UND92,96

I suspect that the vast majority of the fans who want a coaching change wouldn't be happy if Herbst replaced Glas. I don't see what Herbst has done at UND to possibly be considered a candidate for the head coaching job. And if he has, indeed, turned down dI jobs to stay here, what was he thinking? Would Ben Jacobson be where he is today had he stuck with Richie? People can say what they want about Jake's loyalty, but in retrospect, he was extremely smart to dump Richie in favor of Mac. I can think of about 150,000-plus reasons why it was a good idea.

Antes' opposition to the Fighting Sioux name has always surprised me to an extent because unlike 99.99% of the other vocal nickname opponents, he actually is a sports fan and regularly attends UND games. I even recall seeing him at the women's elite 8 basketball tournament in Pine Bluff in 1998.

When you look at the original bracket, it's unfathomable that American International, the third-place team from an average league (NE-10), has managed to reach the title game. I'm sure nearly everyone assumed it would be the North Central vs. the South Central region champions (and likely UND vs. Washburn) in the semi's. This is roughly akin to the third-place team from the NCC in men's bball making it to the title game.

I doubt Kolpack did a lot of research on this. I don't believe Rob's departure had anything to do with whether UND is or is not going dI. IF UND doesn't go dI within a few years, then yes, Lennon would quite possibly look at other opportunities. But the signs all still seem to be pointing towards a dI move.

I heard SCSU had a lot of problems with Augie's zone in the NCC tournament, as well. UND probably wouldn't need to use zone all that often, but it sure would be nice to have that option when the situation calls for it.

Even with Minnesota's perennially awful defense, I don't foresee them ever losing to NDSU once, let alone consistently.

Is Braegelmann taking part in spring ball?

Maybe, but it appears that this season, the last thing any team should want to be is the favorite. I expected Emporia State would be a big factor, but they promptly lost yesterday. Grand Valley looks to be the biggest threat to St. Cloud State. I think the Huskies would have to really lay an egg to lose to American International in the semi's.

Here's a Reusse column on Minnesota a.d. Joel Maturi's curious decision to retain Dan Monson despite heavy pressure from fans and alums to fire him after several sub-par seasons in a row. link. While the circumstances aren't identical to the UND situation, there are a number of parallels.

It looks like Monson is out at Minnesota. link. I suspect Mac would have been a strong candidate there, as well. EDIT: Or maybe Monson's NOT out? link

SW MN State fired very successful women's coach Kelly Krueger after last season (I never did hear why), and now after one year, fired his replacement Mike Power link, apparently in large part because he had asked several scholarship players not to return next year. I can't recall a school firing its coach, and then firing the replacement one year later.

UND recruit Rion Rayfield led his team to the Wisconsin division 4 state title: link. Rayfield was also named third team all state (all classes combined) by the AP. Under the right coaching, he and Bledsoe could be an outstanding backcourt combination in a few years.

It's certainly no surprise, but both Alys Seay and Jossy Bergan were named first team class A all state: link.

I have no doubts that REA management hasn't been very helpful, particularly under Berning's regime, but from the outside looking in, UND's athletic budget seems to be growing exponentially the past few years. I have to think RT had at least some responsibility there. I question how often he ever said "no" to a request for more money from the various programs? For example, I posted a few months ago a comparison of all the men's basketball budgets in the NCC and NSIC, and UND was by far the highest-spending. Assuming those numbers were even remotely accurate, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised by the deficit? I don't mean to be too critical of RT because again, I have always liked him very much. The bottom line is that being a.d. is more akin to being the CEO of pretty big corporation than it is to being a coach, and being a coach doesn't necessarily qualify a person to be a good a.d. I believe as time goes on, you'll see it less and less often for somebody to go directly from being a coach to the a.d.

As much as I like Roger as a person and appreciate what he did as football coach, he was in over his head and needed to go. Per the minutes from the September IAC meeting, the 2005-06 budget was projected to result in a $680,000 deficit. That's absolutely inexcusible, and the buck had to stop with RT. I understand all the challenges the a.d. faces with REA management and having all revenue producing sports being played in non-UND-owned facilities, but the a.d. needs to have a much better handle on the budget than that. He also made some curious hires, and was evidently unwilling to ever make any tough decisions in terms of getting rid of coaches in under-performing sports.

Maybe either Mac or Ben will hire Rich Glas as one of their assistants.

This was in the minutes from a recent iac meeting:

Presumably Jahner will have to play a lot of point guard next year. Jossy Bergan will likely be the backup. I would hope that Roebuck doesn't try to convert somebody else into a point guard (e.g. Bagaason or Guinn), because that very rarely works. Jahner was a point guard in high school, so that's not a huge stretch.

I thought it was interesting that despite the fact that UND has a limited number of scholarships available for next season (2 or 3?) and will be actively looking for juco players who can play immediately, they are still supposedly in the running for Mr. Basketball Travis Mertens. link. I thought he was going to Lake Region?

New coach named: link.

My guess would be Langen, Kimbrough, Guinn, Maffin and Jahner.

He's only been at UND for six years, so to me his whole career is considered recent. My understanding is that ex-assistant Riley was responsible for getting Beasley, and he's the one really good recruit over the past several years. True, Allen and Lolar were uber-talented, but I'm not sure whether they were Riley or Herbst finds, and they didn't pan out, anyway. Herbst has/had the reputation as a recruiter, but I'm not seeing the results. I will agree with you that the buck stops with Richie, but I'm not willing to give the guy who's supposedly the primary recruiter a free pass when it comes to how terrible the program is right now. But ultimately, it doesn't really matter how much of the blame is Richie's, and how much is Herbst's. The whole staff need to move on, and the sooner the better.

Looking back at Richie's career, it's my belief that his success and failure have been mostly a function of how good his assistant coaches are/were. With Mac, Richie looked like a coach who was on the fast track to at least a mid-major dI job. With Herbst, Richie looks like a guy who 90-something percent of UND basketball fans want gone. Herbst either hasn't produced in terms of recruiting, or if he has gotten the players, he and Richie haven't been able to cultivate the talent they had into good teams. Either way, Herbst has to shoulder much of the blame for the recent ineptitude of the program.

You probably have to make a choice--would you rather have Glas move into Bollinger's old job, or would you rather we have to endure another season of he and Herbst running the men's basketball program further into the ground? All signs point to him being back for another season unless he moves over into administration, so I'm definitely hoping for the job change.

I'm a little surprised nobody has mentioned this until now, but Chris Mussman was apparently a candidate for the vacant Wisconsin-Eau Claire head coaching job, but he dropped out for some reason. link.