UND92,96

I doubt he'll ever be a college head coach again after UND, but I think he'd have a good shot at getting an assistant job somewhere. Maybe even at his alma mater. How ironic would that be considering Jake also hired Rich Glas nine years ago?

I'm sure we'll know one way or the other by tomorrow afternoon. I still say it's a 50-50 deal.

UND will play UNC again in the first round.

Lately, there have been so many kids with UND hockey connections playing at EGF--Poolman, Ausmus, Eades, Bowen, the Lovens, etc. Not sure we'll see a run like that again anytime soon, but who knows? I think the allure of MN high school hockey compared to ND definitely helps EGF attract people. I assume it's been the same way with Moorhead compared to Fargo for years.

Fiction.

It's just hard to be optimistic given the fact UND comes into it having lost six of the last seven games.

Bemidji State just knocked off the Gophers.

UND falls to UNC on senior day, 67-56. No sugarcoating it--this season has been a big disappointment. Brew had better hope the incoming freshmen are ready to play, or next season might be worse.

A month ago, I'd have said no way. Now? Maybe 50-50. Regardless of circumstances, not a lot of 9th-year coaches with a career record well under .500 survive an 8-22 season, especially given the 1-9 home record vs. division I opponents.

Actually it was the 1990-91 team that was the best one, as that was Vonesh, Burkett and Boschee's senior year, with Guldseth and Jacobson sophomores and Gardner a freshman. UND made it to the Elite 8, but blew a big lead (20 points or so) to Virginia Union and lost. The 1992-93 team didn't have as good of a record as it probably should have, but was still a very good team. UND lost to USD in OT in the region final in Grand Forks. That was maybe the most devastating home loss in UND basketball history, at least in my lifetime.

My guess, and it's just a guess, is that the one guy who would probably be in the best position to advise Faison on this situation is Steve Brekke. One, he's an assistant a.d. Two, he's a former UND basketball player, and a very good one. Finally, his son played for Jones for five years. If Brekke gives Jones a vote of confidence, it would probably go a long way. If not, all bets might be off.

At least in 2009-10, we could delude ourselves into thinking that having five or six scholarship players red-shirting was the main reason for the awful record that year.

I figured it was probably something like that, but it seems a bit unusual to give a start to a player who almost never plays.

I can't blame the players for defending Jones. I'm not saying he deserves it, but a kid is either going to go out of his way to defend the coach in the face of adversity, or say nothing at all. I take comments like this with a grain of salt.

He has two more years on his contract.

Amazingly predictable, isn't it?

Ideally, this is how I'd like to see the non-conference schedule, which is typically 10 to 12 games: 3 money games against power five conference teams (this may end up being 5 games total if one money game is a part of a tournament); 1 game against an NAIA opponent (I don't like these but they seem inevitable. Let's just keep it to one per year, please); 4 to 6 games against Summit teams, along with the occasional Missouri Valley team. These would all be part of home-and-homes, so that there should always be at least two decent home non-conference games per year. Is this at all realistic? I have no idea.

Some would open enroll into RR, and that's fine. It would take awhile for people's perceptions to change. But the reality is that a lot of parents in the present RR district went to Central, and would probably welcome the change. And a lot of others don't have long histories in GF, and therefore wouldn't necessarily have as many preconceived notions about which school their kid should attend.

I don't doubt that. She was still grossly overpaid, though.

Probably Geno. Of course, UConn women's basketball draws more than most men's programs AND he's been wildly successful. I'm just guessing that if he went on a sub-par run like Miller has, and only drew 1000 fans per game, UConn wouldn't be quite so willing to pay him seven figures. I'm still baffled how a school like UMD ever got to a point where it was paying its women's hockey coach far more than Minnesota or Wisconsin.

I don't know for sure, but I was thinking part of it would be Washington. I don't have any idea how it would work out population-wise, but I believe it's important to come up with a plan that has the Central district include some of the newer developments in town (besides Congressional, which really just replaced housing lost in the flood). There are a lot of newer developments on either side of Washington. Besides Congressional/Promenade, I believe virtually every new development in Grand Forks since at least the early 1980's has been in the Red River district. When you look at the elementary school situation in Grand Forks, there are currently two "mega schools"--Kelly and Century. A third will open next school year. All three are 100% in the Red River district. Therein lies a big part of the problem.

I've been saying for years that instead of a north-south divide, it should be east (Central) and west (Red River). Apparently nobody on the school board agrees. I get the whole "tradition" argument, but frankly you could not possibly come up with a line that is more inequitable than where the current one is while still keeping somewhat equal enrollments.

Just curious--any idea how many of those kids (overall numbers, not necessarily names) live in the Red River district, and open-enroll into Central? That seems to be a big part of the reason for much of the success Central has managed to have in the 2000's--Marto, the Lamoureux's, Luke Johnson, Simonson (?), etc. I'm not convinced that kind of thing will go on indefinitely. It certainly hasn't in other sports.

His son is graduating, so it wouldn't surprise me. I believe Central absolutely has to have a "name" coach in order to remain competitive, which generally means an ex-UND player. Without getting south end kids through open enrollment, Central hockey likely won't be much better than Central football and basketball, which have been among the worst in the state over the last five to eight years.

I think it's pretty safe to say that nobody is going to be hiring Miller again, ever. Which I'm sure she knows, and is presumably part of the reason she's engaged in such a scorched-earth policy on her way out of Duluth. I read yesterday how she thinks it's a Title IX violation that Sandelin gets paid more than she did. If a court agrees (which I highly doubt), I don't even want to think about the ramifications at pretty much every athletic department in the country.