UND92,96

I think Demers had a pretty good career. A lot of people tend to forget that she skipped her senior year of high school to enroll early at USD, so she really should only be a junior right now. Her numbers improved every year, despite playing for three different head coaches in her last three years.

I see Mandy Pearson from UMD has been hired as the new head coach at St. Thomas. She would have been pretty high on my wishlist if UND had conducted a search after last season. Concordia grad and has had a lot of success in Duluth.

I tend to agree, but the point is that recruiting is being done, so I guess we can draw our own conclusions as to what that means in terms of everyone returning or not.

I was able to find at least one current offer to a JUCO sophomore per twitter, plus clearly there's interest in Kinnebrew, so I assume at least one player must have already indicated they aren't returning.

So is defense just not worth any money in the portal, or was King's experience in his one year at Iowa State just so negative that he wanted no part of it again? It's hard to believe we had him for three years.

They were hit pretty hard last spring, too. If they somehow manage to keep either Minessale or Janowski, I'll be very surprised.

Luke Winkel from St. Cloud St. might be someone to watch. He's in the portal, and he and Sather are following each other on twitter. Has put up good numbers in the NSIC for two years.

We can't do much to prevent the early loss of players, but at least if they leave on good terms and it doesn't work out, the door is open for an eventual return. It's not out of the question that could happen with Uelmen. I don't think Ihenacho is going to be the last player to make a return after leaving early in his career.

Since Roebuck retired, USD has had five different head coaches. The one who's there now (currently playing in the NIT in year two), plus the current head coaches at Colorado State, Nebraska, Minnesota and Green Bay, all of whom made the NCAA Tournament this year. Conversely, we've had Brewster (sub-.500 in his career after a winless first season at division II Chaminade in Hawaii), Bernhard, who's out of coaching altogether at present, and now Hutter. And UND hasn't even conducted a true national search for a new coach since 1987. From one of the best division II programs of all time to what we have now in roughly 15 years. It's pretty sad, and it certainly didn't need to be this way.

Maybe Panoam?

So what are we thinking for a roster next year—Kraft, Wylee, Evanson, Hanson and…?

And yet somehow Carson Johnson is apparently returning to Denver next year. I don’t know how that’s possible.

I see Joe Hurlburt is in the portal again. His college career hasn’t really panned out considering his relatively high national ranking coming out of high school, but it will be interesting to see whether any Summit schools offer.

Sather’s team did pretty well on the road in Summit play this year, with presumably the same travel arrangements as the women. I also don’t recall reading any posts complaining about the method of travel or food from men’s team parents, so maybe it’s not that big of a deal in the scheme of things?

Anthony Smith is in the portal.