UND92,96

I wouldn't consider him a particularly reliable source, but Frank Fee of KROX radio in Crookston had this to say:

Do you suppose it was entirely a coincidence that a Moorhead State grad decided that his alma mater merited a $50k guarantee (twice)? I hope he got a nice thank you letter from Moorhead State for his generous "donation."

I can't help but wonder how Grandall has been spending that $2,500? So long as he's the coach, maybe that money should be re-allocated to baseball and swimming, since those coaches actually recruit. I don't mean to belabor the point, but the idea of a coach who apparently does very little (if any) recruiting really irritates me.

I applaud Gene Taylor if the Arkansas-Monticello guarantee is in the $30k range. I seem to recall a few years back when NDSU was reportedly paying guarantees in the neighborhood of $50k for games against some pretty bad teams, e.g. MSU-Moorhead, which seemed like a huge waste of money considering the quality of the opponents. I don't recall whether that was the work of Taylor or Entzion, however.

I don't mean to be argumentative about this, but is it really possible to predict what the net proceeds of this game (Arkansas-Monticello) will be? Did the season ticket price go up as a result of this 6th home game? What was the guarantee given?

The class A all-star team, including Kimbrough and Bagaason, won the annual tournament of all-star teams from Minnesota's four classes of basketball. link

I agree that the women alone should be a big draw, and now that the men will likely be better than was perhaps expected immediately after this past season, I wouldn't expect the quality of the team in and of itself to cause any sort of attendance dropoff. As for whether the non-conference schedule will likely cause a drop in attendance, I don't really expect that it will. The reason is that non-conference games don't really draw all that well regardless of how good the competition is. Take last year as an example. Probably the biggest name non-conference opponent we've had in many years was Nebraska-Kearney (even though they were a bit down last year by their standards). That game drew 2515. UND's season average for home games was 2791. The hard-core fans will go to games pretty much regardless of who the opponent is. The more casual fans will tend to go to conference games. And it's the conference game attendance which essentially makes or breaks the season in terms of ticket sales. There is another variable which may affect attendance next year. Obviously no more games will be in the Ralph, and those games tended to have larger reported attendance. Whether that was due to more people actually being there, or perhaps the use of a different method of counting, I don't know. In any event, with the relatively small capacity of the Betty, there probably won't be any more of those 4000 to 5000 crowds to offset some of the smaller crowds, and that may very well make a difference in the overall average.

I went back and found legend's post regarding scholarship numbers. He stated that men's track/cross country is at 3.5 scholarships. Compare that to 1.8 for swimming/diving. Now think about what Stromberg and now Sampaio have accomplished with their 1.8, compared to what Grandall has done. Again, where is the accountability? Does anybody have any doubts that the swimming coaches have been recruiting for all these years, despite having so little scholarship money? Unless the information offered by siouxrunner and legend is way off, and again I have no reason to dispute it, Grandall's job performance is at best sub-par, and at worst downright incompetent.

If what siouxrunner has posted is true, and I have no reason to dispute it, I would hope Mr. Buning would not tolerate any program being run in this manner. It's incredible that a college coach could survive at a school for more than 20 years while doing minimal recruiting. Where is the accountability? How has Grandall basically flown under the radar during the tenure of four or five different a.d.'s?

Kraft is going to Mary. He was a very productive high school back, but I don't believe he has much speed. In terms of size, he's somwhat similar to Adam Roland, but I think he's quite a bit slower than Roland was in high school. I'm not sure where or even if Englehardt is playing college ball.

I understand that Roebuck is recruiting point guard Jossy Bergan from Valley City. Here is some information about her from a recent AAU tournament: link. With Amy Mahlum being done after this season, I think it's safe to say another point guard will be brought in for the '06-'07 season, and Bergan is apparently the number one target. With most positions well-stocked for the next 3-4 years, signing a quality point guard who can distribute the ball to all the scorers the Sioux will have will be crucial.

Here is the women's schedule. The home non-conference schedule isn't the greatest, although it will be good to have a rematch with Concordia-St. Paul. The Disney tournament will be interesting, as UND will open with Elite 8 team Merrimack, and potentially play Southern Indiana in the semi's.

I would think that the odds are that this is a home-and-home. Metro only averages about 725 fans per game, and are not known as an athletic department with deep pockets, so I doubt they could afford to be paying guarantees very often.

The reason I'd be surprised if he has any problems being admitted is that I know UND's goal is to promote and improve the cultural diversity on campus. Even putting aside the fact that Bledsoe is an athlete, he's apparently an honor roll student, and he's a minority. I would have to think the admission standards are not rigid in situations involving otherwise qualified minority students who perhaps don't have the minimum ACT score that the new standards call for.

I would certainly hope Bledsoe would be admitted. This blurb from a state tournament preview would suggest that he's a decent student:

Here it is: link

Chris Kuper has been getting some recognition as a potential draft pick next spring: link.

Here was the North Dakota roster: It appears Schaley from Larimore was the only UND recruit from North Dakota who wasn't on the team.

I am curious as to why it's been several years since the men's track and field program has announced any signees. Obviously there are newcomers every year, but either they're not signing letters of intent, or else that information isn't released by the athletic department for whatever reason. It seems that for the most part, the better men's track and field athletes at UND have either been from this immediate area (Brad Lies, Jeremy Zimney, Aaron Berndt, Marc Sondreal, Mike Backes, Matt Gerszewski, Matt Litzinger, etc.), or else they came to UND primarily for football (Jason Cook, Drew Thomas, Donovan Alexander, Erik Moe and starting next year, Ryan Chappell). I know there are one or two current or ex-UND track athletes who post on this site. My question is, does Grandall do much recruiting? Does the lack of facilities make recruiting nearly impossible? I realize scholarship dollars are probably quite limited, and we all know that the facilities are sub-par, but I can't help but wonder if perhaps it's time for Grandall to hand over the program to someone who's a little hungrier.

Here's a little more information on Hellevang.

This was a nice accomplishment by the North Dakotans, especially considering how Montana has dominated this series. Several UND recruits apparently played very well, including Tim Oksendahl, Jeff Tescher, Ryan Chappell, Nick Farstveet and Brandon Hellevang, among others. Hellevang set a Badlands Bowl record for longest field goal by making a 45-yarder. Here is an article on the game from the Bismarck Tribune.