UND92,96

At the risk of sounding like a commercial, call Dakota Commercial and Development at 772-3101 (no, I don't work for them. )

You look at "the play" as a busted one that "robbed" Grand Valley State of a title. I look at Bowenkamp's fumble near the goal line last year, which pretty much gave Grand Valley State the only td of the game, in a similar light. But for that play, UND may very well have won 6-3 since it would have been a chip shot field goal for Glas. All in all, I'd say 1-1 for both teams is about right considering how close both games were.

The townhomes have actually been selling very well. I think most people will be quite impressed with the complex once it's done. As far as traffic is concerned, sure it will be bad on game nights, just as it is anywhere within a several block radius of REA. But I would venture to guess that most of the people who buy the homes will also be season ticket holders, so any inconvenience the traffic causes will be more than offset by the convenience of being able to walk to and from the games (or the convenience of walking to and from work if he or she is a UND employee). My parents have already purchased one that will be pretty much right on the coulee and they are very excited about it.

The roster has again been updated at fightingsioux.com to now include at least most of the newcomers. It looks like all recruits announced last spring have indeed reported. Also, some unannounced recruits/walk-ons include Jared Enger, a 6'2", 285 pound defensive end from Rochester (MN) Community College who was all-district last year; Wade Haugland, a 275 pound all-state offensive lineman from Grand Forks Central; and Wes Porter, a 6'3", 190 pound wide receiver from Arvada, Colorado.

Per today's Herald, Loe's career is over due to a neck injury. Redshirt freshman Brent Halfmann from Stephen, MN will be the punter. He looked pretty good in the spring game.

Yes, he started out at Wyoming, and transferred to UND with three years of eligibility remaining. I believe he broke into the starting lineup sometime early last season after being a reserve offensive lineman/tight end during his first two years.

With two full-time starters returning (Smith in his third year of starting; Kuper in his second), plus another guy with some experience (Hendrickson), this is by no means among the least experienced returning offensive lines UND has had. And with 12 of the last 13 seasons being anywhere from solid to outstanding, it certainly appears that the Sioux typically have reloaded on the offensive line as opposed to rebuilding. Mussman's track record is very good in terms of coaching offensive linemen. Considering that the three guys who graduated included an all-american (Olson) and two second team all-NCC guys (Dokken and Murphy), it's obvious that it was no shame for some of the new starters not to have cracked the lineup last year. In fact, Murphy is a good example of a guy who didn't start until his senior year, but did very well once he got the chance. Hopefully Hendrickson can do something similar in his senior year. I also look for good things over the next two to three years from younger guys like Hoffelt, Braegelmann, Bronson, Bauer, Soll, etc. Plus, with very good recruits like Yilek, Troen and Moe red-shirting, I think UND will be strong on the o-line for years to come.

The roster on fightingsioux.com has been updated--except for not yet including the true freshmen--and it looks like Ahlstrom is still on the team. Aside from a few of last year's walk-ons who apparently didn't return, I believe Stewart, Josh Guenther and Jake Turgeon are no longer on the team. I didn't see Brian Loe's name on the roster, either, although he was listed on the Herald's depth chart so who knows whether he's still around or not. They've also finally updated players' weights for the first time in at least two years.

While it's certainly not a huge surprise, UND is the overwhelming favorite to win the NCC by the league's media and coaches. link

Most of the db's struggled at times last year, but Hoffschneider earned a starting position and had five picks as a freshman. That's not too bad considering the program he's in. Also, he was an all-state pick (all classes combined) in the state of Colorado, which isn't easy to do. I can see him making a similar jump in performance to what Danny Gagner did last season. Gagner went from playing a lot as a freshman to being a first team all-conference pick as a sophomore. I will be very surprised if there's a better secondary than UND's in the NCC this year.

I certainly wouldn't dispute that both the UNC basketball program and facility are jokes. It wasn't my intention to use the quality of b-ball facilities as a measure of who will or should be invited to join the Big Sky. Frankly, it is of no particular relevance to me. Rather, I am interested in a Bison fan's opinion of whether the BSA needs to be renovated, replaced or left as it is. You are correct with regard to the fact that ultimately, if attendance is good enough it probably doesn't matter. However, it does or at least can matter with regard to recruiting. And considering that NDSU men's basketball was generally a middle-of-the-pack program in the NCC, it would seem that a new facility could be the impetus behind getting the men's program to the level where I'm sure it wants to be, both in terms of recruiting and generating fan interest. One thing is for certain--NDSU needs its men's basketball program to make money. Whether it can do so in a fairly out-of-date facility, especially considering the probable difficulty there will be in scheduling non-conference games against quality opponents, is an unknown.

Not that it really has much of anything to do with the premise of this thread, but seriously, since when is the BSA an excellent basketball facility? On the contrary, I think most NDSU basketball fans feel the BSA is in dire need of a major renovation, or better yet that a new facility be constructed.

