UND92,96

According to ESPN, Carly is the sixth-best college prospect in Minnesota this year: link

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I'm not big on moral victories by any means, but I am pleased that UND appeared to be far more competitive in Vermillion than last week in Grand Forks. Let's be honest--USD is considerably more talented than we are this year, and that advantage was increased when they didn't red-shirt their top recruit, while we are red-shirting all of our freshmen. I have a feeling things may even out a bit the next couple of seasons, but obviously time will tell.

In the rematch: 68 UND 55 USD final

This was in Wayne Nelson's blog yesterday:

88 Ball State 80 UND final-OT

65 UND 68 Ball State 3:05 to go.

61 UND 61 Ball State 6:30 to go.

39 UND 36 Ball State halftime

With Privatsky out, I have a feeling Jossy Bergan playing as many as 39 minutes in a game, as she did against USD, will now be the norm. She certainly had a nice game against the Coyotes.

It's about time. You have no idea how much sleep I've lost worrying about the fact that Joe has been forced to suffer the indignity of NOT having a bodyguard for so long.

According to Wayne Nelson, she's done for the year.

98 USD 77 UND Not an impressive performance by the Sioux. USD is pretty good, although I'll be very interested to watch how they fare the next few years now that getting transfers (besides an occasional juco) will likely no longer happen.

75 UND 59 USD Only 11 turnovers for UND. I didn't hear an attendance figure, but it was a pretty good crowd.

Realistically, I don't. Nor do I expect UND would consider playing seven road games in one year. But hypothetically, if such a game were to take place, something strange would have to happen. Hence, my somewhat off-the-wall proposal. Personally, I don't think there's much of a chance for this game to take place in 2009. And I'm fine with that.

I agree to a point, but now that we're a counter, I really don't like the idea of entering into one-game, road-only contracts to play FCS opponents. I can only assume our administration felt like they had no choice, but this needs to be the last time we do this IMO. I doubt we'll ever see SFA or SE Louisiana come here.

UND needs home games, so I don't think we'd be in a position to dump Sioux Falls this year. However, I would be interested to know the buy-out for the Stephen F. Austin contract. That's a one-game deal, and if it's not in the $100k-plus range, that may be an option to more or less exchange them for NDSU (not in terms of the date, but in terms of keeping the schedule at six road games). My proposal would be: UND and NDSU split the cost of the SFA buy-out, and NDSU pays UND whatever the going rate is in Fargo these days for a non-conference one-game contract. Not that either side would necessarily agree to that, but IMO UND simply can't have a schedule with seven road games.

I agree. He earned his shot, and is making the most of it. I'm very much looking forward to the UNI game in Grand Forks next year.

UND recruit Josh Schuler is having a big season, averaging 26 ppg: link According to Wayne's blog, Jones is still planning on red-shirting him next year.

IMO, judging a transitional dI program in its first year is rather pointless. Case in point, NDSU lost twice to SDSU during year one (and SDSU was not good at all), lost to a couple of dII's, and didn't have a single win vs. a non-transitional dI program. But did it really matter? No, because like UND, they were playing a bunch of players who were really not dI-caliber, and were red-shirting their entire freshman class. That's not to say that UND's current group of red-shirts is going to replicate the success of Woodwide, Winkelman and Nelson, because that's rather unlikely, but chances are they're going to be better than what we're seeing now. Of course, the question for NDSU is what's going to happen after this year. They obviously lose a lot, and it seems that most of their recruits brought in during the two or three years after the Woodside/Winkelman/Nelson group haven't really panned out very well.

While I believe we probably should be a little better than we are right now, nearly all of the players who are actually playing this year are juniors and seniors, meaning not only will they not be around much longer, they weren't really recruited to be dI players. I would expect to see improvement next year when we add this year's red-shirt class, plus Chris Clausen and perhaps the Schuler kid if he doesn't red-shirt, to the mix. If we don't see some reason for optimism this time next year, I'll be surprised and a bit disappointed.

Regarding Hardee, New Mexico State has been quite successful in women's volleyball. I have a suspicion that Faison is already aware of that.

Wayne Nelson confirms that Idaho State has bought out its contract, and won't be playing in Grand Forks in 2009: link I'd like to see either Maine or Northern Colorado for the Potato Bowl. Both had Sept. 12th open as of Jan. 7 according to footballscoop.com. We have a connection already with Maine due to hockey, and Northern Colorado is always in need of money considering how poorly they draw. With the Texas Tech payday, it seems like we could afford to pay one fairly large guarantee, particularly when you figure the game should sell out.

USD is apparently having just as many scheduling problems as we are. Some time ago, they announced a tentative 2009 schedule that included six home games--McNeese State, SE Louisiana, UC-Davis, Southern Utah, dII West Texas A & M and NAIA William Penn. McNeese backed out some time ago, and West Texas A & M released their schedule a few weeks ago, and it didn't include USD. It will be interesting to see whether SE Louisiana exercises a buyout clause, too.

Hopefully this site gets updated soon to account for WWU's dropping of football. I have to think one of our open dates will match up with Central Washington. Central Connecticut St. (played in Fargo last year) appears to have several open dates, as well.