UND92,96

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.

Here's the new poll. Looks like I was wrong about UND leapfrogging Metro. I suppose the RMAC has earned this kind of respect, though, considering how they've dominated the region all these years... I really wish we could have a "do over" with that Northern State game, as having one more win could easily put UND at second and perhaps even first. North Central 1 Regis (Colorado) 18-1 19-4 2 Metropolitan State 16-4 19-4 3 North Dakota 13-4 19-5 4 Concordia-St Paul 12-4 17-6 5 Minnesota Duluth 11-5 17-6 6 Augustana (South Dakota) 11-5 20-6 7 Minnesota State Moorhead 12-5 18-5 8 St Cloud State 12-6 18-7 9 Southwest Minnesota State 10-7 16-8 10 Fort Hays State 11-4 18-5

I see where Mekash (sp?) played last night for B-G-MR. Hopefully they can get back to full strength for the playoffs as it would potentially make for a very interesting region championship game between B-G-MR and Fosston (Kimbrough vs. Bagaason), if B-G-MR can get past Red Lake Falls.

Probably. I do think UND has the highest overall SSI in the region, however. What saves Regis is that there is a separate category for in-region SSI. Their overall SSI is very low due to having lost to an NAIA team (counts for 0 points) and to a sub-.500 dI team (counts for 2 points). Those games, along with their loss to Angelo St., don't count in the in-region SSI. So while most schools have a fairly comparable overall SSI and in-region SSI, Regis has a huge disparity between its two different SSI's. Most likely, so long as they have the best overall record, in-region record, and in-region SSI, they'll likely remain ranked first in the region. However, if UND could possibly run the table--which admittedly won't be easy--and if Regis were to drop one more game putting them at 5 losses, things could get interesting for the top spot...

Note to self--if I ever go to Dagwood's, make sure to use a rental car or let somebody else drive!

I think there's a decent chance UND will leapfrog Metro. UND will have a healthy advantage in overall strength of schedule and in-region SSI, according to my calculations, as well as having a better record vs. common opponents. Both teams will have the same number of in-region losses, but Metro has played more region games and will therefore have a better in-region record, as well as having an overall record advantage with one fewer loss. UND actually has a big advantage over both Metro and Regis in terms of overal SSI.

I realize he's on the committee this year. I haven't had the chance to listen to the 1440 A.M. radio show the past several weeks, but I'd be very interested if the topic of regional rankings has come up. I can only assume Roebuck would want to choose his words pretty carefully all things considered, but I'm willing to bet he wasn't happy about UND's 6th place position last week.