UND92,96

So, assuming Rob's position isn't going to be eliminated, how about Rich Glas as his replacement? Seriously, I think this would be right up his alley. Thoughts?

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One thing that struck me this year was that NOBODY played man-to-man against the Sioux. That was presumably because coaches knew that there was really no way to handle players like Langen, Boese and Kimbrough one-on-one. They were much better off sagging off, and forcing UND to beat them with outside shooting. In other words, they adjusted to give themselves the best possible chance to win. UND, on the other hand, played nothing but man-to-man, regardless of the opponent. In theory, that's fine, as I believe most coaches would agree that playing man-to-man is preferable, if you have the talent to do so. However, I believe that there are times that you need to have the willingness to switch up defenses if the situation calls for it. Two times that come to my mind are, not coincidentally, our two most recent losses (SCSU and Concordia-St. Paul). What do these two teams have in common? A guard who was very skilled as a one-on-one player. Obviously, in the two regional games we lost, Carlisle and Hansen went off for big points. It seems to me that maybe it would have been prudent to try a little zone, which would have made getting to the basket more difficult. If I had one piece of constructive criticism of Gene Roebuck, it's that he feels his team has the most talent (which it does), and therefore he's not willing to adjust to what other teams do. I've heard him say on the radio that he feels that playing zone is tantamount to admitting that you don't have the ability to defend certain opposing players, and presumably he's completely unwilling to "give in" by playing any zone whatsoever. I don't think there's any shame in adjusting when you have difficulty in stopping certain kinds of players, particularly when you're in a lose-and-you're-done situation. I'm certainly not suggesting that UND lost because of poor coaching or anything of the sort--merely that adjusting defenses isn't necessarily a bad thing, and that Gene may be a little too stubborn sometimes.

It's certainly obvious that Wayne Nelson doesn't want to step on certain people's toes. There's an "ask the expert" section in the online version of the Herald where you can ask him questions regarding UND basketball and football. A few weeks ago, I asked him about as diplomatically as possible about how patient he thought Buning would be with the men's basketball program considering its struggles, and especially considering all the fans who leave right after the women's games, but he apparently felt the question was too "controversial" to answer. If that's not a legitimate issue to address, I don't know what is.

Unfortunately, all season long the Sioux had a propensity for having bouts of very poor shooting. I was afraid that eventually it would catch up to us, and last night it finally did. Between the whole team shooting in the mid-30 % range against a team not known for its defense (game up 89 points to an average Concordia-St. Paul team a couple of nights ago), and our two best players combining for just 12 points, it wasn't meant to be. Next year, I kind of hope we don't win the NCC tournament again. It's certainly not as though it's helped us any in terms of winning the region. I believe that's five years in a row where we won the NCC tournament, but another NCC team ended up winning the regional.

I think he's one of those people who likes to push buttons. He's also the same guy who was quoted earlier in the season that he thought UND's second five would finish runner-up in the NCC to UND's starting five, which was probably meant to irritate other NCC teams. He's the Mike McFeely of regional college basketball coaches.

That's possible. If Ashley was motivated by that, I suspect she'll be REALLY fired up based on this (from Nelson in today's Herald): I wouldn't trade Langen for Quigley. No way. Quigley is a a good player, but she's all finesse. UND can go with the power game of Langen, AND with a player who's considerably more athletic than Quigley in Kimbrough. You could conceivably play Langen and Kimbrough for a combined 40 minutes in the post, which is preferable to Quigley for 40 minutes, even if she could play that many minutes, which I don't believe she can.

If the UND broadcast isn't working again tonight, try the St. Cloud one. link.

Maybe it's just me, but Wayne Nelson seems to use some curious logic in his articles sometimes. Take this, for example, from Saturday: How is a game from early December of 2004 even remotely relevant to the present? A Northern win wouldn't have been impossible, of course, as nothing in sports is. But I don't think there's much question that it would have been a shock to the vast majority of people who follow women's basketball in this region.

Bernstrom mentioned on last week's show that it was the final one of the season.

I hope so, too.

Especially since they'd NEVER try to screw us over.

