Hammersmith

Full article is up: Faison says he wants UND to face NDSU, but Summit commissioner cautions against it Some new quotes from Faison and Douple; nothing new from Taylor.

Teaser article from Kolpack at the Forum. The full article should be posted after midnight. Summit commissioner urges caution in scheduling UND

Wisconsin-La Crosse is a DIII school and SDSU played them last in 2006. Neither SDSU nor NDSU played a non-DI the year before they were playoff eligible(though SDSU played the transitioning Central Arkansas). *Wisconsin-La Cross is a good DIII school that makes the playoffs almost every year(they usually are eliminated in the second round). Wisconsin is strange in that they have no FCS or DII football programs, so the DIII schools often get good DII talent.

See, I was wrong already. Bison drop the Oakland game by one point. No sweep for us.

I'm going to stand by my statement that NDSU MBB attendance will continue to grow over the next few years and only time will prove me right or wrong. I think Matt misunderstood me a bit with my quadruple comment. I said that NDSU's attendance in three years(this one and two more) might quadruple UND's attendance in three years, not that NDSU's attendance in three years might quadruple what it is now. At that time, I can see NDSU's attendance being in the 4100-4600 range with UND's around 1100-1300. I could very well be wrong(a lot can happen in three years), but it's well within the range of possibilities. While I normally think quite highly of coach daddy's basketball comments, I think he's wrong regarding NDSU's chances beyond this year. While there will be a dropoff, I don't believe it will be the catastrophic one he seems to be predicting. Tonight's game will be quite telling, but, if we win, there's a decent chance we'll sweep the Summit this year. Even with a talent dropoff, we'll still be in contention next year. Maybe we'll win the Summit tourney, maybe we won't, but we won't be out of the discussion and we'll probably be in the top three or four with ORU, Oakland & IUPUI. As for why I think we'll continue to see attendance growth even without the "fab four", it's because the last four years have seen a build of momentum that I'm not sure NDSU MBB has ever had. Short of absolutely flopping next season, I think that momentum will continue even with what will be, now, an average season. Many previous seasons of reported attendance were either the result of inflated numbers or were propped up by the women's program(much like you guys the past few years). The current numbers are the result of accurate counting and the men standing alone without conference doubleheaders. That's why I'll put up last season's 3,034 against any 3,500 or 4,000 of seasons past. Lastly, I think my "throwaway" comment was also valid. Miles sacrificed that season for the sake of the future and the play that year was horrible. The schedule was even worse. Other than SDSU, the best game on that schedule was Mankato. Those two games joined other hot tickets like Concordia(Mhd), Si Tanka-Huron, Upper Iowa, Dakota Wesleyan, and a nice sampling of DAC schools. Hell, your men's schedule this year is better than what we went through back then(not much better mind you, but enough). Sic, the hockey story is wonderful, but how are you going to build on it to help pay for the DI move? Are you going to increase hockey attendance significantly? Can't do that, you're already at sell out levels. Raise ticket prices? Would GF and the UND fan base accept more than $25 for a regular ticket? To me, it looks like UND hockey is nearly maxed out as a revenue source. Even if you push hard in football and basketball, those facilities don't have that much room for growth. About 2,000 in football, and 1,500 in basketball. Combined with your priority seating program being linked to hockey, it's those numbers that would keep me up at nights growing new ulcers if I were AD Faison. I'm probably going to be wrong with some of the above, and maybe even all of it, but none of it is even close to impossible, and little is even unlikely. We'll just have to wait and see. Now, the Bison/Oakland game is about to tipoff and it's available for free on channelsurfing.net, so I'll see you after the game.

How does having twice as many fans attending NDSU MBB games as UND(even without ORU factored in) equal "roughly the same attendance numbers"? I don't get that. While we would always like to see higher attendance, the NDSU men's program has had healthy growth for the past four years. I stated earlier that it was 300-500 per year, but I just crunched the numbers and it appears I was wrong. The average growth per year is 450, and we're on trend to match that this year. There's a real possibility of tripling UND's numbers by the end of this year and quadrupling within two more. And don't give me the "larger metro area" excuse; that thought doesn't fly for college athletics. Schools from smaller communities regularly have larger attendances than their big city counterparts because the small-town college is often the only major draw in town. The big city school is competing against a host of other activities for fans. While the gap between F/M and GF isn't small town/big city in scale, we do have two other colleges, a bunch more high schools, a USHL team that is fresh and new, and all the additional movie, dining and club/bar experiences that our larger size creates. If we do manage to get close to 3500 this year as projected, it will be accomplished in the worst winter in a decade and the worst economic year since the Great Depression. If we do it, I'll consider that a smashing success. At our current rate of growth, we will sell out the BSA(cap. ~6300) within six years and the new arena(~6000) will probably sell out by its second year if construction starts this spring. Smack our women's attendance all you want(it deserves it right now), but the men's attendance is just about perfect from where we started from on this DI road. NDSU Men's Attendance 2004-05: 1654(throwaway year with "fab-four" redshirting) 2005-06: 2488 (+834) 2006-07: 2625 (+137) 2007-08: 3034 (+409) 2008-09: 3468 (+454) projected

It would help for those two games(one men's, one women's), but two games does not a schedule make. I'm not opposed to Bison/Sioux basketball games in two or three years, but the problems are deeper than just one matchup. I'm also not sure a non-conference home/home with UND would be good for NDSU. I'm a little surprised we had one with the Northern Arizona men this year.

