UND92,96

Backowski would be quite an addition for the Sioux. He was a rivals 2-star prospect two years ago, and was heavily recruited by several Big 10 and Big 12 schools. A potential offensive line of Braegelmann at center, Troen and Hoffelt at guard, and Bauer and Backowski at tackle would be outstanding.

UND and UNO are tied 23 all at the half. It must be a really ugly game.

UND defeated UNO today 81-66, to clinch a share of the NCC title. Unfortunately, Augie also beat SCSU, meaning (I think) that they would own the tiebreaker over UND should the Sioux lose against UMD next week, and should Augie defeat USD. The bottom line though is that UND completely controls its own destiny. Beat UMD, and win the title outright, which would mean hosting the NCC tournament.

Unfortunately, that could mean NO home non-conference games in 2007. Assuming any I-AA games would be on the road, and the relative likelihood of a 10-game schedule again... I have to admit that I never thought I'd see Mesa St. on the schedule again. I'm quite sure they were the opponent who was originally on the schedule last year, but who was replaced (bought-out, presumably) so as to schedule Northern Iowa.

It sounds like UND will be playing Mesa State again as a non-conference game, and the Sept. 1 date could potentially be NDSU. Southern Utah is also still a possibility. link.

The first tie breaker is head-to-head, which of course is a push. I believe the next tie breaker is how the teams did against the third place team, and then the fourth place team, and on down the line. Hopefully St. Cloud continues their hot play against Augie on Saturday. That game is in St. Cloud.

The reason I feel Youmans' absence has essentially caused the two losses is because what the team desperately misses is the ability to bring somebody off the bench who can be a scoring threat. All of the starters now have to play 30-plus minutes per game, and that takes its toll by late in the game. Assuming the starting lineup would stay the same, and it probably should, the ability to bring Youmans' offensive game off the bench would be a huge lift. At least enough of a difference to account for the few extra points needed to have beaten UMD and USD. It's not that Hoy and Porter aren't giving it their all, but neither is a scoring threat. Youmans is. Having both Youmans and Bledsoe on the court at the same time late in a game would be huge.

Beck was in uniform last night, but didn't play. I will assume she probably won't play Saturday, either, but hopefully will be ready by the UMD game. The schedule is irritating me a little bit, as this is the second week in a row where we have games both Thursday and Saturday, and on the Saturday games we're playing a team that didn't have to play on Thursday. It doesn't seem like that should happen on back-to-back weeks.

Great effort by the Sioux, but the reality of the situation is that to win with five scholarship players and three walk-ons is extremely difficult. I just hope Youmans has learned a valuable lesson. His absence has likely caused two losses, as I'm quite confident the Sioux would have beaten both UMD and USD had he played. Does anybody know why Doyle wasn't on the bench last night?

It looks like I was wrong on a couple of counts--that Augie would leapfrog UND, and that St. Cloud St. was dead and buried.

I agree that the numbers don't seem all that accurate or consistent. UND's "official" regular season attendance average was just under 9600, plus however many there were in the suites.

I haven't heard anything specifically, but the fact that Samantha Brekke from Lake Region was signed for next year could be interpreted as a sign that Ledger playing again is pretty questionable.

That's not what I said. That wasn't even close to the point I was attempting to make.

I think there's a pretty good chance she'll be in the lineup on Thursday.

Personally, I think that when the NCAA compiles attendance numbers, only regular season games should count. The playoffs are a completely different animal, between the Thanksgiving holiday, short time periods in which to sell tickets, potentially playing a team for a second time, etc. Look at Grand Valley's situation, as well. They averaged something like 11,800 for the regular season, and then hosted three playoff games which drew between 4100 and 5200 each. I just think it's ridiculous to penalize a team because they happened to host a playoff game or two.

Based upon yesterday's results (and also from the results of the first meet of the year), it certainly appears that Chappell and Alexander are about as close as can be in terms of speed:

I can only assume that the players and coaches like having an interstate game, even if it's not necessarily against the state most North Dakotans would prefer it to be against.

I agree that unless somebody is living in the extreme western part of ND (Dickinson, Williston, etc.), this doesn't seem like a natural rivalry, at least when compared to ND vs. SD. Unfortunately, now that the train has left the station, I suspect it would be very difficult to switch to a game with SD.

A large number of fans leaving either immediately after the women's game, or at least well before the end of the men's game, really only started within the last few years. I guess it was a form of silent protest of the product they were seeing on the court during the last few years of Rich Glas's tenure. Unfortunately, although they got what they wanted--a coaching change--they are not giving Jones and the team a chance, or else they would see that the team is better and more exciting to watch, although the overall record doesn't really reflect that. I guess it just shows that once a culture of losing sets in, it's very difficult to win back the confidence of the casual fan. I'm certainly not excusing the fact that people continue to leave, as it baffles me, but I don't think it's unique to Grand Forks under this particular set of circumstances.

Although Augie has one more loss, two of their losses are to out-of-region teams, which seem to be less costly in terms of regional rankings. I expect UND will drop to number two this week. UND needs to win its last three games, and hope Augie loses at St. Cloud on Saturday.

It was kind of a disappointing loss today, even as short-handed as the Sioux were. Duluth is a team you really need to beat at home. It was something of an unfortunate set of circumstances that had UND playing a team that was completely fresh after not playing on Thursday, because obviously with such a short bench and the starters having to play so many minutes, the legs were going to be somewhat tired today. The bottom line is that it's very difficult to win when you need your starters to score 70 points to have much of a chance to win. The main positive that can be taken from the suspensions is that Bledsoe has really elevated his game. He's going to be a good one.

According to Kevin Fee's blog today, Youmans and Lehnertz will be held out again for this Saturday's game against UMD, and thus, the Sioux will be down to seven players. I certainly don't envy Brian Jones in this situation. On the one hand, you have two players who have apparently done something severe enough to have warranted being suspended for at least 25% of the conference season. On the other hand, particularly with the additional injuries that have now been suffered by Koenig and Dryburgh, you're in a situation where you have essentially no depth remaining. So in essence, it's the other team members who are also being punished by being placed in a situation that is becoming dangerously close to unwinnable. I'm not sure how you balance these two seemingly irreconcilable interests, i.e. punishing the guility, while also attempting to minimize the collateral damage to the rest of the team. I don't have the answers, but as stated I'm just glad I'm not in Jones' situation.

If the Sioux don't come out and play an excellent game on Saturday, I'm afraid we may look back on that blown game at St. Cloud in a similar light to how we look back on the football game against UNO in 2005. That game completely derailed what could have been a special season, and unfortunately it's looking like a similar story could be developing now.

I swear, I've never seen a basketball program that has experienced as many serious injuries as UND has over the past several years.

While this certainly isn't the ONLY reason for the back-to-back losses, it's a big part of the problem--a combined 5 of 35 for 3-point shooting.