UND92,96

While I doubt she'll actually win Ms. Basketball due to how far away from the twin cities she plays, and the fact that Katie Ohm (going to UMinn next year) just broke the all-time career scoring record, I at least hope she's a finalist for the award. With the kind of career she's had, I think she deserves some state-wide recognition. I'd be surprised if there's a better player in MN this year than Kimbrough. It would be great to see her match up with Ohm at state.

Is Lindsay Draayer still on the team? She hasn't played at all in the past three games, and I didn't see her on the bench last night. She must either be very sick/injured, or has left the team. It was nice to see Val Sannes play a little last night. I believe that was her UND debut.

The official attendance numbers were about 3500 for the women and 3800 for the men, which isn't bad. The atmosphere was like it's typically been at REA for basketball, which is to say it's pretty dead. It's hard to say how much of that was due to 1) the women's game was pretty lop-sided for most of the game and 2) the men's game had no flow to it. But I suspect that barring an absolute classic nailbiter (and even then I'm not sure the atmosphere would be much better), it's going to be very quiet in REA for a basketball game.

I believe tonight was far more representative of the "real" UND women's team than were the last two games at SW St. and UNO. If a neutral observer had only seen tonight's game, they would not believe it possible that UND could have ever lost to UNO. Nevertheless, the Sioux need to start learning how to play away from home the way they play at BEA/REA. Of course, the other big difference between the two games was Ashley Langen. She was apparently quite hobbled last week, but dominated tonight, scoring 22 pts. in just 20 minutes. Kudos to Rich Glas and the Sioux men for an impressive sweep of UNO. I'd be surprised if anybody else in the NCC manages that feat this year.

Most of the best offensive talent in the NCC from this year returns. Look for Jamar Day from UNO, Stefan Logan from USD and Matt Birkel from SCSU to all be prime candidates.

I hope Dressler does eventually run, as he is probably the best high school sprinter in ND history (in my opinion). But he certainly wouldn't be the first outstanding track and field athlete not to compete while at UND. Jim Kleinsasser could have been a national champion in the discus and/or shot put. Ditto for Casey Blue. Both were ranked very highly nationally in the discus while in high school, and were both at or very near the 60-foot level as high school shot putters.

According to the WDAZ sports last night, it sounds like RT is going to be offered the commissioner's job. One of the issues is whether he can remain in GF, or whether he must move to Sioux Falls. I found it interesting that the chair of the selection committee is none other than mr. politically correct himself, Roy Saigo of St. Cloud St.

I think the UND women will win big--by 20 or more. Aside from the Northern State fiasco, they've really done well at home, including a fairly convincing win over highly-ranked Seattle Pacific. Clearly, the Sioux have been quite poor away from home, however. The men's game will likely go down to the wire. If Rypkema can stay out of foul trouble and UND can knock down some 3's, don't be too surprised if the Sioux get the sweep. If the "good" Sioux team shows up, they're extremely difficult to beat. If the team that lost to Bemidji St. and Concordia-St. Paul shows up, then UNO probably wins easily.

I see that the new track roster has been posted, and although there are (by my count) six football players listed, Dressler is not one of them.

There was a theater in the Crown Colony complex. I believe it closed some time in the mid-90's. It may have been briefly a discount theater towards the end.

I don't know that playing two road non-conference games is a good idea. I had assumed that Central Washington would be dropped from the schedule, and perhaps an NSIC team would be added as another home game. But perhaps it gets too expensive to be paying that many guarantees in one year.

I'm definitely not defending Roebuck on this one, but I believe the situation was that he was really upset about a non-call at the end of regulation when the score was tied and UND had the ball. Based on the replay, it looked like Carissa Jahner got hammered, but no call was made. Obviously, UNO went on to win in ot. I believe coaches get fined by the conference for publicly criticizing officials, and I suspect Roebuck knew he probably couldn't hold his tongue immediately after a rather embarrassing loss so he probably felt that not speaking with the media immediately after the game would be the lesser of two evils. Again, I'm not defending it as I think he should have done the interviews, but I also think there was some reason behind it beyond simply being a "poor loser." It doesn't mean anybody has to agree with what he did, but from his perspective, at least he didn't get fined, nor did he make some comments that would prove to be embarrassing once he had a little time to cool off. I can think of several coaches who have made ridiculous comments immediately after a loss who probably wished in retrospect that they had simply said nothing.

According to Brandon Misener from d2football.com, the proposal to cut scholarships failed by a 2 to 1 margin. Great news for now, but we all know the people behind this proposal will just come back next year with a slightly smaller proposed cut...

Apparently Langen has been hampered by an ankle injury, according to Roebuck on the tv show last night.

I never thought I'd see the day when the Sioux lost to Omaha in women's basketball. I think this might be one of the signs of the apocalypse. And what is the deal with Langen? She didn't start and scored just 4 points. It would appear that the traditionally good teams in the NCC are down, and traditionally bad teams are up, resulting in every team being pretty much the same.

Unfortunately for SW St., they followed up their nice win over UND by laying an egg in Moorhead last night. It seems crazy that UND beat Moorhead by 35 just one game before losing to SW St. But UND isn't the only team that has been extremely inconsistent in the north central region so far. There just aren't any remotely dominant teams.

I think Motley Crue will probably sell a lot of tickets for the Alerus concert. Particularly when you consider how well acts like Aerosmith, KISS, Van Halen, AC/DC and Ozzy have done in Grand Forks and Fargo over the last five years. As long as these types of bands have mostly original members as opposed to the fraud that Guns 'n Roses was on their most recent tour, these types of bands seem to still draw very well.

From the Herald today:

If tonight's games are any indication, this should be a wild season in NCC women's basketball. The worst team in the league (on paper)--Mankato--won on the road at one of the top teams--UMD. Also, Omaha--who looks to be the second-worst team---beat a pretty decent Augie squad. It doesn't look like there will be any gimme games this year, but there may not be any really good teams, either.

It's got to be a bittersweet time at SDSU. The women are doing very well, but the men are a dismal 2-11. While it probably shouldn't be all that surprising that they're struggling, I doubt most of their fans expected it to be quite this bad, as they're even 0-3 against dII opponents (all at home).

There were some interesting letters to the editor in the Herald today from some Canadian fans.

I agree regarding guard play. Since Jaimie Pudenz, the point guard play has been adequate, but probably not as good as the frontcourt. For whatever reason, the same weaknesses have plagued the Sioux women since the 01-02 season--no top-flight point guard, not particularly good on the road, lack of depth and too few 3-point shooters. Obviously these weaknesses haven't been that huge considering the records UND has had, but they have been enough to prevent any Elite 8 appearances for the past few seasons. Next season, I think the overall talent will be good enough so that a Mahlum/Jahner tandem at the point could be good enough to win a national championship, but I think landing a really good point guard recruit might be a key to whether UND can go on another title run a la 97, 98 and 99 over the next 3-4 years.

The loss is disappointing but probably not all that surprising. UND has struggled on the road against playoff caliber teams for the last few years, and lack of depth is really a problem right now. Only seven players played double-digit minutes yesterday.