UND92,96

I think everybody understands that recruiting is a challenge during the transition. But what bothers me is how far behind USD we are right now. We're better than them in football. We're better than them in women's basketball. So why are they so much better than us in men's basketball? That's not a transition issue. Is it a coaching issue? Perhaps. USD loses a ton from this year's team. If they're still clearly better than us next year, it will be very telling.

That's some very encouraging news. I think Mussman can add a lot to the offense, and I'm excited about getting back to more of a pure 3-4 defense, and to have somebody well-versed in it calling the shots.

I have to ask--what exactly is it about Jones that makes you think that the only thing(s) holding him back are the transition and/or the lack of an autobid conference? The transition excuse can only go so far when a coach has no real track record of success. Had Jones stepped in and clearly done better than Rich Glas in our last two seasons as a dII program, or had he been a head coach before at any level with a good deal of success, then maybe he could be cut more slack now. And I kind of hate to even bring this up now, but I don't think we can just ignore the fact that Jones was hired by Tom Buning. Remember him? Look at the respective volleyball coaching hires of Buning and Faison, and the results speak for themselves.

Ben is getting a nice raise at UNI: http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/273289/group/home/

Burck and Roehrich have been named as first team all-staters, and Buck was named to the second team: http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/arti...2/group/Sports/

I like Tubby Smith, but in a way it could be a good thing for Minnesota if he moves on to Auburn or Oregon or wherever, because he's probably not worth the $1.8 million per year he's being paid. Minnesota could hire Ben Jacobson for what, $700k to $900k per year? And Ben could potentially stick around for a long, long time, whereas Tubby is almost certainly not the long-term answer at his age.

I believe spring practice was supposed to have started March 30th last year, but was pushed back a few days due to weather. Based on that, presumably it will start March 29th or so, weather permitting. The spring game was April 25th last year, so I'm assuming it may be on the last Saturday in April again this year.

Wow. I knew UNI was a good team, but I have to admit that I didn't see this coming. Congrats to Jake--I'm sure all of ND is proud of you!

Obviously St. Mary's turned out to be very legit, as they're now in the sweet 16.

Jake sure didn't hurt his chances for moving up the coaching ladder yesterday. Now there are rumblings that Tubby Smith could be moving on to Auburn. So...how about Ben Jacobson to Minnesota?

This point has been made a number of times by other people, but there was a time not so long ago when men's basketball was huge at UND--the early 1990's. That happened to coincide with a very down period for UND hockey, but I don't think that fact alone contributed all that much to the popularity of UND basketball. It was a great product, and 3,000 to 5,000 people consistently filled Hyslop. Can that kind of interest occur again? I don't see why not.

According to Wayne Nelson, Jake is also being mentioned as a possible candidate for the Oregon job.

I believe verbal commit Josie Dillon's Benilde-St. Margaret team is in the 2A tournament.

I've been away from civilization for a few days, and was shocked to hear UND lost to Utah Valley in this GW tournament championship. I would have never imagined that was possible, although with no depth I suppose any game was losable if the wrong person got in foul trouble, which was apparently what happened yesterday since Ledger essentially had no backup.

I've been a pretty hardcore UND basketball fan for a long, long time. I grew up going to games and can recall back to the days of Chris Fahrbach in the late 1970's. But my interest really started to wane when Rich Glas began losing to DAC teams, and I'm now to the point of having a hard time mustering enough interest to complain all that much about the current sad state of affairs. I'd have never thought that possible five years ago, but it's reality now. I'm not going to pretend I know what's best for UND basketball. I'll leave that to Faison. But if somebody like me can lose interest after caring so much for so long, it should concern the administration. And I know of others who feel the exact same way. I could easily see myself becoming passionate again, but it's certainly not going to happen if we continue to see the product we've seen over the last few years of the Glas era, and the first four years of the Jones era.

Both Jones and the NJIT coach have been reprimanded by the Great West Conference: http://www.greatwestconference.org/genrel/031110aaa.html

The strange thing to me is that Brekke/Ralston signed Jones to a relatively lengthy contract extension based upon an NCC tournament runner-up finish back in 2007-08, particularly considering neither the 2006-07 nor 2007-08 seasons were especially good aside from the two tournament wins. For some reason, I had thought Jones was only under contract through the 2011-12 season, but it's actually through the 2012-13 season.

Tom Miller describes exactly what happened at the end of the UND-NJIT game last night in this blog.

Ending the season on a five-game losing streak is not exactly what you'd like to see. We also finished 6-7 vs. teams with an RPI of 320 or worse. I really wish I could say we're making progress, but I'm not so sure we are...

At this point, the following scholarships are spoken for: 1. Youngblut 2. Lof 3. Privatsky 4. Smart 5. Rothfusz 6. Kuehl 7. Houdek 8. Lauck (incoming freshman) 9. Wall (incoming freshman) 10.Buck (incoming freshman) 11.Burck (incoming freshman) 12.Evers (incoming freshman) So assuming Sharkova won't be back, that would leave three scholarships to be filled, probably from the juco ranks since it's imperative we bring in some players who can contribute immediately.

Why can't I get this song out of my head?: I'm just a bill yeah I'm only a bill and I'm sittin' here on Capitol Hill...

Speaking of athleticism and women's basketball, I happened to catch about half of the SDSU-Oral Roberts Summit tournament championship game today, and it really didn't appear to me that SDSU (who won in OT) was especially athletic compared to what they were in their NCC days. They are a good solid team to be sure, but it's not like they're vastly superior to what they were 8-10 years ago IMO. If UND could somehow get back to where we were four or five years ago, I really think we would be a very solid mid-major dI team. Of course, that may be easier said than done.

71 UTPA 68 UND final UND finishes 5-7 in the Great West, and likely locks up a spot in the bottom 10 of the RPI.

61 UTPA 101 UND final What a beatdown. I guess there's a slight gap between the top two teams in the Great West.

43 UTPA 74 UND 12:30 left.