UND92,96

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.

I definitely don't expect her to come to UND, but supposedly SDSU tends not to want transfers, and NDSU is going to struggle to come up with the money necessary to keep their current best players, so I'm not sure they're going to be able to offer much NIL money to anybody else. USD may be more realistic, if she doesn't get any power four interest.

Could be, but she could have left UMary for a division I program a year ago, so I respect the loyalty of staying with her hometown school for longer than many others may have. Just for the record, I've never met the guy. I just thought his daughter was a really good player in 2023 when Red River and Century played for the state championship, and was surprised she apparently didn't get much, if any division I attention. She seemed every bit as good as her high school teammate Logan Nissley IMO.

He knows his stuff. Pretty well-respected basketball trainer.

He shouldn't be fired after one season, but I will admit that I am curious about the details of his contract, specifically its duration and the salary, which unfortunately was never reported in the Herald to the best of my knowledge. That is pretty unusual for the coach of a fairly high-profile UND sport.

As a certain local columnist likes to say, "something that probably won't happen but if it does I'll look like a genius": If most of the younger players who played major minutes enter the portal and this becomes even more of a rebuilding job than it already is, and if it's true his UND contract is pretty short-term, Hutter will realize maybe division I isn't for him after all and will go back to his old Mayville State job, which just opened up last week after a one-win season by his successor.

In this scenario, what are the chances Moore requests a release from his NLI?

He’s apparently graduating and won’t be using his final season of eligibility.

Another 2026 running back has apparently been added. Owen Reynoso from Peoria, AZ recently committed per his Twitter.

I asked because I am curious whether a 3-guard lineup of Uelmen, Smith and Moore could work. Both Uelmen and Smith have experience at the 2 in high school, and Moore seems like a pure PG as far as being more of a distributor than the other two.

There's been some speculation about whether Omot would ever consider coming back, but what about Panoam? He's got a year left, and after playing only 42 minutes this season at Xavier, you kind of have to assume he may be moving on again.

Question--when Smith and Moore played together in high school, who primarily ran the point? I'm assuming Moore?