Here it is: quarterback-Bowenkamp, Manke/Bellmore (both listed as second) running back-Roland, Strouth fullback-Wisthoff, Christensen split end-Grossman, Groeschl flanker-Johnson, Weber tight end-Kusler, Mielke left tackle-Smith, Bauer left guard-Braegelmann, Soll center-Hendrickson, Storhaug right guard-Kuper, Doescher right tackle-Hoffelt, Bronson left defensive end-Newhouse, Gruschalla nose guard-Duchscher, Brennan right defensive end-Peterson, Cadwell outside lb-Hermes, Dahlen inside lb-Anderson, Halstenson inside lb-Nordick, Ullsperger outside lb-Maier, Brennan left corner-Hoffschneider, Franklin rover-Gagner, DeSautel free safety-Brandsted, Greenwood right corner-Manke, Alexander kicker-Glas, Saunders punter-Loe, Halfmann The biggest surprise to me is that a returning first team all-conference player (Dahlen) is listed as a backup.

I don't believe it's ever been available on dvd. It looks like amazon.com is out of stock, although there are some for sale using their e-bay type service. Here's the link.

Since Drew will be playing for the Sioux for the next four years, I kind of doubt RT would want to move away just now. Not that living in Sioux Falls would make it impossible to go to all the games, but it would make it more difficult. Plus, it might be viewed as politically incorrect for the commissioner to go to all of one school's games.

I'm surprised that this Herald article hasn't generated any discussion yet. To me, it seems so obvious that it would be a win-win situation for the Alerus and UND if UND were given a bigger percentage of the ticket revenue and possibly a break on the rent in exchange for not objecting to the Alerus selling beer in more than just the small designated area of the concourse. I don't see how UND can possibly justify taking the completely inconsistent positions regarding beer sales at the REA/BEA compared to the Alerus. Hopefully this is simply a negotiating ploy as opposed to Kupchella or one of his underlings honestly thinking that selling beer at football games is somehow a bigger problem than doing the same thing at a hockey or basketball game.

It looks like Austin is going to give basketball one last try this season, at St. Scholastica link. This will be his fourth different school in five years.

It appears the above speculation (sorry for quoting myself) is supported by the following article excerpt printed yesterday in the Omaha paper: I'm not so sure that UND going division I is exactly imminent, but nevertheless what UND decides to do probably does hold the key to the future of the league.

So do Roebuck, Glas or even RT have much input with regard to which arena the games will be played in, or is the decision essentially made 100% by REA? I want what's best for UND athletics, of course, but I don't necessarily trust Todd Berning to make that call since I would think such decisions as where home games should be played should be part of the a.d.'s job.

I'm not sure whether Glas would prefer to play all games at the Betty, but Roebuck made his opinion clear in the article in last Saturday's Herald:

It's probably not much of a surprise that schools in Florida will do well in sports like golf, tennis, baseball and soccer. Weather is a huge factor in being good at certain sports. However, as we all know, a school is not going to get as much notoriety for winning titles in tennis, golf, soccer or even baseball compared to football or basketball. And aside from one title in men's basketball, the Sunshine State has not done well in the sports most people deem the most important. That's probably why the Sunshine State never seems to come up in discussions regarding which dII conference is considered the best, regardless of how many titles they've won in tennis, golf, soccer and baseball. A conference without football, particularly one that is not even very good in basketball, is probably never going to be considered a strong one overall.

If you're interested, you can research it here.

I believe this is patently false. All property tax info is available on the internet, and I did a little research on the issue. Any discrepancy between taxes in the two cities of that magnitude would ONLY be in a situation where the Fargo property was in an older neighborhood with no remaining specials, and the "comparable" GF property was in a neighborhood with specials remaining. For example, a $120,000 home in Fargo in an older neighborhood has a consolidated tax amount of $2625. A comparable property in GF would have a consolidated tax amount of $2775. Whether $150 is substantial or not is a subjective thing, but I certainly wouldn't move based upon a savings in that amount. For newer homes with significant specials remaining, a $190,000 home in Fargo would have a consolidated tax amount of $4160, PLUS specials with a yearly installment of $1840. A comparable home in GF would have a consolidated tax amount of $4435, plus specials in the yearly amount of $990. I don't know whether these specials are typical of a new Fargo neighborhood or not, but in any event, it would appear that it's quite possible that when factoring in specials, it may actually cost more in taxes for a new Fargo home than a new GF home, despite the fact that the consolidated amount of taxes is a little higher in GF.

I'm not sure what the deal was with that Minot game drawing so well. By way of comparison, the other non-conference games played at the Ralph (aside from the Kansas game) have been UMC in 2001-02 (1812) and Minnesota-Morris last year (2278).