UND92,96

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.

UND beats USD, and Fort Hayes beats Regis tonight. Things will be very interesting in the region committee conference call this week. Regis has now lost the only two semi-difficult road games they've had, and has the same number of losses as UND. In-region record would appear to be their one and only advantage over UND at this point, and that's just one of six criteria, none of which is supposed to any more important than the others. Roebuck will have to really be lobbying the NSIC committee members so that common sense can finally prevail regarding where the RMAC teams belong in the rankings.

I don't think Chappell will put on a lot of weight/bulk in college. It's hard to say for sure, of course, but I suspect he'll be like Phillip Moore in that regard. He definitely has huge potential as a 400 meter hurdler. He shattered an 18-year-old state record in the 300m hurdles last year as a junior, and could very well put the record out of reach for decades should he improve at all this year. Had he chosen to concentrate on track in college, I think he definitely could have gone to Minnesota or some other dI track power. If he can avoid injuries, he could do very well in track at UND, even without much of an indoor training facility.

Although it would have been interesting to see what Dressler would have done in track this year, another UND football player is doing very well so far. Donovan Alexander has won the 55/60 meters at the last two meets, including a win over the guy who was the conference runner-up last year in the 60.

Fort Hays defeated Metro tonight. Hopefully they can do the same to Regis on Saturday. It certainly is possible considering Regis has no road wins vs. regionally ranked opponents this season. Of course, they've only had one road game against a regionally ranked opponent thus far, which goes a long way towards explaining why they have the record they do. Unfortunately, it's not a criterion used by the committee, but the fact that Regis hasn't had to play very many regionally ranked teams should be held against them, particularly when their record is nearly identical to UND who has played numerous games, home and on the road, vs. ranked teams. Regis has played Metro St. twice (splitting those two games) and beat Fort Hays at home. They also played and lost to Angelo St., a ranked team from the south central region, on a neutral court. Compare that to UND who has played Augustana (split), UMD (won at home), St. Cloud St. (won twice), Southwest St. (lost on the road), Moorhead (won at home), as well as beating two region number one's (at Grand Valley St. and at home against Seattle Pacific). If the two teams switched schedules, who would have the better record? Unfortunately, because the criteria attempt to make everything objective and don't allow for a common sense component, something so obvious as who played a difficult schedule and who didn't is almost completely overlooked.

We should know by Saturday night whether UND has any chance whatsoever of rising to first in the region. Tonight, Metro plays at region number 10 Fort Hays, and on Saturday Regis goes to Fort Hays, in addition to obviously UND playing in Vermillion where we haven't won in about five years. Saturday is the last realistic chance for a Regis loss prior to the conference tournament. Since I think they would need to lose two more times (and UND would have to win out) for the Sioux to get to first, if Regis wins at Fort Hays they probably have the top seed wrapped up.

I listened to the coaches' show on 1440 last night, and while he didn't divulge any confidential information or probably say anything for which he could get into trouble, clearly Roebuck isn't happy with the regional rankings. When you look at how the RMAC has fared against both the NCC and NSIC this year (and every year, for that matter), it simply defies logic to have two teams from that conference ranked one and two. Regis, for example, has only played three teams from the NCC/NSIC--USD, Mankato and Bemidji--and all of them were at home. At least last year Concordia-St. Paul had beaten NDSU and SDSU so it was easier to accept when they got the number one seed. This year, just like when Mesa St. got it a few years back, it will be in spite of not really beating anyone of note outside their own conference.