UND92,96

Charlie Jeske from the Alerus was on the radio this morning, and said there's roughly 2000 tickets left for the game tomorrow. Assuming a full or nearly-full student section and normal ticket sales for the rest of today and tomorrow, I would expect 12,000-plus.

Here's the [url="http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm?id=106884

I can't help but wonder if perhaps we're giving UNO a little too much credit. True, they've more or less had our number in recent years. But this year, which is really all that matters right now, they are a very flawed team, as has been shown by the fact that they've played quite poorly in the second half of the NW Missouri game, and most all of the Central Washington, USD and UMD games. They have a very porous secondary, and questionable special teams. And they've been poor on the road this year. Just as many people were concerned prior to the Winona State, Augie and St. Cloud State games due to what had happened in the past, it seems to be the same for this game. But I honestly expect a similar result here as in those games. UND is the better team, playing at home, and has something to prove. I look for the Sioux to play their most complete game of the year, and put to rest the talk about struggling against Omaha.

Last year it came out in the second week of November, so it will probably be a couple of weeks before the NCC coaches' poll comes out.

The TV show typically starts when the conference season starts. The basketball coaches will probably be on the radio show Wednesday nights either the week before or the week after their first games of the season. I believe the women open with Merrimack at the tip-off tournament, who beat St. Cloud State in the Elite 8 last spring. However, I don't think they return much from that team.

New regional rankings:

Benter moves well for a big kid. He actually plays receiver for the Divide County football team, a la Tyler Koenig at North a few years back.

Glas needs just one more field goal to tie the dII single season record for most field goals made. As for career records, Glas already has the dII mark, but something to watch for might be the all-divisions record of 87. Jeff currently has 76, with hopefully six games to go.

Not that all junior college guys are bad, but when you look at the Mankato roster and see the sheer number of transfers, the odds are that several of them are probably questionable characters. If you're playing juco ball in California or Texas and you end up in Mankato, it's probably because not that many other programs wanted you--and it's not necessarily due to lack of talent. I guess they felt like they needed to roll the dice to find talent, since they don't get a lot of top high school players from Minnesota. I recall the game at the Alerus last year, and they had some very chippy players who seemed to like to trash talk a lot more than actually play. You don't see that stuff at most other NCC schools.

We definitely need to play better than today, but UNO needs to do something on the road before they convince me they're back. They've had just three road games this year, and in two of them they've absolutely laid an egg. I think they've got the worst secondary in the league. Hopefully being at home will rejuvenate our passing game, because that's probably where we need to really make them pay.

You're probably right. Notwithstanding our shaky offensive performance today, I think we're substantially better than UNO this year, particularly considering all their offensive injuries. I'm really glad this one is at home though, since we never seem to play well in Omaha.

UNO wins today in a must-win situation to keep their playoff hopes alive and to set up a huge matchup next week at the Alerus. If UND can pull it out, I believe it would assure us of no worse than a 2 seed. Needless to say, the Sioux will need to play considerably better than today, but I like our chances in the friendly confines of the Al.

You're right. I hate all these Minnesota schools changing their names, e.g. Southwest State becoming Southwest Minnesota State, and of course Moorhead State becoming Minnesota State-Moorhead.

The MSU defense is pretty good, but geez, even UMD was able to run on these guys! And USD ran for over 300 against them.

Again, please run the ball!

Now please, let's run the ball!

A backup fullback for MSU returns kick for td. The biggest, and only UND special teams shortcoming rears its ugly head again. What is the deal with our kick coverage this year?

The offense seems to have reverted back to its 2004 form, where it struggled so badly to score points on the road. I think Manke needs to get a shot in the 4th quarter to try jumpstart things.

Although I like Beck and think she's going to be a good player, I think she was forced into playing as a true freshman due to Guinn's injury. This year, with the return of Jahner and hopefully Maffin at the wings, plus the additions of Guinn and Bagaason, I think Beck might be well-served taking the red-shirt she ideally would have had last year. Maybe Roebuck feels that her defense is needed too much this year for that to happen, and that's fine, but I just hate to see anybody needlessly use a year of eligibility if they're only going to be the 5th or 6th player off the bench. I think Bagaason's outside shooting is going to be too important for her to red-shirt since most teams are going to have to play zone against UND. I would tend to agree about Ledger being a red-shirt candidate as well due to the fact that there seems to be excellent interior depth even without her (Langen, Kimbrough, Sannes and, if necessary, Boese), but I also think she's probably physically ready to play and play well right now.

Weather forecast for Mankato tomorrow sounds like pretty good football weather:

If Maffin can play this year, I wonder if that would mean that somebody may red-shirt, specifically Beck? I can't really see an 11-person rotation (Langen, Boese, Kimbrough, Maffin, Jahner, Mahlum, Guinn, Sannes, Bagaason, Ledger and Beck). I think Beck would have red-shirted last year had the depth been a little better.

Hopefully no news is good news, as this Herald article on the start of the men's and women's basketball seasons specifically mentions Koenig's knee injuries, but doesn't mention anything about any women's player injuries--not even Maffin.

I think Augie and UNO are the only two NCC schools who actually do use the Fighting Sioux name in their releases. SCSU, UMD and MSU-M don't, and I'm almost positive that USD doesn't, either.

Mankato has apparently played pretty well at times this year, but it's also hard to ignore that they've lost to Bemidji State and Concordia-St. Paul, and they somehow managed to give up 166 yards rushing to Duluth, which seems impossible to believe given how anemic the Bulldog ground game is. USD rushed for over 300 yards against them. I hope Beatty is ready for another game of over 30 carries, because I think he'll be a workhorse again. They do have some quick defensive linemen who are pretty good pass rushers, so given our relative difficulties with pass protection of late, I suspect the running game will take center stage on Saturday.