UND92,96

UNO beat top-seeded Mankato this afternoon, so the Sioux will be playing UNO tomorrow in what will likely be a nearly-empty Taylor Center for the right to go to the regional!

It was a disappointing performance by the ladies last night. One sub-par game against a four-win team like Duluth can probably be written off as something of a fluke, due in part to over-confidence after having beaten them so badly in Duluth. But for it to happen twice, at home, in such a short period of time is pretty hard to explain. The outside shooting was terrible last night, and if the Sioux are going to have anything other than a very brief appearance at the regional, that needs to change. Last night also under-scored how difficult it's going to be to replace the scoring and rebounding of Ashley Langen next year. Besides Kimbrough, who is going to step up and be a consistent double-figure scorer? Who's going to help out Kimbrough on the boards? I think Roebuck needs to find a transfer at either the 4 or 5 position, and at least one more 3-point shooter.

I'm not going to go so far as to say that once UND and SDSU start playing again, UND will have the upper hand. But FWIW, at the peak of SDSU's dII success--the 01-02 to 03-04 seasons--UND was 7-4 against them. It's all about recruiting. If UND can continue to recruit the Langen's, Kimbrough's, Boese's, etc. of tomorrow, they'll be fine. If not, they will struggle.

Kansas State (Tibesar connection) and Iowa State (Mussman's alma mater) would seem like possibilities.

Ruley's recruiting had really slipped in the last few years before the dI move, so in a way I'm not all that surprised that things were more of a struggle for NDSU than they have been for SDSU. She was always a very good coach, though. It is interesting that both she and Lavin have decided to hang it up, and both are considerably younger (8-10 years) than Roebuck.

link

Based upon who UND is returning, and the records of last year's opponents, it appears the Sioux will only be a big underdog in the SIU game. I think both Idaho State and SE Louisiana are realistically winnable (both were 3-8 last year). UC-Davis will be tough, but both Western Washington and SDSU managed to win there last year, for whatever that's worth.

Of course, even Whitewater probably wouldn't be all that intriguing considering they lost to a pretty woeful St. Cloud State team last year.

The more I think about it, the more I think UND and USD should have played home-and-home this year. Obviously UND didn't have much motivation to do so back when most of us thought USD would be coming here anway, and when it sounded like we'd have a 12-game schedule with 10 FCS opponents and a couple of dII's. While I realize LaCrosse is probably not going to be a pushover, I'd still rather play USD a second time rather than a dIII (or NAIA). Just my opinion. In any event, this is the hand we've been dealt, and I still plan to go to all the home games just like every year.

FWIW, SDSU's home schedule in the first year of their transition was Winona State, Western Oregon (dII), Augie and NDSU.

LaCrosse beat SDSU in Brookings a couple of years ago. link

We're the worst team in the league, but at least we apparently have the most smart guys. link. Congrats to all of these student-athletes.

Roebuck said on the coaches' show last night that it's pretty much a given that the regional will be in Vermillion due to their regular season sweep of UND. I agree. Prior to each getting their second loss last week, both Concordia-St. Paul and Fort Lewis would have had arguments, but probably not now (unless USD were to somehow lose twice this weekend).

I wonder if the "play USD twice" idea is still being floated around? It's sounding better now that we pretty much know we have to travel there anyway, and we only have 10 games. It's not as though we haven't played teams twice in a season before (including playoffs).

Fair points, but IMO, if all else were equal, I'd trade the road game with UC-Davis for a home game with USD and a road game with Cal Poly. As for whether Poly would have agreed to play us under the scenario of not joining the Great West until 2009, I can't say. It does seem a bit ironic if they agreed to schedule us because of our immediate admission into the Great West, only to have the commissioner void it. It smacks of "I know better than you what's good for you."

I believe Cal Poly would have been a road game. As for UC-Davis, I'm not really in a position to speculate as to what they may have done, but if Poly agreed to schedule UND, I would think UC Davis may have done the same. Perhaps it would have come down to choosing to play either UND or USD?

Not as far as I know. But as we saw the last time around, there's always the chance somebody else can emerge at the last minute.

Maybe a stupid question, but wouldn't we have actually been better off had the Great West not decided to "sort of" add UND and USD for the 2008 season, and instead wait until 2009? But for this would-be concession by the Great West, we likely would have hosted USD instead of travelling to Vermillion again, AND we apparently would have had a game against Cal Poly? We had Southern Utah at home anyway, so I'm not sure we got anything good out of this in the short term.

On the 10:00 WDAZ news last night, it was reported that the committee has decided to invite all remaining candidates except Schlickmann for on-campus interviews. This was not in the Herald today for whatever reason.

It was reported on the WDAZ news tonight that Don Kojich has taken a job at a school in Illinois (don't recall which one), which presumably means that Betty Ralston will be leaving, as well. IMO, here would be an excellent candidate to be the next SWA.

Of course I do--I'm undefeated! BTW, apparently they don't live and die by the three, because it's been penetration, getting to the free throw line and an absence of turnovers that have resulted in two wins against UND. What's your brilliant idea for stopping what they've done to go 2-0 vs. the Sioux this year?

Well, I never said there weren't risks, but clearly man isn't working all that well, either. The bottom line is that in order to score enough points to have a chance to win, you need Langen and Kimbrough in there as much as possible. And to make them guard people 15-20 feet from the basket makes no sense. So what's the alternative? Zone. It's the defense you almost to have to use when you don't match up with the opponent. That's why 99% of opponents use it against UND, and have for years. It seems to me that if UND plays man again, then we can expect lots of layups by USD; lots of free throw attempts; and few turnovers. Those are things that have occurred in both the previous meetings, so there's not much reason to think they won't happen again without a pretty major change in gameplan. Of course, it's still possible that the Sioux could win without changing anything drastically, but IMO the only realistic chance of a different result with no major changes in gameplan is for UND to shoot extremely well (50% or better), and have very few turnovers (12 or fewer).

Since playing them twice using the usual gameplan really hasn't worked, I almost wonder if Roebuck should try something different, i.e. zone. I know, it's a risk, but I'd rather lose due to a team making 20-footers as opposed to layups. If nothing else, it should neutralize their penetration to a large extent. Zone may not work better, but I doubt it's going to work any worse, either. I don't think I'd try it in the NCC tournament, because that game doesn't really matter anyway, but springing it on them at the regional may not be a bad idea.

I agree that it almost certainly hand-timed. The fastest 40 recorded this past off-season by a UND player was 4.42 by Ryan Chappell, which was also most likely hand-timed. While it would be great if Bamba were as fast as Chappell, I'm certainly not expecting it.

It's kind of interesting to compare the fortunes of UND and UNO this year. The two teams had nearly identical records last year, and seemed to be returning comparable talent (although UNO was picked to finish last in the NCC this year--two spots below UND). And yet somehow, UND has gotten worse than last year, while UNO is a respectable 6-4 in the NCC, with a fine overall record of 20-5.