UND92,96

From Alex Faber's Herald article:

Have you seen Trueblood play for Minot? I'm curious whether he may have division I potential.

Speaking of Bismarck, what is the word on the recruitment of Kinnebrew and Austin? I know UND offered Austin awhile back, and NDSU and USD have offered Kinnebrew. Not sure why UND hasn't.

Here's a recent article about Hanson, and it explains why his time at the prep school was cut short: https://www.kfyrtv.com/2026/01/22/servpro-athlete-week-tgus-sage-hanson/

Yes. Both also had NDSU offers. I know the story out of Fargo is that they backed off Evanson when Max Iversen committed, but they offered Hanson shortly after UND did this past summer, and very shortly thereafter he committed to UND. So this is definitely not like the Erikson/Doppler situation in that regard. Evanson and Hanson played on the same AAU team this past summer.

You think so? I think he's got some talent. Time will tell.

I think we all kind of knew an extension was going to happen. I just hope something was done to greatly reduce the buyout in year three. You'd think Chaves would have learned his lesson from Bubba's last extension.

I get it. I didn't agree with it either. But I could kind of understand taking a flyer on a local big kid.

Moore set the all-time MN record for career assists last night. I am really looking forward to seeing what he can do here.

Keep in mind that Kraft, Erikson and Doppler are all ND kids who came in the same year. Erikson and Doppler on scholarship, and Kraft as a PWO. Kraft carved out a niche for himself, and the others haven't been able to. It happens. Hopefully they can succeed at the division II level at Mary or Minot or Jamestown.

I kind of expect Uelmen to come back.

This was kind of a shocker, particularly considering neither Demers nor Harris played. Piekny is kind of the women's team version of Kraft. Virtually all her shots on the season are 3s.

My guess is that they plan to drop either wrestling or baseball, and add at least one women's sport (tennis or swimming?).

Obviously this news raises a lot of questions. Title IX will be a big one if you're going to have to roughly double the football budget/add 30-40 football scholarships.

USD may be looking for a new head coach again:

USD has shown that a program led by a coach in their second year can make a huge jump if they do well in the portal. The Coyotes returned pretty much no production from last year, and they are now 17-6, including a 19-point win over SDSU last week. It will be interesting to see if they can sustain that success beyond this season though, as most of the new players are seniors. The thing UND has going for it is that there are several young players who look like they can be solid role players in the future, so it's not going to be a matter of starting from scratch next year like USD did. But it's going to be imperative that some difference-makers are added in the offseason.

Just curious--is this what May-Port actually wants to do, or is this a matter of the NDHSAA forcing it upon them?

Yes, according to the Herald article about the game.

UND would struggle with UMary, but you kind of have to take yesterday's game with a grain of salt, as UND is so much worse when Demers isn't playing. Compare the game vs. USD, where she played, and SDSU, where she didn't, as examples.

Upon further review, I believe the AI answer to my question misunderstood the difference between the current college football and basketball redshirt rules. In football, you can play in up to four games, or roughly 30-35% of the total, and still maintain a redshirt (and there's serious discussion about upping the limit to nine games). In basketball, for whatever reason, the rule is completely different, as you can't even play one game and maintain a non-medical redshirt. I have to think the basketball redshirt rule will be challenged legally in the near future, as it seems completely illogical for the rules to be so dramatically different. In any event, I still believe players like King would have a strong argument for a waiver. Playing 31 minutes as a true freshman doesn't seem like it should count as a year of eligibility within the five-year window.

As I said, I could be wrong. But while this is far from official, I found this:

I could be wrong on this, but I believe the rule is that a student-athlete can get a 5th year of eligibility if he played in less than 30% of a team's games in any one of his four years. In his one year at Iowa State, Eli King played in 9 out of the Cyclones' 33 games, or just over 27%, which would seem to mean he still has one more year if he chooses to use it. That's not to say that he'd necessarily choose to stay at UND for a hypothetical 5th year if serious money is offered elsewhere, but it would be great for him if the 31 minutes he played at Iowa State didn't end up costing him a year of eligibility. And obviously it would be huge for UND to potentially have him for another year.

This is kind of a pet peeve of mine. I certainly can't say whether she should or should not be getting minutes, but why even bring her back for a 5th year if she wasn't going to play? I can understand letting a kid finish up her four years if she works hard in practice and is a good student, but a 5th year?

UND now at KenPom 260, up 20 from earlier in the week, but still behind sub-.500 (overall) Summit teams SDSU, Omaha and Denver.

I have to think that will be the case. Wylee is the closest to Anderson UND has in terms of skillset, size and athleticism. In time, I think he'll be very solid.