UND92,96

This was UND's second possession of the third quarter. UND drove all the way down the field on its first possession of the second half, but settled for a field goal. Pitt St. then went 3-and-out on its first possession of the second half. On its second possession of the half, UND was driving and had a lot of momentum. There was about 5 and half minutes left in the 3rd quarter when UND punted on 4-and-1 from the Pitt St. 41 yard line. The score was 14-13 at that time.

My recollection is that coming out of high school, Phillip was about 6'0" and around 170 pounds, at most. I don't recall for certain but I don't think he ever got much above 180 during his five years at UND.

I agree, but I really think Dressler could be the guy. His speed, shiftiness and high school rushing numbers (2100 yards and 40 td's as a sr.), not to mention his punt return success this year, can't be ignored. His size is nearly identical to Logan, so I'm not sure that would be as huge of a drawback as originally thought when he was recruited. As a true freshman, and with a reliable senior in Adam Roland, his playing much running back this year wasn't in the cards. But I really think he could be a much bigger offensive weapon next season if given a chance. He's far more of a running back than a receiver in my opinion. Many of us have been looking for a big-play back for several years now, and clearly based on athletic ability, Dressler fits that mold. I wouldn't want him to carry the ball 25 times a game, but I think he could handle 15 or so.

I just saw the replay on the Lennon show, and although the angle wasn't the best, it certainly looked like a highly questionable call. It did not appear that DeSautel (the player on whom the penalty was called) landed on anybody at all.

Thank god for this rule. Prior to this year, the number of players seriously injured on field goal and extra point attempts due to being landed on by a leaping defender was just out of control. My next suggestion would be to ban leaping by receivers and defenders on high passes.

I noticed tonight that Sannes went through pre-game warm-ups and didn't exhibit any apparent problems. I would think she must be close to being able to play in games, or else there would be no point in suiting her up and having her go through warm-ups. I think she'd be able to provide more offensive ability than some of the other interior bench players can.

I agree that the better team won, but any talk of this Pitt St. team being one of the all-time best in dII should be put to rest, IMO. Let's not forget that this UND offense was statistically one of the least effective in many, many years, and UND still racked up very nearly as many yards as Pitt St. did yesterday. In order to be the greatest of all-time, I think you need to be exceptional on both sides of the ball, and I'd have a hard time calling Pitt St.'s defense or special teams exceptional. UND did about as well as possible this year considering the lack of offensive output throughout most of the season and the playoffs. Making it all the way to the semi-finals in a season in which we didn't win the NCC is a nice accomplishment. It's the odd-numbered years that UND typically does its best, so this season was kind of a nice bonus.

UND should return a very good nucleus next season. Here's a brief position-by-position break-down: quarterback: Chris Bellmore was obviously erratic at times, but he did greatly improve as the season went on. He runs very well and throws a nice deep ball. He definitely has to improve his accuracy on the screens and some of the shorter passes, and make better decisions (how many times did he hit a defender in the numbers only to have a sure int dropped?) He should be pushed hard by Reid Manke and freshman Danny Freund. Depth should be a strength. running back: Adam Roland and David Wisthoff both had very good careers, and will have to be replaced. Brandon Strouth showed flashes of brilliance, and has excellent speed. Whether he can physically withstand the pounding of an every-down back remains to be seen. He could be pushed by Chris Beatty, Demetrius Charles, Weston Dressler, Mike Rhode, and possibly a transfer. At fullback, Trent Christensen would appear to be the heir apparent as he's the only fullback besides Wisthoff to see any significant action this year. offensive line: Barry Smith and Andy Hendrickson will be lost, but a lot of experience will return. NCC most valuable o-lineman Chris Kuper will anchor the line again, and Andy Hoffelt, Mitch Braegelmann and Matt Buisker all return will starting experience. Andy Soll and Brett Bauer, among others, should be in the mix. My early guess would be for Braegelmann to move from guard to center, with Kuper and Soll at guard, and Hoffelt and Buisker at tackle. receivers/tight end: Go-to receiver Caleb Johnson will be greatly missed after an excellent career, and Jeff Weber also departs. Dan Grossman had a bit of a propensity for dropping passes, but showed signs of being capable of being the number-one option. There's a lot of young talent that must step-up here. Dressler, Groeschl, Loegering, Van Dyke, Presthus, Hegg, Caufield, Franklin, Trenbeath and possibly one or more transfers could all be in the mix. This may be the biggest question mark coming into spring ball. At tight end, Kussler and Mielke both return, along with Troy Ott and Drew Thomas so there's a lot of depth there. special teams: Both Jeff Glas and Brent Halfmann return after all-conference seasons. Weston Dressler is a huge weapon as a returner, and possibly look for transfer Anthony Longe to be a factor here. defensive line: Troy Newhouse is the biggest loss. All-conference players Shane Duchscher and Jason Peterson will anchor, with Adam Wolff, Ross Brennan, Jared Enger and Alex Cadwell all returning with considerable experience. linebacker: Tony Hermes and Jake Nordick are the primary losses here. All-conference Digger Anderson leads a large group of returnees. Former all-conference Tyler Dahlen, Brook Maier, Zach Babington-Johnson and Steve Brennan all return at outside linebacker, and Anderson, Halstenson and Ullsperger return inside. Some younger players will need to step up here to maintain the tradition of playing 10-12 people at the four linebacker positions. defensive backs: Ryan Manke graduates after an outstanding senior year. But a lot returns. NCC most valuable db Danny Gagner leads a group of returnees including all-conference Josh Brandsted, Jason Hoffschneider, Jamaal Franklin, Donovan Alexander, Tom DeSautel and Michael Greenwood. If he doesn't play running back, Anthony Longe could also be a factor here. The defense returns a lot, so it should be better than this year. They will need to play better against the better rushing teams, but it will probably help to have UNO and SCSU in the Alerus. Offensively, the keys will be what receivers will step up as go-to guys, who will complement Strouth at running back, and how the one or two new offensive linemen will fit in. Special teams should again be a big strength.

