UND92,96

If the Sioux can stay healthy (knock on wood), things are looking pretty promising for the rest of the season based upon the current RPI's of Great West teams: 188 UND 209 USD 255 Texas-Pan American 271 NJIT 286 Chicago St. 328 Houston Baptist 335 Utah Valley Particularly considering all the travel UND had this week and the extreme lack of depth, I'd say winning on the road against the second-best team in the conference (on paper) is a pretty good accomplishment.

UND has far fewer question marks heading into than 2010 than there were heading into 2009. Whereas in 2009 we were heading into the season with almost no experience to speak of on offense, in 2010 we should return the qb, rb, top receiver and three full-time offensive line starters plus another who played a lot down the stretch. Somebody will need to emerge at left tackle, and we'll have a new kicker. We also need a couple of receivers to step up and complement Bamba. But as a whole, the offense looks far better for 2010. On defense, we return pretty close to everybody. But some of the freshmen who red-shirted in 2009 will need to step in immediately to provide depth, particularly at linebacker. Although we won't play anybody the caliber of Texas Tech in 2010, the schedule is still quite challenging with a couple of games against FBS teams who played in bowl games in 2009 (Idaho and Northern Illinois), plus a game against FCS runner-up Montana, along with four games against solid Great West Conference teams. The record may not necessarily reflect it, but I do expect a much-improved Sioux team in 2010 compared to 2009.

It certainly appears that the team is playing much better than they were early on. Obviously the level of competition plays a big role there, but nevertheless the shots seem to be falling with more frequency. Considering the relatively soft remaining schedule, finishing above .500 appears quite possible. However, I'd feel a little better about things if we weren't so reliant on the senior class. With the four seniors and two juniors doing virtually all of the scoring, it makes a person wonder where the offense is going to come from next year. We can only hope that next year's freshmen class is a bit more game-ready than this year's has been.

It's interesting how close the four Dakota schools are right now in terms of RPI: 170 SDSU 187 NDSU 194 UND 206 USD I certainly wouldn't have expected UND to be ranked that high given the poor record this year.

Perhaps in a sense, but it was hard to believe UND should be a favorite on the road against anybody in dI, let alone against a team that actually has a couple of dI wins to their credit.

They played Utah Valley in the season opener (at least it was the season opener for Utah Valley--not sure about the Bison).

UND wins 67-62.

60-57 UND with 33 seconds to play.

58-55 UND with 3 minutes to play.

UND is actually up 54-48 with 5-plus minutes to go. Bledsoe has 23 points. Sioux shooting 56%.

Sioux won 84-71. Defense evidently struggled in the second half, but considering UND is basically using a six-player rotation, I guess that's not too big of a surprise.

UND leads Utah Valley 42-26 at the half.

UND volleyball picks up a transfer: http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/147524/

50 Seattle 66 UND final Sioux only had eight available players tonight.

And don't forget about UMary. Who would have thought?

The Massey ratings now include 1337 basketball-playing schools in the US and Canada: http://www.masseyratings.com/rate.php?lg=cb Here's how some former NCC, current NSIC and local NAIA/dIII teams rank: 78 Northern Colorado 91 MSU-Mankato 113 Nebraska-Omaha 182 St. Cloud St. 214 Augustanta 234 SDSU 254 Winona St. 273 Mary 313 SW MN St. 323 USD 345 NDSU 463 Concordia (Moorhead) 511 Upper Iowa 565 Minot 587 Concordia-St. Paul 656 MSU-Moorhead 665 Northern St. 702 Bemidji 712 Jamestown 724 Morningside 755 UMD 812 Valley City 818 Mayville 859 UND 869 Dickinson 942 UMC

Not sure how to answer that. I felt strongly that a coaching change was warranted after the 2005-06 season, just as it probably was at the end of the Gunther era, and the end of the Gino era in hockey. However, in retrospect it probably would have made sense to give Rich another year or two, and then make a change to a younger coach once the job was a bit more attractive to prospective applicants. Just my opinion. I doubt Rich would be doing considerably better at UND right now than Jones is doing, but he almost certainly wouldn't be doing any worse, either.

For whatever it's worth, this is sort of a summary of how things went in the last three years Rich Glas coached at UND, and so far under Brian Jones: 2003-04 (Glas) 12-13 vs. dII 2-1 vs. NAIA/dIII 2004-05 (Glas) 18-10 vs. dII 2-0 vs. NAIA/dIII 2005-06 (Glas) 12-13 vs. dII 1-2 vs. NAIA/dIII 2006-07 (Jones) 8-17 vs. dII 3-0 vs. NAIA/dIII 2007-08 (Jones) 11-14 vs. dII 4-0 vs. NAIA/dIII 0-1 vs. dI 2008-09 (Jones) 5-2 vs. dII 6-0 vs. NAIA/dIII 1-6 vs. dI 4-3 vs. transitional dI 2009-10 (Jones) 2-1 vs. NAIA/dIII 0-12 vs. dI

65 UND 76 Eastern Michigan final The good news is that judging by Roebuck's comments, the team is getting better as the season goes on. The bad news is that 50 of the 65 points were scored by seniors, and the bench produced just 2 points.

It looks like Wayne has finally done away with the comments section: http://www.areavoices.com/waynenelson/

Getting back to the original topic of this thread--there actually was another win on the schedule after all: 58 St. Olaf 69 UND final

There are only two people I'm aware of who are obsessed enough with UND to post this nonsense in the comments section of every single Nelson blog. I'm sure a lot of people know to whom I'm referring.

As much as I love UND basketball, I think staying dII would have been a mistake. True, it would have allowed the women to continue to contend for national titles. But the men probably weren't going to win any titles at any level--be it dII, dIII or NAIA. And football was going to be harmed by staying dII due to the recruiting landscape having changed with all the additional scholarships by the xDSU's. If we couldn't get our share of the top local/regional kids, we simply weren't going to be good enough to consistently compete with Grand Valley or NW Missouri. And given a choice between football and basketball, I would choose to do what's best in the long run for football. I can respect that not everybody agrees with that, but I think the right choice was made, so long as the conference situation works itself out. Time will tell.

I just got home from foolishly venturing out six blocks to the in-laws. Of course, I got stuck on the way home (on my own street, fortunately). And who helped push me out? Dave Hakstol! Many thanks to Hak and Jody Hodgson!

Please don't even begin to compare the state of the UND football program with the men's basketball program. The football team had a winning record against dI competition, and is clearly on the right track as there is a lot of good young talent on the team. The basketball program is a completely different story.