UND92,96

I don't know what he's doing now, but I hope Murray doesn't repeat the mistakes Ryan made and throw away two years of what could be a brilliant career.

I'm just curious--what did Walaker say? Obviously he's already shown he's quite capable of putting his foot in his mouth. EDIT: Never mind--just saw the Forum article.

As of 1 PM today, the Red at GF-EGF officially surpassed the level of 1979, making this the third-highest level since records have been kept. On the bright side, it looks as though the crest predication has again dropped slightly, down to 50.6.

IMO, given what's gone on over the past couple of weeks, e.g. the large majority of UND fans being at least somewhat supportive of NDSU basketball, and particularly the support and help UND students gave to the F-M flood fight, anybody who would celebrate a loss by a UND team at this point due to the UND-NDSU rivalry is pretty pathetic.

To be fair, while I only browsed that particular thread, Tony did acknowledge that most UND fans were quite complimentary to NDSU basketball, and he was hoping we'd bring home a title. There are most certainly some rather demented posters on bisonville (just as there are a few on here), but just as there are some Sioux fans on this site that many of us would probably prefer to see go away, there are some on bisonville such as lakesbison who aren't necessarily representative of the average NDSU fan. Of course, I quite possibly would be more in agreement with you if I actually frequented bisonville on a more regular basis. I don't typically go there because lakesbison, etc. make me want to vomit...

I don't think too many people honestly expect that he'll stay in ND for college.

Although UND men's basketball doesn't have any scholarships left as far as I know, I'd love to see him come here for hoops, perhaps with the promise of a scholarship for the 2010-11 season. I unfortunately didn't get a chance to see any of the state tournament, but I'm very impressed with his accomplishments.

I guess I look at Mankato possibly in a similar light to USD from 2007-08--a team who historically struggled against UND but who returned their whole team and exceeded all realistic expectations. I strongly suspect UND would have won in GF, but winning in Mankato may have been tough. Hard to say for sure.

Not sure how official this is, but if you look at the National Weather Service river level chart linked at the Herald site, it's now showing a likely crest of 51 feet (rather than the 52 it previously showed) for Grand Forks.

IMO, football success can't be maintained because of all the additional scholarships the Dakota schools have, and the self-imposed ceiling the NSIC has. UMD basically returned all of their team, and added a stud running back who few schools wanted to take a chance on due to his past, and made the most of it. But you can't possibly re-load or sustain national success with so few scholarships and so many FCS schools picking off the best regional talent. Just as Winona State fell back down to earth after a couple of really good teams in the early 2000's, so too will UMD in another year or two. Not sure about women's basketball, but with Minnesota and several other Big 10 and Big 12 schools picking off the best players, and 60 dI scholarships among the Dakota schools, I suspect you'll see fewer and fewer really good Minnesota players falling through the cracks and ending up at dII schools. The NSIC has always been pretty good in men's basketball, and will likely continue to be, although the group Winona had for a three or four year stretch was probably just as unusual as UND's group from the early 1990's. In other words, while the NSIC will probably send a team to the Elite 8 most years, I doubt they'll have national championship-caliber teams very often. Volleyball is probably the sport in which the NSIC will continue to be very strong on a national level.

Seems there are some parallels between Mankato's women's basketball team and UMD's football team. Both were essentially middle-of-the-road NCC teams last year (although Mankato did manage to sneak into the regional and surprisingly advance all the way to the title game) who returned essentially their entire teams. I suspect UND and Mankato would have probably split had they played a home-and-home this year.

If that's accurate, GF and EGF could be cut off from each other for several days.

The NWS is now predicting the crest for Grand Forks will be between 50 and 53 feet. At what level does the Kennedy bridge have to be closed? EDIT: According to the city's website, at 52.6 feet there is water on the Gateway Drive approach on the MN side.

I believe there's a city ordinance against putting sump discharge into the sanitary sewer system. It's supposed to go into the storm sewers.

Nicole Smart has been named second team AP all state:

Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Rico suffered an injury either in or immediately before that game, and he played at well under 100%. And I don't believe there was much backcourt depth that year. UND probably was the best team in dII that year, but only when all the key players were healthy.

I have a feeling finding another Woodside may prove to be challenging, too.

Just my opinion, but I think the only thing that holds Alys back is confidence. Fortunately, she ended the season well, so hopefully that carries over next year. I believe Smart has played enough AAU ball so that it won't be as big of an adjustment going from MN class A ball to dI as it otherwise would be. MN class A has been good to us lately with Ashley, Kierah and Kayla.

Ada-Borup is well on their way to another state title, and Smart continues to impress me. She's very unselfish, shoots it very well from 3-point range and just doesn't seem to have any glaring weaknesses in her game. I think she'll play and play a lot next year. EDIT: Ada-Borup wins 61-31. Smart nearly outscored the opponent herself, finishing with 27 points and 6 assists. I believe she ended the tournament something like 11-20 from 3-point range.

I guess it goes to show how difficult it is to recruit as a mid-major program. I assume the juco kid they brought in this year was supposed to have provided more of a low post presence, but it didn't really work out that way.

I'm watching the Ada-Borup semi-final game right now, and Smart is impressive. She handles the ball and passes well, and can knock down the 3. Maybe a Carissa Jahner type, but with more scoring ability? EDIT: A-B wins big, and Smart finishes with 22, including 5 of 10 from 3-point range.

Congrats to NDSU on a fine performance. Woodside is an amazing player. It will be very interesting to see what things will be like in the post-Woodside/Winkelman/Nelson era.

If you put Minnesotans Woodside and Aldrich on Tubby's team, how good would the Gophers have been?

Maybe it would be more acceptable if we argued that Lance Berwald and Joe Regnier (and many other dII Bison centers) were far, far better than Moormann, too?

This game was a bigger blowout than perhaps expected, as Ada-Borup ended up winning by nearly 40. Smart had 24 points.