UND92,96

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.

I don't believe there is a show tonight. Last week, Hennessy and Swygman mentioned that it would be either two or three weeks (I don't remember which) until the next show due to the holiday break.

I have a feeling Roger will be offered this job. Considering the pressing need to find another member or members, it would seem that it would be better to have a commissioner who definitely understands the issues and probably has contacts with some of the target schools. If UND will need to hire a new a.d., this person would be a strong candidate if he's still interested. He was a finalist with RT the last time the job was open. He's a GF native and a UND grad with a lot of experience in athletic administration at one of the most prominent schools in the country, and I think he'd be particularly strong on the business end of things.

Since this is the last year NDSU or SDSU can play a largely dII/dIII/NAIA schedule, a cynic might suggest that Amy wanted to make sure she had one more 20-win season while she still could since it may be awhile before she has another one, and that desire to win as much as possible overrode the desire to play as many dI's as possible this year. When compared to the teams SDSU's women have played or will play, I'd be fairly disappointed in this year's schedule if I were an NDSU women's basketball fan. For example, considering Amy's connections with Purdue, how is it that SDSU is playing them this year and the Bison are not?

Amy Mahlum goes 6-9 from behind the 3-point arc last night. She must have read my post.

Do you honestly think Roebuck was afraid to play NDSU this year? I think there was a certain amount of bitterness about breaking up the rivalry and de-stabilizing the NCC, but I highly doubt that fear ever factored into the equation. NDSU is okay this year, but certainly not a powerhouse or anything a decent NCC team should be afraid of. Even if UND was as good as the 98 and 99 teams and NDSU was as average as the teams from that same era, I don't think the games were going to happen this year. On an unrelated note, why is it that SDSU's women are playing numerous dI opponents this year, and NDSU is only playing two tournament-eligible teams? Did SDSU just have better contacts (doubtful), or did Amy not want to play a tougher schedule this year?

Even if it doesn't survive, I guess the question for UC-Davis and Cal Poly would be whether it's better to retain Big West membership and be independent in football (like Poly was prior to the formation of the Great West), or go to the Big Sky which of course does have football, but would also require far more travel.

I would think Cal Poly and UC-Davis are probably happy with Big West membership. It isn't a football league, and hence their membership in the Great West, but it does have all or nearly all other sports, and is probably a better fit geographically than would be the Big Sky. All but 2 of the Big West's 11 members are California schools.

Langen scores 31 points and grabs 13 rebounds against a solid UMC team tonight. I really never thought she was going to be this dominant as a freshman.