Part of the problem with those sub-1000 games was the weather and semester break. The snow and bitter cold of this December has hurt attendance; especially against undesirable opponents like Valley City State, Crookston or Seattle Pacific. In our case, men's attendance has been on a nice upward trend thanks to Woodside, Winkelman and Nelson. Last year was around 3,000 and we should see a 300-500 annual rise for the foreseeable future. The only bad year we've had recently was their redshirt year(04-05) when we had a terrible schedule and Tim Miles basically threw the season(our practice squad was more talented than our starting lineup). The women's attendance has not been so pretty. Our schedules have been bad, we haven't had a doubleheader in four years, the Sat/Mon conference schedule sucks, and our team hasn't been very good. We seem to be hovering around a 1,300 average with a +/- 250 variance. We need to field a better team and start winning to get above a 2,000 average. Also, if the Fargodome Arena happens, we'll probably get a 750-1000 bump for both men's and women's. As for UND, your troubles started with the new Betty; it's just too small. Several years ago, you held a number of games in the Ralph and that helped attendance. For whatever reason, UND stopped doing that. The loss of several of the NCC schools also hurt badly because it forced the conference to move from Fri/Sat conference games to Thur/Sat. The fewer number of schools also meant fewer conference doubleheaders; the highest attended games. I believe you went from twelve or thirteen doubleheaders in 2003-04 to just five this season. You're also now dealing with the horrible schedules we faced four years ago. Both your men's and women's attendances have been on a steady decline for the past five years. It will probably get a little worse before it gets better. Quite frankly, your facility situation puts you between a rock and a hard place. In the 3,000-4,000 range, the additional ticket sales are probably more than offset by the higher costs of using the Ralph. It most likely only makes sense to use the Ralph when expected attendance exceeds 4,500. But there probably won't be any of those games for several years, since transitional scheduling truly sucks. Last year, you only had two games that broke 2,500: the USD doubleheader. I'm not sure if you're going to get any this year. I think our women might get one: SDSU. However, with the condition of our team(8 healthy players and our leading scorer out), I'm not even certain of that. Happy New Year everyone

WBB UND vs. Seattle Pacific(Dec 20): 713 We still win the worst attended game of the year contest with our 703 game vs. Oral Roberts. Sub-1000 games between us this year: 1. 703 NDSU WBB vs. Oral Roberts(Mon, Dec 8) 2. 706 UND MBB vs. UM-C(Tue, Dec 30) 3. 713 UND WBB vs. Seattle Pacific(Sat, Dec 20) 4. 804 UND MBB vs. VCSU(Wed, Dec 10) 5. 855 NDSU WBB vs. Centenary(Sat, Dec 6) 6. 870 NDSU WBB vs. VCSU(Fri, Nov 21) Averages to date: NDSU MBB: 2823 UND WBB: 1359 UND MBB: 1205 NDSU WBB: 1118 Apparently the Summit is talking about moving the women's games from Sat/Mon on the same weekend as the men's Thur/Sat games to the Thur/Sat opposite the men's games. That would help women's attendance, though it would eliminate the possible Sat doubleheader with the men. Since NDSU chooses not to use the doubleheader, it could only help us. Any word if you guys are going to make up your game with Jamestown? We rescheduled our women's game with them only to have it cancelled again due to weather. It's not going to be rescheduled this time. *I was bored and updating my attendance results from the 29th/30th when I remembered reading Walrus' post last night. Good luck vs. the Minot State men on the 2nd and have a good(and safe) New Year's Eve.

[edit: At first, I assumed the Spectrum letter was the same as the September Forum letter. Reading closer, I see that it's a new letter, but its wording and phrasing only deepens the suspicion that the whole thing is a hoax. Who? I don't know. But to get worked up over it seems like a waste of effort.] By the way, this is a fairly old story. The letter was published back on September 8 in the Fargo Forum. The Herald did a follow-up piece two days later and found this:

You never know what can happen in ten years. The attendance clause was probably put in because there's no word yet on what changes will occur in the DI requirements during the current moratorium. Those changes probably won't become known until late 2011/early 2012. While it's unlikely those changes will have any effect on the Alerus/UND agreement, it's better to be safe than sorry.

