way to get to 15 sports.

I wonder if the Gophers will cut off the pipeline they've built to the Columbus area? Each coach brings his own connections to high school area coaches.

NDSU didn't get Carson Newman on the 04 schedule until fairly late.

It's rare, but it does happen. Northwestern State came to the Fargodome first in 2004.

Word on Bisonville is that Backowski is considering NDSU or UMN. http://www400.pair.com/bisonvil/cgi-bin/ya...?num=1175346568

If Iowa and Iowa State wanted to join the Mid Con, they'd expand to 12. Therefore, if the teams that want to join are good enough, the expansion will happen. The argument, then, is simply are UND and USD good enough? I say yes.

Why is 10 better than 12?

http://www.und.edu/org/bridges/gifthorse.html

Neuharth must be around there. Engelstad wasn't a billionaire or anything.

I doubt that a conference, esp. if it's the Mid Con or Gateway, is going to want to add only UND or USD and not also the other.

Yeah I guess not with those numbers. Just seems like 3 hr drive (Bis to Far) or 4 hr drive (Bis to GF) is too far for casual fans.

Is there any chance that Mary would go DI, maybe 15 years from now? Bismark is a growing area (Burliegh county is the 2nd fastest growing in ND other than Cass). Probably will surpass GF/EGF soon. Seems like if GF can support a DI school, Bismark would be able to?

I know next to nothing about DI swiming other than Auburn pretty much kicks everyone's asses. It'll be interesting to see how UND fits in with the big boys.

NDSU is likely adding IL State at the Fargodome Nov 3rd. http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm...;section=sports So much for NDSU/UND on Sept 1st. Just have to wait for 2009.

The whole WIAC should be forced to at least DII, IMO.

If Bismark and Fargo where one city with the capital there, they'd be a lot like Boise.