UND92,96

This was kind of a shocker, particularly considering neither Demers nor Harris played. Piekny is kind of the women's team version of Kraft. Virtually all her shots on the season are 3s.

My guess is that they plan to drop either wrestling or baseball, and add at least one women's sport (tennis or swimming?).

Obviously this news raises a lot of questions. Title IX will be a big one if you're going to have to roughly double the football budget/add 30-40 football scholarships.

USD may be looking for a new head coach again:

USD has shown that a program led by a coach in their second year can make a huge jump if they do well in the portal. The Coyotes returned pretty much no production from last year, and they are now 17-6, including a 19-point win over SDSU last week. It will be interesting to see if they can sustain that success beyond this season though, as most of the new players are seniors. The thing UND has going for it is that there are several young players who look like they can be solid role players in the future, so it's not going to be a matter of starting from scratch next year like USD did. But it's going to be imperative that some difference-makers are added in the offseason.

Just curious--is this what May-Port actually wants to do, or is this a matter of the NDHSAA forcing it upon them?

Yes, according to the Herald article about the game.

UND would struggle with UMary, but you kind of have to take yesterday's game with a grain of salt, as UND is so much worse when Demers isn't playing. Compare the game vs. USD, where she played, and SDSU, where she didn't, as examples.

Upon further review, I believe the AI answer to my question misunderstood the difference between the current college football and basketball redshirt rules. In football, you can play in up to four games, or roughly 30-35% of the total, and still maintain a redshirt (and there's serious discussion about upping the limit to nine games). In basketball, for whatever reason, the rule is completely different, as you can't even play one game and maintain a non-medical redshirt. I have to think the basketball redshirt rule will be challenged legally in the near future, as it seems completely illogical for the rules to be so dramatically different. In any event, I still believe players like King would have a strong argument for a waiver. Playing 31 minutes as a true freshman doesn't seem like it should count as a year of eligibility within the five-year window.

As I said, I could be wrong. But while this is far from official, I found this:

I could be wrong on this, but I believe the rule is that a student-athlete can get a 5th year of eligibility if he played in less than 30% of a team's games in any one of his four years. In his one year at Iowa State, Eli King played in 9 out of the Cyclones' 33 games, or just over 27%, which would seem to mean he still has one more year if he chooses to use it. That's not to say that he'd necessarily choose to stay at UND for a hypothetical 5th year if serious money is offered elsewhere, but it would be great for him if the 31 minutes he played at Iowa State didn't end up costing him a year of eligibility. And obviously it would be huge for UND to potentially have him for another year.

This is kind of a pet peeve of mine. I certainly can't say whether she should or should not be getting minutes, but why even bring her back for a 5th year if she wasn't going to play? I can understand letting a kid finish up her four years if she works hard in practice and is a good student, but a 5th year?

UND now at KenPom 260, up 20 from earlier in the week, but still behind sub-.500 (overall) Summit teams SDSU, Omaha and Denver.

I have to think that will be the case. Wylee is the closest to Anderson UND has in terms of skillset, size and athleticism. In time, I think he'll be very solid.

I was looking for relatively impressive non-conference wins for Summit teams, and they're pretty few and far between. Denver actually has by far the best win, at #89 Colorado St. They have also beaten #149 Montana St. and won at #188 Northern Colorado. The next best after Denver's win at CSU? Believe it or not, UND with its win over #123 Winthrop. NDSU has wins over #136 Southern Illinois, #151 Montana and #156 Drake. St. Thomas doesn't really have any particularly good non-conference wins, with their best being over #188 Northern Colorado and #192 Portland. Omaha won at #153 Portland St. ORU has wins over #149 Montana St. and #165 Kennesaw St. USD and SDSU haven't beaten any non-conference opponents ranked any higher than the low 200s.

Here is the difference between this year's (so far) Kenpom rankings vs. last year's end of the season rankings for the Summit: 2025-26 132. St. Thomas 140. NDSU 185. SDSU 259. Denver 269. UNO 282. USD 290. UND 317. ORU 346. KC 2024-25 130. St. Thomas 135. NDSU 137. SDSU 165. UNO 238. KC 240. USD 265. UND 311. Denver 330. ORU

Doesn't Sacred Heart co-op with Crookston now? I don't know how many boys from Sacred Heart actually play, but I believe there have been several on the girls side in recent years.

I would be fine with bringing Sather back if it means Uelmen, Smith and Guga come back. I am assuming the ND kids stay/come in regardless. But I don't see why UND would offer a multi-year extension to a coach with (probably) a sub-.400 record after seven years. It's not necessary, and it's probably unprecedented at the division I level. Offer him a one-year extension. If working on essentially a one-year deal were a dealbreaker for Sather, he'd have left on his own after last season. He has a lot left to prove before a multi-year deal is even a consideration IMO.

He took unofficial visits to UND and NDSU last year, but I think at this point he has division II offers. I could see him maybe going the NSIC route for a year or two, and then transferring to a division I program if he can put up big numbers.

On the one hand, yes, this season has been pretty much a disaster. And Hutter is ultimately responsible for both the players that were brought in, and in keeping some of the returnees who realistically aren't legitimate division I players, which clearly he knew from having coached them for a year. On the other hand, last year's team was actually very close to being quite good. They split two close games with NDSU, and were far more competitive vs. SDSU than in the previous years. IMO, the two biggest reasons for the improvement were the addition of Schiller, and presumably at least to some extent Hutter's coaching, since those were really the only major changes from the year before. The bottom line is that he couldn't adequately replace Pemberton, Schiller and Ibrahim from the portal, and without difference-makers it's extremely difficult to win. Will he fare any better in the portal after this season? He's going to have to, because realistically the incoming freshmen plus Duchsherer may be able to replace the production of Demers, Aumer and Hughes, but I'm not sure it's realistic to expect much more than that from freshmen and somebody who hasn't played serious basketball in four years.

Article about the Micah Curtis situation: https://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/college/und-freshman-forward-micah-curtis-likely-to-miss-remainder-of-2025-26-season To summarize, he's very likely out for the season due to injury.

Disappointed to hear about Grace. I thought he’d play a lot in 2026.

Former UND player, and current Omaha assistant coach.

I haven't seen enough games to comment on how he's doing defensively, but I feel like Anderson has been mostly decent on offense, aside from his FG percentage being too low. 9 points and 4 boards per game isn't bad for a guy who averaged 14 ppg last year for dII Central Washington, but I guess I don't know exactly what the expectations for him were.

Nguyen is definitely saying the right things as far as recruiting philosophy: https://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/college/new-und-volleyball-coach-ready-to-tap-midwest-recruiting