UND92,96

Very, very sad news. He was a great man.

I see UNO and SCSU as being the two biggest rivals for the Sioux in the NCC. SCSU is probably more of a friendly rivalry considering the mutual respect between the coaching staffs, whereas the rivalry with UNO is probably more bitter, at least so long as Behrnsy is coaching there.

I have no problem with it so long as there is a stipulation in the agreement that the NCC would have an "out" clause allowing the Washington schools to be dropped if more than one all-sports member can be found. I think what some people are afraid of is that adding the Washington schools as football-only members would hinder the search for permanent NCC members.

I'm sure they're not as bad as they looked when they played the Sioux in Grand Forks, but on the other hand, they're only 3-4 against teams ranked in the current region poll, they're 1-2 vs. the NCC, and aside from winning at SW St. last week, they have no quality road wins. I think a lot of people probably have a hard time overlooking the fact that they've never been very good in the past, and as such look at them with a certain amount of skepticism. It's possible that the best team they've had coincided with a down year in the NSIC, which allowed them to win the conference. I would not expect them to consistently be any better than about fourth in the NSIC on a year-in, year-out basis.

6-6 (6-7 counting the tournament) in the NCC is not solid by any means. The non-conference season was solid, but that's meaningless when you're not even over .500 in the league. Labeling the season as anything other than a big disappointment is just delusional. And as others have said, next year is looking far, far worse.

Let's win two this weekend and the regional will return to GF for the first time in four years. I would never have thought this possible back in January after back-to-back losses to SW St. and Omaha.

There has been a lot of discontent for years, but last year I think most people were willing to cut Rich some slack due to the injuries. Clearly, that was not an excuse for this year's collapse. Right now, if a poll of season ticket holders was taken, I think about the only people who would want Rich retained are his close friends. The program is in serious need of new blood. I just hope Rich can admit that to himself and help this process along.

Beasley is apparently being charged with assault for an incident outside a Sioux Falls restaurant. link

Lindahl's career has been very reminiscent of Jeff Brandt's. Both were good as sophomores and were all-NCC selections, both struggled on defense, and both lost their shooting touch as juniors. Hopefully Lindahl will work hard to come out of his funk instead of bolting for the DAC-10...

I agree, with UND completing an impressive road sweep, and Regis losing for the third time in their last six games, the committee will finally have to move Regis from the top spot for the first time this season. The Sioux seem to be peaking at the right time.

Can anyone think of a situation where a coach of program with a history of success, at a school with considerable resources, has gone as many as 10 years without so much as a conference title, and yet still kept his/her job? I'm sure it's happened, but probably not too often. I really like Rich Glas as a person, and I definitely don't want to see him simply fired where he'd be in a position of having to find another head coaching job at probably some small school to finish out the last 5-8 years of his career. But it's also pretty clear that he's not capable of taking the UND men's basketball program to where we'd all like to see it go. He just can't get the same results as Gene Roebuck or Dale Lennon, or that Dean Blais did when he was coaching here. As such, the best scenario for all involved would be for him to be re-assigned within the athletic department, or possibly in the alumni association/Fighting Sioux Club. I believe he's earned that courtesy, just as Dave Gunther had when he was in the same situation back in the late 80's. I believe there's an assistant a.d. job open right now, unless it's not going to be filled. Presumably, it won't be filled until the new a.d. is hired, so that the new a.d. can hire that person. Thoughts?

This year has to be considered Roebuck's best coaching job at UND. Even though the Sioux were picked to win the NCC, this team had major question marks heading into the season, and looked very suspect in some early season games. But despite having almost no depth to speak of, and the fact that four of the seven players who regularly play are either freshmen or sophomores, UND has won at least a share of the conference. If the Sioux could somehow pull off a win tomorrow in Duluth, I really think this team will win the regional. Even if they don't, this has been a very good year all things considered, with only better things on the horizon for the next several years.

Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong on this, but even if the Sioux were to lose to Duluth on Saturday, I believe that UND will hold the tiebreaker IF Mankato can beat Omaha in Mankato on Saturday. The reason being is that the first tiebreaker is head-to-head, which would be a tie if UMD were to win. The second and third tiebreakers are records vs. the first and second place teams, which would be moot considering those teams are UND and UMD. Both teams swept SCSU, the probable third place team. Both teams split with Augie, the probable fourth place team. UND swept Mankato, whereas UMD split with them, and UND split with UNO, whereas UMD swept them. So the key is whether Mankato or UNO finishes higher in the standings. That will be determined by the Mankato-UNO game on Saturday. Obviously hosting would be huge for the conference tournament, since UND is 6-0 at home in the NCC, and has been extremely difficult to beat at the Betty/Ralph this season. EDIT: According to the Herald, this is correct. Either a UND win or a Mankato win on Saturday gives the Sioux the number one seed for the NCC tournament. Unfortunately, Roebuck's comments in today's article make it sound as though Regis will be hosting if they win their last two regular season games--both at home--no matter what happens in the conference tournaments. I'm not sure why that would be considering the juggling that happened last year as a result of the conference tournaments. UND went from 4th to 2nd by winning the tournament, if my memory is correct.

Sioux win 80-67 tonight and clinch at least a share of the NCC title. Not bad for a rebuilding year.

This may be opening up a whole new can of worms, but when you consider how the demographics of Grand Forks have changed in the past 20 years, and the effect it's had on Central, I'd say the fact that GFC has managed to win state four times in the past dozen-or-so years is a huge accomplishment. Seriously, for anybody familiar with Grand Forks, how many north-end neighborhoods are there in which you'd expect to see many hockey-playing kids? Not too many, at least compared to the Red River district. Open enrollment alleviates that disadvantage to an extent, but not that much. And when you consider how huge of a school Fargo South is, they should be a power. It's crazy that Grand Forks and Fargo both have two public high schools considering the huge disparity in population.

There are autobids for the conference tournament winners from 23 conferences, so it's essentially the same as the system dI basketball uses.

I think the problem with the criteria for ranking/seeding teams is that in-region record and in-region strength of schedule are basically the same thing. If you have the best in-region record, it's almost inevitable that you'll also have the best in-region SSI. Those two things are apparently what's keeping Regis at the top despite two losses in their last four games. UND has by far the better overall SSI, but the other criteria are either tied (records vs. common opponents, overall record) or not applicable (head-to-head). Because it's going to be virtually impossible for anybody to overtake Regis with respect to in-region record and in-region SSI, the only chance is for UND to have the better overall record. That way, the criteria would be two to two, with the other two being either tied or not applicable. But I certainly wouldn't expect to get the benefit of any doubt from the committee.

What is discouraging to me, aside from the obvious of the terrible performance against USD, is that we are probably looking at either a 7-5 or 6-6 NCC record this season. While that's not terrible, the discouraging part is that this rather average conference record is occurring in what appears to be an "up" year based on the experience and talent level of this team compared to last year, and compared to what next year looks like on paper. I don't pretend to know what the answer is, but with the NCC title dryspell about to hit 10 years, I'm to the point of just accepting that UND men's basketball will be a generally competitive team, will win 15-20 games per year, and will hopefully not have any behavioral problems on the team, but will not be an Elite 8 or even NCC championship-type team anytime soon.

That's really an amazing accomplishment. She could go over 1000 points this season depending on how far B-G-MR advances. She must also be getting pretty close to 3000 career points, which only four other girls have ever done in MN.

I'm only a casual high school hockey fan, and forgive me for taking this thread on a tangent, but have any other schools in ND consistently lost top players to the USHL/other junior leagues/Shattuck-St. Mary's besides Central and Red River? Would Central have been the favorite this year with Mario Lamoureux in the lineup? It's hard for me to imagine what sports like football and basketball would be like in ND if the top talent routinely left after their sophomore or junior year.

It looks like USD coach Chad Lavin is in a bit of denial, based on this quote from the Sioux Falls Argus Leader: While it's certainly true that last night's game was competitive, USD still lost on their homecourt, and UND throttled them by 27 in Grand Forks. I think it's safe to say that the Sioux are clearly better than are the Coyotes. Also, having to double-team Langen at all times and leaving Hausauer unguarded is not the sign of a team which matches up evenly with UND. Giving a player open 15-foot shots for virtually an entire game was a move of desperation that backfired in a big way. Unless a team uses a junk defense all the time, e.g. Temple, trying something like that in a one-game situation is generally the mark of a team that isn't very good.