UND92,96

One thing I'm watching for is whether UND gets another commitment from somebody outside the usual recruiting area. Lennon said awhile back that there were some kids from outside the usual recruiting area with ND ties that were being recruited. Obviously Ankenbauer was one, but at least at that time it appeared there could be another.

Van Zee is the one I'm not yet convinced is an actual commitment. The rest of them have been confirmed by at least one reputable source. In any event, I would expect 5-7 more additions by signing day.

After looking at the boxscore, a couple of things jumped out at me--Little only took seven shots, which is nowhere near enough, and Youmans was 2-15 from the field.

UND wins 84-76. In other games of interest, UNO pulls the upset against Augie, and UMD downs USD.

UND leads MSU-Mankato at the half, 47-36.

How about Bruce Smith (current dean of the school of aviation, and former Sioux football player)?

Hibbing CC has suspended its football program due to horrible academic performance by football players in recent years. link. Interestingly, Rainy River (the probable destination of DeAngelo Brackins) nearly met the same fate last month.

First regional poll is out: North Central 1 North Dakota 18-1 9-1 2 Augustana (South Dakota) 15-2 13-0 3 Nebraska-Kearney 11-4 11-3 4 South Dakota 11-3 10-3 5 Minnesota State Moorhead 12-4 9-3 6 Northern State 11-4 11-3 7 Metropolitan State 14-3 9-3 8 Regis (Colorado) 10-4 9-2 9 Minnesota Duluth 11-6 10-4 10 St. Cloud State 8-7 6-7

According to this, things don't look too promising for UND getting Veldman.

It's kind of interesting that according to an Augie fan on the d2football.com board, Anderson had committed to Augie about a week ago. I have no idea whether that's true or not.

Defensive backs Delano Saporu from Blaine, and Dominique Hawkins from Armstrong reportedly recently visited UND. link.

Ebanks reportedly runs the 40 in the 4.5 to 4.6 range, so he could really provide a pass-rushing element to the defensive end position that UND hasn't had in awhile. The fact that he's currently at UND should really help him in terms of being in the strength program for the next 6-7 months, and obviously being able to participate in spring ball.

Update on Matt Veldman.

Just curious, was Bennett seen as a guy who would step in and potentially start for UND, or was he seen as more of a role player? Personally, I think he's a less athletic version of Gutter. I would take Gutter over him any day.

I kind of expected that an afternoon game might hinder attendance, but yesterday was actually the biggest crowd of the year with a little over 3000. I noticed a lot of groups of kids from area towns, and I suppose a Saturday afternoon game allows for more of that since there are relatively few high school basketball games on Saturdays.

If I recall correctly, UND was close to signing Jerry Bennett last spring, but he eventually signed with UNO due to the coaching uncertainty at UND at the time. Based on last night's game and his season statistics, I think it's safe to say that him not signing with the Sioux turned out to be for the best. That scholarship was presumably used to sign Emmanuel Little, who is a vastly superior player.

Several UND football players are competing and doing well in the indoor track and field season, specifically Ryan Chappell, Donovan Alexander, Carl Hanson, Erik Moe and Creighton Schroyer. link.

I'm sure we'd all like the team to have a better record this year, but a few points: 1. Jones was hired too late to really do much recruiting. With that said, the two players that were brought in after he was hired (Little and Youmans) are both all-conference caliber players. 2. The team has no true point guard. That can't be blamed on Jones. He stated on a recent coaches' show that he and the staff looked for one this summer, but there really wasn't anybody available good enough to be a difference-maker. So they signed the best overall players available (Little and Youmans). It's tough to argue with that decision. The problem is that there's no scholarship money to bring one in for next year. So hopefully Youmans and Bledsoe continue to adapt to the point guard position, because barring the departure of a scholarship player after the season, there's really no way to sign anybody else. 3. There not much outside shooting, especially compared to basically every other NCC and NSIC team. It hasn't helped that the one pure shooter--Doyle--has been hurt for much of the season. That has resulted in a lot of trading 2's for 3's scored by the opponents. If this were 1982 and there was no 3-point line, UND probably would win the NCC this year. 4. The one glaring weakness is defense. Given how many new players there are, particularly from the juco ranks, that's probably not too surprising. Juco ball isn't exactly known for defense; hence all the high-scoring games in the Mon-Dak, etc. 5. I didn't blame Rich Glas for going 8-20 his first season, and I can't blame Jones if the team only wins 10-12 games this year. The situations both inherited are nearly identical. 6. To me, the first really big test will be to see what sort of signees there are this November, when a lot of scholarships will be available.

I have no idea to what extent he's being recruited, if at all, but I believe there's a kid from the Adams-Edmore area named Nick Bylin who's about 6'5", 265 lbs., and who's also a good basketball player. I know a lot of coaches like offensive lineman prospects who are athletic enough to play other sports so he might be somebody to watch for on signing day.

UND has at least 11 known verbal commitments right now, even with no new ones in a couple of weeks. That's a lot, compared to how many known commitments there have been at this time in most years. From everything I've heard, recruiting is much easier this year than it was last year because now the coaches can definitely tell prospective recruits what division UND will be playing in, unlike last year when it was still unclear whether or not the dI move was going to happen.

The fact that Minnesota allowed SDSU to be close enough to be in a position to win, AND the fact that they were smoked by a down NDSU team earlier this year, tells me Borton should get the Monson/Mason treatment before the program regresses all the way back to where it was during the Littlejohn era. However, I'm sure Roebuck, Ruley, Johnston, etc. want her to stay around. It can only help recruiting having her there to scare off potential recruits from Minnesota.

And still are paying for it. link.

I found this picture from her AAU team site. link.

I hope she's very athletic, and as such plays bigger than 6'0", as it's pretty unusual for Roebuck to sign a post player of that height.