UND92,96

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?

While the coaching and overall recruiting were poor under Mallory, I still maintain that UND was very close to being pretty good in 2024-25 despite her ineptitude. If this year's team still had Pemberton, Schiller and Ibrahim, along with Demers, Aumer, Hughes, Ava Miller, Piekny, Hillesheim and Harris, UND is probably no worse than third or fourth in the Summit. Splitting two close games vs. NDSU that season, and being far more competitive vs. SDSU than in the years prior, suggests that Hutter did probably have a pretty big impact in his one year as an assistant, and if he can figure out a way to add some talent close to the level of the top three players from 2024-25, there may be hope.

If you are a program with a minimal NIL budget, you can still be at least moderately successful, but you need to do it primarily via high school recruiting, since that's relatively inexpensive. I think we've started to see that with Sather. Obviously he faces the same issues with regard to facilities, NIL, etc., but he seems to have developed a potentially successful formula of recruiting MN quite well, and filling in the gaps with ND kids and one or two decent portal additions per year. Hutter may be able to do the same thing, but it's not easy to be immediately successful with high school recruiting. It's probably a fair criticism to say that Hutter may be a bit too enamored with his preferred style of play. It didn't work well this past season, and maybe he should have adjusted more (even though it probably wouldn't have resulted in many, if any more wins), but I watched enough Mayville State games to believe that his system CAN work, with the right types of players. Whether he can successfully recruit them remains to be seen.

I really hope Smith and the Curtises stay for another year. I don't see how any of them would improve their situation by leaving at this point. But I also realize that the chances of them leaving are probably pretty high. I also wonder if the Curtises' decision will impact what Bothun decides to do? Uelmen certainly will have offers, but I suspect he's smart enough to realize that chasing the money now might be a bit short-sighted, unless you don't mind running the risk of not playing much (see Panoam as an example).

Would either GF school even be AA in MN, without opting up? I'm pretty sure Mahtomedi is larger enrollment-wise than either Central or Red River.

UND was 4-2 against Denver and St. Thomas, and both those teams split their two games with NDSU during the season. Neither has a traditional big man. So hopefully now that Jones is back playing, that will be the difference from the last two disastrous meetings. Because I can't really understand what other reason there is that UND has struggled so badly against the Bison compared to the Pioneers and Tommies.

Four—Duchscherer, Fricke, Smith and Sonnenberg.

I’m not saying you’re necessarily wrong, but I think Uelmen, Smith and Moore could all coexist in the starting lineup, just as Wheeler-Thomas, Carson and Stefonowicz do for NDSU.

Courtesy of Zach Borg on Twitter: UPDATED-Oral Roberts destroyed Denver tonight 102-80 so Pioneers finish 8-8 Seeding 4-7 @ stake in season finales UNO finishes at St. Thomas. If UNO wins they’re the 4 (swept DU) If USD wins & UNO loses USD will be the 5 If SDSU wins they’re the 6 regardless

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.