Going down to the wire. Sioux down by 2. Tell me this is your second string announcer. Game over. 67-65 Northwestern

The only dinner in the Herald is on Christmas Eve. St. Michael's Christmas Eve dinner, 3:30 to 6 p.m., St. Michael's Church Youth Center, Grand Forks. Rides offered. (701) 772-2624 or (701) 772-4479. Date: 12/24/2008 Time: 03:30 PM to 06:00 PM Christmas Day events: Christmas in the Park, 5:30 to 10 p.m., Lincoln Drive Park, Grand Forks. Cars, $5; limousines, $10; buses, $20; (701) 787-3756. Date: 12/25/2008 Time: 05:30 PM to 10:00 PM XL93 Christmas DJ Dance, 8 p.m., VFW Club, East Grand Forks. Date: 12/25/2008 Time: 08:00 PM

When looking for internet info on a subject, the best place to start is that subject's website; normally the "About Us" or "About <subject>" section. Go to UND's website and click on the About UND link at the bottom of the main page. Explore the links on the left hand side of the page and you will find dozens of good pictures. If you find some you like, rightclick>save as and you've got them.

Short version: UND's official motto is Lux et Lex (By the light of Knowledge, we read the laws of life) Longer version: The flame, lamp and torch are common symbols of learning and knowledge. As far back as Ancient Greece there are tales linking light and knowledge(Prometheus stealing fire from the gods). In ancient times, oil lamps would be used by those in libraries and monasteries to read and copy books. The worst age of barbarism in European history is commonly known as The Dark Ages. The period of flourishing knowledge following after is sometimes known as The Great Enlightenment(The Renaissance). Today, a great many colleges and universities use the flame, lamp or torch in their official seals(punch some well-known colleges into Wikipedia to see what I mean). Many colleges also have fountains, squares, statues or other physical representations of the flame on their campuses(do a Google search for "Flame of Knowledge"). There's even a lit torch that graces the top of the dome at the Library of Congress.

Apparently I was home when they took the picture of my building. My ugly truck is beautifully centered in the shot.

The "attacks" on players' families are being massively exaggerated. Here's another BV poster's explanation of the situation: "Mertens told McFeely that his mother is bothered by all the negative talk of him on the internet, so we know she haunts these boards. Also, there were several posters with no real history here who suddenly started proclaiming him the greatest thing in green and gold." From there, a couple posters would jokingly ask if another poster was Mertens' mom if that poster attacked someone critizing Nick. Never were any insults actually directed at Nick's mom, only at a few overly aggressive Mertens supporters(if one of them really was Nick's mom, she never identified herself). Is this type of humor dark? Yes it is. But it isn't exactly a happy time in Bisonville right now.

Who names their kid Issac Newton? You've just condemned your kid to a childhood of thrown apples. Congratulations, you've won worst parent of the year.

Did you subscribe to the free audio package? To get the audio feeds, you have to register and select the 'SIOUXtra FREE Audio-Only Pass'. If you've already registered and still can't access the premium contact, go to 'My Profile' and see if that package is listed. If it's not, click on the 'Purchase Packages' button and "buy" it for $0.00. You should be able to access the audio feeds then.

Nope. It's on the same channel in Grand Forks that FSSN is usually on, but it's not on the whole network. More explaination: USD/Mediacomm is producing the game, but FSSN did not pick it up for full FSSN coverage. The cable company in GF chose to pick it up just for the GF area and any cable companies part of the Mediacomm network may also be showing it. Cableone in Fargo never really had the option to pick it up.

That could've been because both your opponents were DI. I think there were some times when your football teams were playing non-DI opponents and the scores were still up, but I don't know if that will carry over to basketball.

Don't expect much this year. You don't count in RPI calculations until next year, so most of the major sites (and just about all of the minor) won't include you on their webpages. Heck, a couple didn't even include NDSU/SDSU at the beginning of this year and we're playoff eligible. It's a long, uphill climb.

Need to correct this before it's repeated enough times that others begin to believe it. SUU had won GWFC games before. They beat UCD & SDSU in 2004 and UNC in 2005. This was their first GWFC away victory, however.

My favorite political sign: http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp10282008.shtml

Video: The game is available through CSTV for $9.95, most likely with UCD announcers(if any). http://all-access.cstv.com/cstv/player/player.html?code=ucda UCD Audio: http://ucdavisaggies.cstv.com/genrel/ucda-liveaudio.html or http://www.khtk.com/ (both appear to be free) UND Audio: http://www.kfgo.com/InternetRadio.asp (free) or http://www.fightingsioux.com/liveEvents/li...db_oem_id=13500 (free, but registration required - choose FB audio package for $0.00)