UND92,96

Noon and 2 p.m. games on a Tuesday? Wow.

I know Roebuck has never been a big proponent of red-shirting, but it's really turning out to have been a good move to have red-shirted Youngblut her first year. She's really starting to come on lately (25 points last night), and thanks to her red-shirt season, she still has one more year to go.

66 UND 42 Seattle final

Softball has been dropped from the Olympics due to too much North American dominance. Hopefully women's hockey doesn't suffer the same fate: http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/vancouver...o&type=lgns

Here are Anderson's stats: http://preps.startribune.com/stats.detail....playerid=105645

It's been a long time since I actually expected a true freshman to start, but I think the chances are good Anderson starts right away. He'll be the first true point guard Jones has had (hard to believe considering it will be Jones' fifth year), and he's also probably more athletic than the only other options--"combo" guards Haugen and Schuler.

I believe these are the five most recent recruiting classes which have at least one player still on the team: 2004-05 Kimbrough (graduated) Ledger Bagaason 2005-06 Bergan Seay Youngblut 2006-07 K. Gillett (left team) Lof LaFrance (injured--no longer on team) Brekke (juco transfer) (left team) 2007-08 Privatsky (injured) J. Gillett (left team) Thingstad (left team--may have been walk-on) 2008-09 Sharkova (juco transfer) (ineligible--may never play) Houdek (injured) Kuehl (injured) Smart Rothfusz Obviously the last three recruiting classes, for a variety of reasons, have done very little so far. Lof is the only player who could be considered a meaningful contributor at this point. I'm not interested in placing blame for the way things have worked out, but clearly things need to start turning around quickly in terms of recruiting if we want to avoid being at the level of most of the rest of the Great West, which as we've seen is pretty terrible.

Looks like the rebuilding project just got a little bigger. So next year we'll have sr.'s Youngblut and Lof, and...a lot of question marks: Privatsky, who's coming off two serious knee injuries, four sophomores who each have shooting percentages in the 20's at present, and who average between 1 and 3 ppg each, plus a bunch of true freshmen and (probably) two or three juco transfers. And it's been a long time since either a true freshman or juco transfer has made much of an impact. So in other words, things aren't looking too promising.

True, but my understanding is that Arizona is becoming more and more heavily recruited by FCS schools. I wonder what other offers Batten had coming out of high school? Who knows, maybe SDSU was his only dI offer. SDSU offered a handful of AZ kids this year, but didn't get any of them. I'm just wondering whether that was merely a fluke, or perhaps a sign of things to come? I honestly believe that if UND were still playing outside, we would not have gotten most (maybe any?) of the kids we've gotten in the past few years from CA, AZ, FL or TX.

Long-term, I wonder how much (if any) of a disadvantage it is for SDSU to be the only one of the four Dakota dI schools to still play outside? It may not matter that much when recruiting kids from the region who are used to playing outside in the cold, but for a kid from Arizona, for example, who may have offers from SDSU and at least one of the other Dakota schools, might playing inside be a factor in his decision? I wonder if it was for R.J. McGill?

You can download the football media guide for free at fightingsioux.com, and that should contain the info.

I certainly don't follow area juco basketball closely, but I know NDSCS has a sophomore guard averaging about 20 ppg. I believe her name is Megan Groen.

Games have been postponed due to the weather on the east coast causing travel problems: http://www.areavoices.com/waynenelson/.

Although I think most of us see that some lean years may be ahead for UND women's basketball, at our present level (which is almost certainly below average compared to other Roebuck teams), here's how our RPI compares to the current and future Summit teams: 127 Oral Roberts 129 SDSU 201 UND 218 Missouri-KC 219 Oakland 226 NDSU 238 IPFW 306 W. Illinois 315 USD 335 S. Utah 341 IUPUI 343 Centenary (leaving)

With the graduation of Gottbeheat, Nolte and Farstveet, depth at defensive end behind starters Bellmore and Brenneman appears to be lacking, so I fully expect Lundeen, Stanchik and/or Cole to see playing time next year.

Is it possible he was the victim of some sort of Abscam-esque ruse whereby unscrupulous UND fans, posing as DeBoer associates, fed him mis-information?

I assume it got to a point where it was too late in the season for Sharkova to start playing even if she was cleared by the NCAA. It would have been a waste of a year of eligibility. She's still on the bench so apparently she hasn't been ruled ineligible, at least not yet. In any event, either she'll finally be cleared, or else there will be another scholarship available. As for Privatsky, it will be difficult to recover from two serious knee injuries, but not unprecedented. I haven't heard anything about the likelihood of her playing again.

Besides Youngblut and Lof, it is extremely difficult to project a 2010-11 starting lineup. I'd say Privatsky at point guard, health permitting. Sharkova at center, NCAA permitting. The other spot is probably Rothfusz, unless one of the true freshmen really impresses. I'm still hoping for a couple of juco additions, just because there will be no other juniors next year (aside from hopefully Sharkova), and we desperately need scoring. It's been at least five years since a true freshman has stepped in and provided scoring immediately, so I'm not counting on the incoming recruits to provide much offense next year.

From Sid Hartman's column the other day: I wonder if he's confusing UND and NDSU? Not that Sid is ever confused about anything...

Looks like they died by it again--lost today at Texas-Pan American.

Per Wayne Nelson's blog, Archer is out for the rest of the season with a serious knee injury.

Looks like it's going to continue to be tough to be a Gopher football fan for at least a few more years: http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/267416/group/home/

I'm going off on a tangent here, but had the Alerus never been built, UND would be in serious need of a new football stadium. I can't even begin to imagine trying to recruit if we still played in decrepit Memorial Stadium.

USD is a difficult team to figure out. They obviously played well in Grand Forks last weekend, but somehow lost last night at Houston Baptist, which has an RPI of 330!

63 UND 47 Texas-Pan American final