UND92,96

The average right now is about 2570, which is very slightly more than last year's average. With only 2-3 home games remaining, the number probably won't change much but should go up a little. Of course, the fact that this year's attendance is going to actually be more is quite impressive in and of itself since obviously the NDSU and SDSU games are no longer on the schedule, and those games generally drew some of the biggest crowds.

It would certainly appear that the people of Fargo are staying away from NDSU basketball games in droves. 800-something people showed up last night for the game against SW St., and they are averaging a little over 1300/game on the year. I realize it's a poor home schedule, but I can't imagine Taylor and company were expecting attendance to drop off quite this much.

I think it may depend on who the new a.d. is, and who the new g.m. of REA is. I believe the coaches would prefer to play all the games at the Betty. It much more closely replicates Hyslop in terms of a homecourt advantage. I think a primary reason the conference games are played at the Ralph is to cater to the luxury suite tenants in the Ralph (most of whom don't go to or care about basketball, anyway), and the fact that concession sales are probably far higher at the Ralph. It's also quite a recruiting tool. But unless attendance grows to the point where 4000 is far too small, I believe ultimately the Betty will be where all but the biggest games will be played--providing there's no opposition from the a.d. or the new REA g.m., of course.

I'm afraid there are just too many things she doesn't do well to be the starting point guard on a good team. She's a defensive liability in the half court because nearly everybody over about 5'3" can post her up; she doesn't break down a defense by penetrating to the basket; she's only a scoring threat from behind the arc, but her outside shooting is wildly inconsistent; and she's not a particularly good ball-handler for a point guard. I like the fact that she's a hard worker and she can be effective at times by harrassing the opposing point guard in a full court press situation, but I just don't think she's capable of being a starter anymore due to the aforementioned deficiencies in her game. Demoting her does mean that there's not a real scoring threat off the bench the way there was when Maffin was a sub, but I think the positive's outweigh the negative's by playing Jahner at the point and moving Maffin into the starting lineup.

It was interesting that Roebuck took Mahlum out of the starting lineup on Saturday. I don't think he really had any choice in the matter. Aside from a couple of games where she was able to hit several 3's, Amy's really struggled for most of the season. I think that if the Sioux are going to be able to win the NCC, it will have to be with the starting five playing a lot of minutes--probably more than in past years. I really hope Roebuck can find the scholarship money to sign a point guard in the spring. The best case scenario would probably be a transfer with the ability to contribute immediately next season. Jahner has looked so good at the 2 that it would be nice if she didn't have to play the large majority of the minutes at the point next season the way I'm afraid she'll have to the rest of this season.

It was great to see the Ryp of last year this weekend. He scored over 50 points on the weekend and was nearly unstoppable. The Sioux are just a different team when he's playing at his best. Perhaps the most impressive statistic about the Sioux right now is the 6-1 record against teams ranked in the north central region poll.

My god, were the Sioux women horrible tonight. It's hard to fathom how they could play that poorly at home for the second time this year. A win is a win, but they simply can't play like that and expect to beat anybody.

Ryp played like he did for most of last year, and was huge tonight. Lindahl was outstanding until the last 8-10 minutes when he went ice cold. Nevertheless, a heck of a win. I think this win supports the theory even further that while USD beating UND may not necessarily have been a fluke, the margin of victory was a largely a function of tired legs on UND's part. I definitely think Mankato is a better team than USD. For that matter, UNO beat USD tonight in Vermillion. There's just a lot of balance in the NCC among the top five teams.

It is early. But let's face it, two out of the past three years, the regional has been hosted by a non-NCC school. And with the NCC being as balanced as it is, the odds are that each of even the best NCC teams will probably lose more than will Regis or Concordia-St. Paul the rest of the way. Combine that with the obvious fact that those schools are ALREADY ahead of the NCC teams despite also having 3-4 losses, and I'll venture to say that barring UND, Augie, St. Cloud St. or UMD nearly running the table, it will be three out of four years that the NCC will not host the regional. And I for one don't agree with that. The writing is on the wall that unless the top NCC team also has the top overall record (a tall order considering the difficult conference schedule), the regional committee will award the top seed to an RMAC or NSIC team no matter how many years in a row the NCC continues to win the region.

I'm sure SSI has a lot to do with it. But just as in football, I believe there's some room for interpretation, as well. The football poll didn't necessarily follow the SSI rankings to the letter. If winning the north central region every year it has existed hasn't earned a certain amount of respect for the NCC, I guess nothing will. By the same token, if not having had ANY success in the post-season (the RMAC) hasn't earned a healthy amount of skepticism about the quality of that league, I guess nothing will.