Post-season attendance figures are dubious, e.g. the football game vs. UC-Davis in 2001.

It was okay today with about 2100. Post-season games nearly always draw less than regular season ones, so anything over 2000 isn't bad. I'm hoping for a full house on Monday, though. Unlike this weekend where there was so much other stuff going on, there shouldn't be anything else going on in terms of local sports on Monday night.

It was a completely dominating performance by the Sioux. Northern is a good team, but nobody in dII could have stayed with UND the way they played today. Great shooting and great defense. It was nice to Jahner break out of her slump. Let's hope for another similar performance on Monday night!

It would be unusual to hire a coach from the NAIA or juco ranks, but that would really only be an issue for Smith. Huse is already a dI assistant, and rumor has it he's interested in the job. Whether he's only interested in it should UND go dI, I don't know. The bottom line to me is that sometimes you have to make decisions that aren't ideal in terms of timing, but that can't be avoided. To me, anything is preferable to having the current regime back next season.

It was a pretty good performance by the Sioux, but we'll need another good performance to win today. Northern is not a bad team at all. I'm hoping that Langen can stay out of foul trouble today, and that Jahner can regain her shooting touch as she's really struggling right now to put the ball in the basket. It's really a luxury to be able to bring in a player like Kimbrough off the bench! I guarantee that nobody else in dII has a post player with that kind of offensive ability who isn't a starter. Last year, if Ashley was in foul trouble, I was very worried that we would have to completely rely on outside shooting, which could be very streaky. Now, while I want to see Langen in the game as much as possible, Kimbrough is more than capable of picking up the offensive slack.

I'm pretty sure he knows how unpopular Glas is as a basketball coach. It would be tough to ignore all the people leaving immediately after the women's games. The only thing I can assume is that he's so convinced that he has to to wait until the dI issue is decided to make a coaching change that he's willing to throw next season under the proverbial bus. And if that's what he's decided, I can't say that I'm too impressed with our new leader. I don't believe we're going to do better than Craig Smith or Brad Huse, and I have to believe both would be very interested in the job regardless of whether it's dI or dII. And either would be a huge improvement over Glas (and Herbst, who in my opinion has been a terrible assistant coach).

Has anybody else heard anything about whether Rich is staying or going? If it's true that he's staying for at least one more year, I don't think I will be attending any men's games next year, even though I'll have season tickets since you can't drop men's but keep women's. I just can't take the frustration anymore. If the administration doesn't care how the men's team does, why should the fans?

Any predictions for tomorrow? I think the Sioux will win big; Northern over Regis since the RMAC never wins games in the regional; Augie over SCSU in close one; and Wayne over Concordia-St. Paul.

I think Valley City's winless season doomed any chance she had. I expect she'll go on to a better college career than most of the other nominees, however.

From what I've heard from a pretty reliable source, Richie has no intentions of quitting, at least not right now. So unless Buning pulls the trigger--and I highly doubt that will happen--there won't be a coaching change this year.

I'm basing the tougher schedule theory on the fact that Crookston has a much better record than DL despite getting smoked by DL when they played head-to-head. Not exactly a scientific argument, I'll admit, but not without a certain amount of logic, either. Also, Crookston barely beat Central, who is simply not a very good team. Just my two cents.

I read the Washburn article last week, and what struck me is what an accomplishment it's been for UND (and NDSU and SDSU) to have won a total of nine national championships without (to my knowledge) having any players who were in dII solely because they weren't academically eligible to play dI. Obviously we see that a lot in men's basketball, but relatively infrequently on the women's side. I wouldn't necessarily go so far as to say that it taints things somewhat when your best player by far is only at your school because she HAD to play at a level below dI, but I will say that I'm proud of the way UND and the other NCC schools have done things in women's basketball.

Just to play devil's advocate since I haven't seen Wahlin play in person, but Privatsky's numbers are basically identical to Wahlin's, and Devils Lake plays a much more difficult schedule. Wahlin may very well be the better player, but I'd be interested in hearing how a coach would compare the two. I'm not sure the difference is necessarily as substantial as you seem to think.