UND92,96

In what has to be considered kind of a surprise, Kayla Bagaason makes first team a.p. all state in Minnesota, but Kierah Kimbrough only makes second team. link I would have thought it would be the other way around. It's pretty cool that Minnesota and Iowa St. are the only other schools besides UND to have signed more than one all-stater this year. Of the eight seniors named to either the first or second team, at least five are going to a major dI program, with obviously Bagaason and Kimbrough going to UND.

Koenig has all the tools--size, strength, above average athletic ability for a big kid (as shown by his football ability in high school as a wide receiver), and he can shoot the ball, or at least he could in high school. I don't know why things didn't work out for him at Green Bay. I certainly wouldn't look for him to be any kind of superstar, but he could definitely be a solid contributor if his heart is into it.

Good job tonight by St. Cloud defeating Concordia. The frustrating part for UND is that this is the second time in four years that a Sioux upset loss to an NSIC team opened the door for another NCC team who UND had beaten three times during the season. In 2002, SDSU took advantage of UND's loss to SW St. even though the Sioux were 3-0 vs. the Jacks that year. It was a similar story this year as UND was 3-0 vs. St. Cloud. I'm just glad that the NCC continued its stranglehold on the north central region title.

I know minnesotapreps.com had Gunhus ranked as the 7th best senior in Minnesota prior to this season--ahead of players like Vaughn, Pennick, Sussenguth and Gossen. I haven't ever actually seen him play, but he's apparently a good shooter and can put the ball in the basket. I would think he'd be worth at least a half scholarship, and since he's apparently an excellent student, he'd likely get the other half paid for in academic scholarship(s).

The following for both SCSU and UMD wasn't bad. It's hard to guess numbers, but perhaps 75-100 people. Concordia had very few fans, and Moorhead didn't have a great following either, considering how close Moorhead is to GF, but it was a Friday afternoon game when they played.

Although next season could be great, there are some question marks, as well. Will there be some players who don't return? Simple math would suggest that will be the case, as there are 12 players on the roster with at least one year of eligibilty remaining, plus three recruits and the possibility of a transfer or additional signee next month. IMO, there are some questions whether Glynn, Werdell and Draayer will return and/or ever see much playing time. I'm not suggesting they be cut, but I haven't seen anything to suggest they will ever get much p.t. considering who is returning and the fact that it's fairly unusual for players who don't play much in the their first two years in the program to ever become regular parts of the rotation. Will Guinn and Maffin be fully recovered from their injuries? Will UND's big frontline (Langen, Kimbrough and Boese) be able to defend smaller teams, or will some sort of zone defense have to be implemented? For that matter, can the guards do a better job of stopping penetration? Who will red-shirt? I'm assuming Ledger for sure, but the possibility exists for Bagaason and even Beck depending on the health status of Guinn and Maffin, and whether an impact transfer comes in. It's just really hard to predict how the Sioux will do considering a lot will depend on how players like Kimbrough, Guinn and Bagaason, if she doesn't red-shirt, adapt to college basketball, and whether younger returning players like Beck and Sannes improve. With Maffin's status unknown--if she tore any knee ligaments I don't know that she will be able to play next year--there really aren't that many experienced players returning. You know what you'll get from Boese, Jahner, Langen and for the most part Mahlum, but after those four there is a lot of inexperience, although certainly not a lack of talent.

At this time of year, I don't think there would be any football scholarship money left at UND. I don't know about NDSU, but getting anything close to a full ride might be difficult there, as well. Conversely, he would likely have no trouble getting a full scholarship to play basketball at either school. I don't think there's much question that his football upside is huge, but from purely a financial perspective he'd probably be better off doing what Chad Mustard did. Mustard played four years of college basketball on a full scholarship, then used his last two semesters of eligibility to play football for two seasons.

What can you say? Tonight was pretty much an embarrassment. We lost at home to a team that finished below Moorhead in their league, which is simply inexcusable. Roebuck is a great coach, no question about it, but it should have been apparent after the last St. Cloud St. game that stopping dribble penetration was a problem. If was worse tonight, as we allowed #3, who averaged 11 ppg on the year, to go to the basket any time she wanted. I'm not sure any adjustments ever were made to stop it. When a team's offense consists of freelancing and going one-on-one, and you can't stop it, that's really poor. I don't know that Concordia ever ran a play all night that I could tell. The points of emphasis for next year have to be stopping dribble penetration, and rebounding! Concordia killed us on the boards, even though they only out-rebounded their opponents by 2 rebounds per game on the year. It certainly wasn't because of their height. And if we can't do a better job of stopping penetration than we did late in the season, then we need to play zone. I know Roebuck hates to play zone, but probably not as much as he hates seeing his team give up layup after layup. The most telling stats of the night were Concordia out-rebounding the Sioux 46-32, including a 14 to 4 advantage on the offensive glass, and the Concordia bench out-scoring UND 13-1. I feel bad for Chelsea Hausauer. She had a great year and played well tonight, but unfortunately she has to go out on a very sour note. This is the first time since 1994 that UND has lost at home in the postseason. This has to rank up there as one of the most disappointing and inexplicable losses in Roebuck's career.

Kelsey Maffin's knee injury was extremely unfortunate. That leaves just 10 players, three of whom have played very little this year. I was kind of shocked yesterday when Haug actually got into the game in the first half. I'm afraid the Sioux will be forced to play a lot of zone to keep foul problems to a minimum. Mahlum, Hausauer and Langen all got two fouls in the first half yesterday which could be a big problem against anybody other than Fort Hays.

Kayla Bagaason had a nice game yesterday to lead Fosston into the state title game. She had 22 points, including 4-7 from 3-point range, and 9 rebounds. Although they probably won't be guarding each other, it will be interesting to see how she compares with Ms. Basketball frontrunner, all-time Minnesota career scoring leader and future Gopher Katie Ohm.

Bagaason struggled shooting the ball yesterday, as did most of the team, but still had 19 points, 8 rebounds and 5 blocks to lead Fosston to a win in the Class A quarterfinals. Fosston will play Minneota in the semi's tomorrow.

I think most, if not all tickets are reserved. Here is a seating chart: link

I certainly can't vouch for the veracity of this rumor, but the following was in Frank Fee's column from the KROX (Crookston) radio web page:

I don't think there's much of a chance for a sell-out. Particularly if you get there reasonably early for Friday's game(s), I don't think you'll have any problem getting in.

I believe the point regarding the depth of the conference is that there really aren't any truly bad teams anymore. For years teams like Mankato and UNO were pretty terrible, but that's not the case anymore. Aside from UND, the top teams this year were probably a bit down from past years, but overall the league is still among the best in dII due to that depth. We all know that UND will be loaded next year, but teams like St. Cloud St., UMD, Augie and USD should be very strong, as well.

Boese, Langen, Hausauer and Jahner all make all-NCC; Jahner is defensive player of the year; Langen is freshman of the year; and Roebuck is coach of the year. Not a bad season. link

According to this excerpt from the Green Bay newspaper, it doesn't sound like things went too well for Tyler Koenig this year:

Which current or former UND player would you compare Bagaason to?