I know the national poll has nothing to do with the regional polls, but it still seems pretty odd that a team unranked in the national poll (and they only received a few votes) could be ranked number one in one of the toughest regions in dII women's basketball. The RMAC simply isn't any good, and never has been. Even in something of a down year for the NCC, I have a hard time believing an NCC team does not even merit a top-2 ranking.

From today's Herald:

Well, I guess this shows how little I know: North Central Region 1. Regis (Colorado) 11-0 12-3 2. Concordia-St. Paul 8-2 11-4 3. Augustana (South Dakota) 8-3 17-4 4. St. Cloud State 8-3 14-4 5. North Dakota 8-3 14-4 6. Minnesota State Moorhead 8-3 13-3 7. Colorado School of Mines 9-3 11-3 8. Minnesota Duluth 7-4 13-5 9. Southwest Minnesota State 6-5 12-6 10. South Dakota 8-4 12-4 Roebuck is actually on the regional committee this year, so it will be interesting to hear his take on this.

So I guess we can officially now start speculating about candidates for RT's replacement. I have previously mentioned current Stanford assistant a.d. and UND grad Ray Purpur, and I think he'd be close to the top of the list if he actually applies. Does anybody know of other people with UND or area ties who might be a strong candidate? I'm sure there will be some in-house applicants like possibly Rich Glas, Mike Stromberg or Rob Bollinger. I personally would like to see somebody a little younger and with strong experience as either an a.d. or an assistant a.d. as opposed to exclusively coaching experience.

I'm curious about that, too. If there really is a $400,000-plus deficit, you would think we'd be seeing some action taken as a result. I'm not seeing any obvious ramifications that you'd expect to see in such a situation, but I certainly don't know the whole story.

There was an article about Kimbrough in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune today (it may require registration to access it).

One more question, how can NDSU fans realistically think that being a mid-major dI basketball power like the aforementioned schools is remotely possible considering NDSU's history as a dII program? I can see it possibly happening in the not-to-distant future for the women's programs at NDSU and SDSU (just as I think it could happen for UND should they go dI), but it's highly, highly unlikely that the NDSU men will ever be comparable to Gonzaga, et al. in men's basketball. It's fine to hope for the occasional trip to the Big Dance (should NDSU find a conference), but it's a huge difference between making the field every 20 years or so as a 16 seed and getting hammered by Duke or Kentucky in the first round, to being a team like the Zags who make the tournament practically every year and who the teams from major conferences legitimately worry about playing against.

The first women's regional poll is supposed to come out tomorrow, and as crazy as it seems, UND could very well be number one. Nobody from the RMAC even received any votes in the last top-25 and it's highly unlikely that any of its teams will be ranked very highly in the region. It's probably between UND, Augie and Concordia-St. Paul, each of which has four losses, and USD with three losses (but obviously coming off a lop-sided loss to UND and without many wins versus strong teams).

As for my theory, see the thread regarding NCC scheduling.

She did have a huge game at Omaha, and I have actually been pretty impressed with how she's been playing, particularly the fact that she's cut down on her turnovers. Both games this weekend were lop-sided from the start, and she didn't really need to assert herself as a scorer. The really encouraging thing about last night's game was the fact that UND built a 25-point halftime lead despite only about a combined 10 points from Langen and Boese. Carissa Jahner has really improved her offensive game this year, and is a pretty reliable third offensive weapon behind Langen and Boese.

I'm not saying that there's some kind of conspiracy against UND or anything, but I think the powers-that-be who made out the NCC schedule this year did a rather poor job from a UND perspective. First, having UND vs. UNO for the first two conference games was stupid and unnecessary, even though it turned out well for the Sioux on the men's side. Probably more importantly, there are two instances this season where UND has a game on one night, and then turns around and plays again the following night against a team who didn't have to play the night before. Last night was the first time, and later this year UND plays UMD on the second night of a back-to-back when UMD will have had a week's rest prior to playing the Sioux. I quickly checked the NCC composite schedule, and I didn't see that any other team has to do this even once, let alone twice (although I could easily have missed it and this might be happening to other teams, as well). I'm not saying USD wouldn't have won last night anyway, but you can't tell me that it wasn't a major advantage for them to catch the Sioux the night after having had to play a tough game against UNO, while USD had fresh legs from not having had to play since last weekend. Why couldn't the games this weekend have been Thursday and Saturday instead of Friday and Saturday? At least then it's not such a huge advantage for the team that has just one game.

I'm not sure their stats are available anywhere on the web, but the Herald did have a nice article on Kimbrough and Bagaason today. The article said Kimbrough is averaging 34.3 ppg on the season thus far.