UND92,96

A Southwest State fan on the d2football.com board said they're at something like 6 scholarships. Maybe they're an aberration, but I strongly suspect the majority of teams are probably at least a few scholies below 10. And again, I realize men's and women's basketball are very different since this area produces so many more good girl players, but you would still think that the gap between the NCC and NSIC should be comparable for men and women. It's definitely not. The NSIC typically has a couple of legit women's teams, but that's it. The NCC was never dominant on a national scale, but it was once known for having a lot of good teams. Maybe not teams that could win a national title, but a lot of good teams nonetheless. It's gotten to the point where it's a rarity for an NCC team to make the Elite 8. Certainly Metro State has had a lot to do with it since they hired their current coach with all the Aussie contacts, but the NSIC has had a couple of Elite 8 teams since the last NCC one, and that really shouldn't happen IMO.

To answer my own question, according to Steve Hallstrom, NDSU is showing interest in Travis Mertens, Evan Sauvageau and Lee Vandal. link.

The thing I find perplexing, though, is that considering the scholarship advantage for the NCC vs. the NSIC should be roughtly equal for the men's programs AND the women's programs, why is it that on the women's side, the NCC has a 20-5 record vs. the NSIC, whereas the men are roughly .500 vs. that conference? I just don't see why it is that the women have more or less been able to maintain their dominance over the NSIC (and the DAC and other NAIA programs) over the years, but on the men's side, there's not much difference anymore. I'm not sure there's really any one answer, but it's hard to believe how far the NCC has fallen in men's basketball.

Oksendahl didn't get (or didn't take) the Mayville job, so apparently Tim will stay at UND. Hopefully this bodes well for UND's recruitment of Matt Anderson.

This may be the worst the NCC has been in recent memory. Everybody has at least three losses except USD, who is playing their usual weak non-conference schedule. Duluth looked pretty good for awhile, but just lost at home to Southwest State. Aside from the obvious of losing teams to dI, what has happened to this league? I realize most teams were senior-dominated last year, but whatever happened to reloading? The NCC's record vs. the NSIC is basically .500 right now. Is the NSIC really getting better, or is it just a matter of the NCC getting that much worse?

That would be good news, as he's a nice player. Any word on Evan Sauvageau?

According to this, a Wisconsin kid who UND offered just committed to Minnesota.

It's on Wednesday nights at 6:30, usually on both 1440 AM and 96.1 FM. Glas, Roebuck and Hakstol are all on unless there's a bball game. Last night, the women were playing on 96.1, so the coaches's show was only on 1440.

Did UMC sit back in that tight zone again? I assume they did. That's why teams do it against UND. It won't work often, but once in every 10-15 games, the Sioux will shoot 30-something percent, and a clearly inferior team can spring an upset. But this would have been the biggest upset in local college basketball history IMO. Hopefully this serves as a wakeup call. Even shooting that poorly, if the Sioux had played with more fire, it still could have been a 20-plus point win considering the huge disparity in talent and depth between the two teams. What are the odds that Boese, Mahlum, Maffin and Guinn all have poor shooting nights at the same time like they did last night? Hard to believe.

That's disappointing, to say the least. This was in the same article:

I tried to listen to the coaches' show tonight, but I was in a location where reception came and went. In any event, I thought I heard Rich actually acknowledge for one of the first times about how the public is really down on his program. Did anybody else hear what he was saying in the last 5-10 minutes of his segment?

I found a Jeff Kolpack article from February of 2004 which included this: I'm not sure if this link will work or not, but you can access the article in the "Bison Zone" at the Forum website.

I imagine the possibility of UND getting her will depend largely on whether or not she's one of those kids who doesn't want to go too far from home for college. As we all know, UND has gotten some kids who clearly were/are dI players due to family connections, e.g. Jaime Pudenz, or proximity to home, e.g. Kimbrough. The facts that she's from Crookston, and that her brother is already at UND certainly won't hurt Roebuck's chances. I've heard Minnesota is very aware of her, and it's very unlikely UND would have much of a chance against the Gophers, but in a recruiting battle with dI schools from other states, I like UND's chances given what UND can offer in terms of facilities and attendance to go along with the opportunity for family to see all of her home games along with a number of road games which would be within a few hundred miles of Crookston.

New poll is out:

To the extent that was true--and I have no idea whether or not it was--I suspect it stopped being the case in 2001. Since the completion of REA and the corresponding increase in season tickets available, funds raised by the FSC have been well in excess of $1 million per year. Probably much closer to $1.5 million per year.

I agree. My numbers comment was directed as much to her assists as anything. I'm not sure there's anybody else on her team who can score, and hence, she probably won't have much in the way of assists even though she is a good passer. I do think she'll be more of an offensive threat than was Tonia Jones, although I agree that it won't be her role to shoot very often.

Impressive numbers. Hopefully she can step right in and contribute immediately next year. As for the other UND recruits, I believe Seay is averaging 21.5 ppg through two games. I'm not sure on Bergan, but she's playing on a very weak team this year so her numbers may be down from what they were last year.

Thanks. I could be wrong, but I think the Fighting Sioux Club raised $1.75 million or so last year. Anybody else recall the number? EDIT: I guess I can't find anything other than the fiscal year 2004 number, which was apparently about $1.5 million. I don't know what the fiscal year 2005 number was.

I'm just curious, how much did Team Makers raise last year?

Another opposing coach with a very high opinion of the UND women: (from the Duluth paper).

On Friday afternoon at the Alerus, Crookston plays GF Central. It should be an interesting matchup of Wahlin vs. UND recruit Seay.

Michael Arndt of LaMoure verbals to NDSU. [url="http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm?id=111339

Of all the UND coaches, Roebuck would seem to have the most to gain by staying dII. With the talent he's assembled, he's looking at potentially multiple national championships over the next few years if UND doesn't move to dI. Not that UND wouldn't be competitive as a dI mid-major, but by the time we'd become tournament eligible, he'd be past retirement age. Even though it's not considered very "p.c." to hire a man to coach a women's basketball team in this day and age, I suspect his .850 winning % would have made it easy to have gotten a good dI job if that had been his goal.

I certainly don't pretend to know what he's thinking, but I've noticed a lot--and perhaps even an inordinate amount--of "next year" talk in his radio interviews. He definitely talks like somebody who fully expects to be back next year.