UND92,96

I actually grew up about five blocks from Simplot, and the "french fry" smell never really bothered me. Now Crystal Sugar, on the other hand...

Fans have become used to a losing UND men's basketball program, and apathy set in years ago. But let's also remember that a couple of years ago the WBCA recognized UND for having "best fans" in dII women's basketball. So I disagree that nobody cares about basketball in this town.

I believe there are multiple reasons for UND men's basketball having been down for a number of years. Maybe the single biggest reason is a combination of the failure to retain high school recruits, along with a number of injuries which have hampered some of those who stayed. Here's a summary of the high school recruiting classes who came to UND for the 03-04 season through the 07-08 season. I'm excluding all players who I believe came in as walk-on's. 2003-04 Josh Doyle--probably would have been a solid player but for multiple knee injuries. Mike Gutter--fairly talented, but he left after a year, then came back, and then quit again after jr. year. 2004-05 Daniel Harkins--similar story as Josh Doyle in terms of injuries robbing him of what could have been a nice career. At least he's finally healthy this year and playing well. Dane Seckar-Anderson--left after a couple of years. Never played a lot. 2005-06 Travis Bledsoe--has been a nice player. Andy Wills--one year and gone. Jesse Blackwell--one year and gone. Geoff Probst--one year and gone. 2006-07 Derek Benter--has played a fair amount last season and so far this year, but hasn't really distinguished himself yet. Rion Rayfield--signed LOI, but was released after Glas/Herbst were let go. Has apparently been a fairly good player at dII Florida Southern. 2007-08 Pat Mitchell--looks like he'll be good. Denny Dumas--one year and gone. Griffan Callahan--one semester and gone. In addition to the above, we've had a number of transfers not pan out/leave early/have injury problems, which certainly hasn't helped matters. I guess we can hold out hope that this year's red-shirts can reverse the trend of the past five years.

Wes Porter was injured last night, and sat on the bench the second half with one of his feet in a walking boot. Darius Joseph also sat out with an injury, although it doesn't sound like his is serious. Not that it provides any sort of excuse for last night's performance. Maybe it's time to add a player or two from the football team.

I was there, and it was a terrible performance. We didn't deserve to win this game, and Valley City St., although I commend their effort, was not a talented team by any means.

I think the struggles of this season are a combination of this year's version of the Sioux being probably below average compared to most other Roebuck-coached teams of the past 20 years, and a reasonably tough schedule. It appears there's no shortage of weak dI women's teams just like there's no shortage of weak dII teams: link

Considering Youngblut, Guinn and Bagaason combined for three points, I'm surprised it was only an eight-point margin.

UMD is up 17-0 at the half vs. California (PA).

It seems to me that if a lack of athletic ability was a nearly insurmountable problem at the dI level, shouldn't the 2005-06 and 2006-07 NDSU teams have gone virtually winless vs. dI opponents? Seriously, those Bison teams had almost no talent to speak of, and lost at home to the likes of UMD, MSU-Moorhead and Bemidji St., and yet had roughly a dozen dI wins over tournament-eligible teams those two seasons, and suffered relatively few blowout losses. They even had a couple of respectable showings vs. then-ranked teams at Minnesota and New Mexico. This certainly isn't one of the most talented Sioux teams we've seen, but I still find it very disappointing to get blown out by teams that probably aren't that great. Maybe Green Bay is or will be, but Wyoming certainly isn't judging by their other results so far this season.

I interpreted Mussman's comments as meaning if there's a comparable offer to a kid from UND and a post-season eligible program, UND's chances go down "a little bit." That's probably accurate more often than not. But UND does have some advantages as you pointed out. I suspect Mussman was meaning that there are some solid players returning, but we need some real difference-makers along the lines of Digger, Schmidt, O'Neel, etc. Maybe there just aren't any of those types of players in the program right now. I also wonder if Fonseca is still an option? There was some talk of him not red-shirting, but as far as I know he was never on the sideline this year. I can only speculate that there may have been some eligibility issues?

This Herald article contains a lot of good information.

94 UND 71 N. Arizona FINAL

Sioux up 68-43 with just under 9 minutes to go.

It was certainly not dI competition, but UND won the Wisconsin-Parkside tournament today over the host team.

UND up by 20 at the half.

Mea culpa. I just had such a hard time believing UMD was legit for a couple of reasons. First, Schlafke never did anything in four career starts vs. UND. I thought he was highly overrated. Second, UMD has several kids from this area playing for them who I frankly didn't think could play at a high dII level.

Poor defense and poor 3-point shooting isn't going to win you a lot of games, but unfortunately that's where we are right now. The latter problem is something that's plagued UND for years, it seems.

I've only seen the Eastern Michigan game, so it's hard to say exactly what's going wrong since, but IMO we need to get at least close to double figures every night from Kimbrough, Guinn, Youngblut, Seay and Bagaason. For whatever reason, the latter three haven't been doing so the past couple of games. Hopefully once we start playing other transitional teams, things will take a turn for the better.

Or how about the fact that Southern Utah had nine first-teamers? Strange. But for UND being in an especially charitable mood a couple of weeks ago, SUU would have been winless in the league.

UND selections were Blair Grover, Brian Troen and Josh Murray on the first team; Mitch Braegelmann, Brett Holinka and Brandon Hellevang (as a punter) on the second team; and Kyle Bondy, Ty Boyle and Andy Miller as honorable mention. USD did not have a single first-team selection. link

I noticed that he played some tight end and/or fullback on short yardage/goal line situations in the second half of the season. Not sure whether he'll be playing defense anymore or not.

IMO, one of the biggest keys to next year's season will be whether the defense can improve and be more consistent. This year, against FCS competition, UND gave up 32.2 ppg and 412.5 ypg. Let's face it, that's not going to win a lot of games. The following are returnees from this year's two-deep depth chart: nose guard 1. Nate Wayne 2. Ty Boyle possible impact newcomer: Devin Benjamin left defensive end 2. Link Gottbeheat right defensive end none possible impact newcomers: Ross Brenneman and probably a couple of jucos weak side inside linebacker 1. Andy Miller 2. Paul German strong side inside linebacker 2. Ryan Pollow weak side outside linebacker 2. Ryan Kasowski strong side outside linebacker 1. Jeff Tescher 2. Ross Cochran possible impact newcomers (linebackers in general; not any specific positions): Jay Nelson and hopefully some of the other young linebacker who didn't play a lot this year. Juco's/FBS transfers? left corner 2. Dominique Hawkins free safety 2. Kris Ankenbauer strong safety 1. Joel Schwenzfeier right corner 1. Kenny Watkins possible impact newcomer/returnee from injury (db's in general; not any specific positions): Delano Saporu and Justin Belotti

Brian has done a great job--no question about it. With regard to people being upset at the time he was hired, my recollection is that it had nothing to do with Brian himself. Rather, it was because of a process whereby at least one person with strong UND hockey ties was encouraged to apply by the previous a.d., only to then be told by that same person that he/she wasn't qualified enough to warrant an on-campus interview. That was what caused most of the uproar IMO.

Talk about a disappointment. I certainly expected a closer final score than that.

It looks like USD is quite down compared to last year. They lost at home to unranked dII NW Missouri State last weekend, and last night they managed just an eight-point win over something called Northwestern College of Iowa, a 4-4 NAIA team.