All in all, it was an outstanding season. After the UNO loss, I didn't think the team would be able to win a playoff game, and obviously they won three which is by no means an easy task. In order to get back to the title game next year, I think the run defense needs to tighten up. Even though it was at times great this year, the Sioux did give up over 200 yards to UNO and USD, and over 300 yards to Pitt St., and that can't happen. The bar was set so high by the 2001 team, but I think giving up anything over 150 yards, even to the best rushing offenses, is unacceptable. Also, the offense needs to be more efficient. Today, for example, it really looked like we should have been able to score at least 27 points considering how Pitt's defense was on its heels for much of the game. Instead, it took a last minute td to even get to 19.

Jeff Kolpack of the Forum is apparently pretty interested in Lennon's career plans. link

I'm not going to name names because I don't think that serves any purpose, but when you have so few pure shooters on the team, I don't know what other conclusion one can come to other than to say there were some recruiting miscalculations (probably a more diplomatic word than "mistake"). Even role players should be able to knock down shots when they're open. I'm not going to panic about this year because we all know full well that help is on the way, but it does disappoint me that even without Guinn, Sannes and Glick, we don't seem to have 7-8 players who can shoot AND play defense AND not turn the ball over constantly.

Nice win for the men tonight. Northern is a good team. Now the big test will be whether the Sioux can follow up some good home performances by going on the road and beating a team they should be able to handle in Moorhead.

What can you say? Tonight was one of the all-time collapses by a UND women's basketball team. Roebuck's a great coach, and the season's still young, but I just don't believe there's enough offensive ability on this team to have the kind of season we're accustomed to seeing. Having 15-20% of the scholarships invested in players in street clothes (Guinn and Sannes) obviously doesn't help matters, either, and that's not anybody's fault. But I think it's fairly clear that there have been some recruiting mistakes in the past few years, and that, combined with the injuries, has resulted in a team with very little depth and very little margin for error--kind of like last year's men's team.

I agree, but I don't really see much demeaning of NDSU in this thread--just some of the ignorant fools who post on the Forum site. If we really need to demean an NDSU fan, we already have an easy target in the always lovable JBB.

Not to mention that it's lucky to get 20 events per year, and that it's "barely profitable."

I know it's a moot point, but it appears both UND and NDSU missed on a local player in Karna Plaine from Hatton, now at UMC. Last year, she scored 27 against the Sioux, and last night she dropped 32 on a pretty good Augie team.

Roebuck confirmed on the coaches' show last night that Guinn isn't expected to play again this year.

Comparing this year's attendance to last year's is kind of an apples-to-oranges comparison due to the facts that this year, there are so many more home non-conference games, and many of them are in the middle of the week which doesn't help with attendance. However, with that said, attendance for men's games is actually up so far as last year's non-conference games (excluding Bemidji St., as that attendance number isn't included on the UND athletic site anywhere I could find) averaged about 1600, while this year's average thus far is a little over 2000. Attendance is down when compared to last year's overall average, but that's not a valid comparison due to the fact that conference games typically draw far better than do non-conference, and of course the conference season is still about month away.

Wow, I didn't realize the injury was serious enough to be season-ending. Depth is going to be a big problem. The starting five is good, and Maffin and Glynn have played pretty well, but there seems to be a pretty big drop-off after that.

Does anybody know when Danye Guinn will start playing again? Also, is Sannes ever expected to be healthy enough to play?

It's a little hard to get too excited about transfers, particularly somebody whose name isn't actually on the roster, since there have been a number of those guys who ultimately never played a down. One example was current Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith's son, who had stops at both NDSU and UND after having some legal problems at Arizona. I believe he practiced with UND for the entire 2000 season, but I don't know what became of him after that.

I'm actually pretty confident that UND will win all the remaining home games, with the possible exceptions of Mankato and UNO. But as stated before, the road may be a real adventure...

Believe me, I want to believe that the program is on the right track. But I was kind of shocked when listening to a post-game interview with one of the players after the Colorado-Pueblo game, I believe it was Ryp, and he said something to the effect that the team was a little over-confident going into the Bemidji game. How can that be after we lost to them last year, and considering all the struggles in recent years against teams not considered heavyweights by any means? UND is not in a position to be over-confident against anybody, and the coaching staff needs to make sure they remind these guys that they're not good enough to just show up and expect to win, particularly on the road. When they actually show up and want to play, they can sometimes beat good teams on the road, i.e. at USD and Northern St. last year. But far too often, we seem to just sleep-walk through road games against poorer teams and lose. I realize Bemidji brought in a bunch of jucos, some of whom I'm sure can play, but it's still essentially a brand new team, playing against a comparatively veteran team in UND. Plus, with presumably well under 10 scholies, if the jucos really are talented, how in the heck is Bemidji getting them?

I don't know, but the fact that Illinois is really, really bad may have had something to do with it. I have to assume he's a decent kid or Lennon would not have wanted him on the team.