UND92,96

It was kind of a weird game. In reality, UMD had no business staying within 30 points of the Sioux, especially since their field goal percentage was in the mid-30's, but they were at the free throw line constantly. 25-35 from the line. They don't do many things well, as their record reflects, but they can make free throws.

Great game last night by Amy Mahlum! It had to be one of the best games of her UND career. It was disappointing giving up 40 first half points and leading by just 5 at the half, but Mankato was unconscious from 3-point range.

Central gets an empty net goal. 4-2 final.

Central is up 3-2 with 36 seconds to go...

I believe the first record is the overall record vs. dII teams. The second is the in-region dII record.

One other player to watch--not really from the "area" but from North Dakota--is Jessica Kielpinski from Mandan. She was first team all-state as a sophomore last year. Her older sister was Ms. Basketball last year, and for whatever reason, went to Alaska-Anchorage, where she's averaging 19 points and 9 boards a game as a freshman. She may be the only really good female basketball player to ever leave the state to play dII ball.

I feel bad for Peter Rivard (Shantel's husband). It's not as though there are a lot of college soccer coaching positions out there within reasonable commuting distance from Grand Forks.

Kirstie Gillett apparently had a huge game last night in the regional semi-final. Hopefully Dakota Prairie can make state as I'm interested in seeing the Gilletts play. Does Kirstie have 3-point range? At 5'10", she'd need to be playing on the perimeter a lot in college.

Any word on when we can expect the schedule to be announced? I'm still holding out hope we were able to find a better opponent than Mesa for Sept. 9.

The funny thing is, I remember worrying back in the early 90's that a division I school would hire him. It seems crazy to think that now, but at the time it seemed plausible. Just think, had he left back when he was considered a viable candidate for other jobs, Mac may have then taken over, and probably stayed until the Northern Iowa job opened up a few years ago. It's hard to say who might be coaching here now, but I doubt we'd be struggling this badly today had the above scenario played out. Instead, we've been saddled with an average NCC finish of 5th over the past 11 years, with no season having a better finish than third.

The question is: are the bench players seemingly scoring less because they're not playing as many minutes; or are they not playing as many minutes because they're not scoring as well? I don't know. The reason I'm concerned about a lack of bench production can best be explained by this: link. It's dangerous to have to rely on the starters to do all the scoring.

Going back to late last season, we're now 5-13 in the last 18 games vs. NCC opponents. Anybody fired up about next year?

The bench needs to step it up a bit. Earlier in the season, I felt like bench scoring was what set UND apart from other teams, but in recent games that offensive production off the bench just hasn't been what it was. I think Bagaason could be that spark if she were to get a few more minutes. Am I the only one who felt that the Sioux should have been pressing USD more tonight? They didn't seem to have a point guard, and they had 20 turnovers even without being pressed very much. It was frustrating watching Robinette (ostensibly their post) walk the ball up the floor on every possession without being made to work very hard.

Late regular season games tend to have somewhat smaller crowds, but the much bigger dropoff occurs for early round playoff games. It's that way for basketball, and to a lesser extent hockey for the first round of the WCHA playoffs. I've never really understood why that is, but it nearly always happens. I think November football games would be better attended if they were played at night, but Lennon is on record as saying he doesn't like night games, so I doubt that will happen.

The interesting thing about the 2005 attendance is that for regular season games only, this was the second time UND has exceeded 10,000 per game, as the average was 10,126. That poorly-attended playoff game really cut into the average.

New regional poll: North Central 1 North Dakota 23-0 19-0 2 St. Cloud State 17-2 16-2 3 Wayne State (Nebraska) 17-2 17-2 4 Northern State 14-4 14-4 5 Minnesota Duluth 12-8 9-6 6 Concordia-St. Paul 14-7 13-7 7 Regis (Colorado) 19-4 15-3 8 Augustana (South Dakota) 12-7 10-7 9 Metropolitan State 13-8 13-6 10 Nebraska-Kearney 14-6 14-6 I'm not sure I see the logic of Duluth remaining that highly-ranked, considering they're in the midst of a 5-game losing streak. The RMAC is in jeopardy of only getting one team in! Not that they deserve any more than that, but traditionally the committee has shown an inordinate amount of respect for the conference, despite its post-season futility.

I'm actually glad it's a road game. Labor Day weekend is a tough draw. It just sucks that we're not at home until the 16th.

Men lose yet again, 72-62. After a 2-0 NCC start, UND has gone 1-6 since.

81-58 final.

UND up 38-24 at the half in Duluth.

One other thing I would suggest--and I know this won't happen but I'll throw it out there anyway--is to have dramatically slashed ticket prices for the non-conference games vs. DAC teams, UMC and whatever other NAIA or very low level dII teams may be on the schedule. Of course, I'm looking at this purely from a women's basketball standpoint. Obviously on the men's side we don't blow out these types of teams anymore. In any event, a precedent has already been set for certain hockey and football games to have higher prices. I really don't have a problem with that. But it would certainly help attendance for these unpopular games to have cheap tickets.

I don't think many people who are currently season ticketholders would drop the full package for the conference-only package. Most of these people (myself included) have had their tickets for years and are serious fans. I'm just throwing an idea out there in an effort to induce people who may currently go to 2-3 games per year to commit to something a bit more.

Since I don't know how many current season ticketholders there are, I don't know whether this idea would be warranted or not, but one idea may be to offer conference-game-only season ticket packages. Non-conference games are generally a tough sell to the public due to the mostly overmatched opponents. Obviously you would prefer that people buy the entire season package, but purchasing a conference game package would be better than nothing.

Personally, I'd like to see her in there more, but she has had some games in which she's really struggled. Last night, for example, she had four turnovers despite only playing a few minutes. I believe she also really struggled at St. Cloud. As has been pointed out by others, she also struggles on defense much of the time, although she does compensate somewhat by being a pretty good shot-blocker. I think she's going to improve tremendously over the summer, as she has all the tools, and next year I think she'll be one of the top players in the NCC. This year, we probably just have to expect that there will be games in which she looks incredible, and others where she seems a little lost.

With such a young team, I would hope several players would be showing significant improvement since the start of the season. Is that happening? If it is, it doesn't seem to be showing up in the boxscores. Compare the Sioux to another young team like St. Cloud St. They're obviously getting much better as the year goes along.