MplsBison

Ok so a 60 million endowment.

I'll just be flat honest: you're guys aren't going to go DI without raising student fees. Students are either going to have to buck up or you're going to have to get some major private endowments. Let's see, a 20 million dollar budget would need a 400 million dollar endownment, correct?

Certainly.

Schools like Drake, Dayton, etc. used to be able to play DIII in football. But other DIII schools claimed they had an unfair advantage in that they could use money from basketball to pay for football facilities, coaches, etc. So the NCAA said that if you're DI in basketball, you're DI in everything. Thus, the DI schools who still don't have scholarships for their football teams (Drake, Butler, Dayton...basically the Pioneer League).

Wow, I had no idea. I can see UND's perspective now. Still, the money will have to come from somewhere. Will be 100% private?

Boston is also only an hour and a half away from Durham. I think the state of North Dakota nees to step up and get more money to NDSU and UND and less money to the rest of the NDUS schools.

How can ME and NH afford to allocate 6 million in institutional funds and UND can't?

You're saying that UND wouldn't be able to obtain the same with about the same or more enrollment and the support of the state of ND?

Maine, New Hampshire, and UND are all the "University of ____" flagship schools in their respective states. Obviously ME and NH don't have a "_____ State University" co flagship to deal with like UND does with NDSU. But that shouldn't matter. Maine has: Football Baseball Softball MW Basketball MW X Country MW Track MW Soccer MW Ice Hockey MW Swimming Field Hockey Volleyball 19 sports New Hampshire has: Football MW Basketball MW X Country MW Track MW Soccer MW Ice Hockey W Swimming (M Swimming is cut in 2006) Field Hockey Volleyball MW Skiing (MW Tennis is cut in 2006) (W Rowing is cut in 2006) 18 sports UND has: Football Baseball Softball MW Basketball MW X Country MW Track W Soccer MW Ice Hockey MW Swimming Volleyball MW Golf W Tennis 20 sports Roughly the same. Why would money be a problem?

So there are UND fans out there that say "hockey is the best, who cares about the rest" that would view the move to DI as taking resources away from hockey and would thus fight the move?

Sorry if I offended you, I didn't mean it. You should please answer this as honestly as you can, though: Do you believe that there are UND fans who want all possible resources to go to the hockey team at whatever cost (football, basketball, whatever)?

If you're worried about resources being taken away from the hockey team, why not drop to DIII for the rest of the sports like Colorado College?

Buning is way to smart to even go down that road. I think he sees the financial impact that regaining the rivalry games brings and will do whatever it takes to get it going again.

With Chicago State out, the MCC is down to six baseball members. If Centenary leaves, they would no longer have the six they need for an auto bid. IPFW does fill that need, though.

The last two years the Big Sky and the Mid Cont. have each gotten 1 ticket to the big dance. Two seasons ago Oakland had to play in to get the 16th seed and last season Oral Roberts was seeded 16th straight up. Two seasons ago Montana was seeded 16th straight up and last season Montana was seeded 12th. Montana beat the 5th seed and then lost in the second round. So by what logic is the Mid Cont. a better basketball conference? As far as baseball and softball go, NDSU will need affiliate membership. The Mid Cont. might be a home for these two sports.

Do you know the dates that the CSP game and the "olive branch extention" were? I think what he's saying is that we had a basic agreement with CSP (maybe not a contract, but a verbal agreement) before UND wanted to play us.

I'm sure some Big Sky schools have club Lax teams. But there are no varsity teams at the moment.

You guys could buy our your Mesa contract for a decent guarantee with Northern Iowa. This will also give yourselves a nice test against a quality I-AA if you feel you might want to go in that direction. NDSU got Montana on the schedule and then announced they were going DI. UND next?

I was thinking more along the lines of building the Saints a new stadium on the U campus. It wouldn't be just for title IX.

I solidly disagree that Minnesota needs a new on campus baseball stadium. The only way possible would be if they could pair up with a minor league team and share the costs. That way the stadium wouldn't sit empty taking up space for 49 out of 52 weeks a year. Outdoor baseball in the upper midwest during 80% of the NCAA basebal season is just no good. I wish it wasn't that way but it is.

The Dome is really the only reason Minneasota can have any success. They can have tournaments up there instead of having to be on the road for all of March and most of April. As far as cutting baseball goes, I was going to say that the Big 10 probably wouldn't allow such a thing but when I checked it appears that Wisconsin doesn't have a baseball team (anymore?). Baseball is one of only three team sports in the Big 10 where not all 11 schools have a team (men's soccer and field hockey being the other two). So I guess it would be possible for MN to drop their baseball team. But as long as they can use the Metrodome, they'll probably keep it. I would even say that MN should move into the dome permanately if a new Twins stadium is built and just tear down the U stadium for parking.

It's too bad they can't play in the dome. That works out nice for Minnesota.

SUU is a non counter for DI-A schools. That means they didn't average 60 scholarships over the last three years and that a DI-A school can't count them for a BCS win.

Even with Newman field and even with full DI baseball status, NDSU has a problem. The climate up here is not great for baseball. Maybe if the season went into the summer, I could see it. But it only goes until May. Hard to get a lot of home games.

I didn't really think about them, or Texas State for that matter if they move up. Yes, those are certainly possibilities.