UND92,96

I'm almost positive that beer will be available just as at the Ralph.

At least in the short-term, I'm sure there's something to that. For example, last year there were four regular season men's games played at REA, with an average attendance of 4554. That's compared to the average overall of 2585. Of course, there are other variables there, including the fact that the counting at Hyslop tended to be extremely unreliable and the fact that apparently, Hyslop didn't count students as part of the overall attendance. In any event, at some point it must be decided whether it's more important to create a "true" homecourt by playing all or nearly all games at the Betty, or whether making a bit more $$$ is worth the adverse effect on the atmosphere of the game, see the NDSU game last year at the Ralph as Exhibit A of a terrible atmosphere despite the biggest announced crowd of the year.

I agree that even if 4000 turns out to be too small, it would be a good "problem" to have. According to the basketball media guide, the highest average attendance of 4432 occurred in the 1990-91 season. Probably not coincidentally, that was the second of two consecutive Elite 8 seasons, so fan interest was probably at an all-time high. Even if we could get back to having teams and crowds comparable to those from 89 to about 93, having demand exceed supply by a few hundred would be pretty cool. In terms of having a homecourt advantage, of course having a sold-out 4000 seat arena would provide an infinitely better atmosphere than having 4500 to 5000 in an 11,000-plus arena. However, whether the administration and/or REA would voluntarily give up the revenue of a few hundred tickets in exchange for maximizing atmosphere and home court advantage by keeping games in the Betty is another question. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

No question, this should be a great game and a big test for the Sioux. Delta St.'s offensive numbers sound very similar to what North Alabama brought to town last fall, in terms of yards and points, and the Sioux defense held them in check for the most part so I'm fairly optimistic that they can do the same to Delta if the defense plays up to its capabilities. While I won't go so far as to say Delta's players will be intimidated playing indoors, on turf in front of a hopefully large and loud crowd, I do think the unfamiliarity with the atmosphere and turf will help the Sioux, just as it has done in most of the home playoff games so far in the Alerus. It's also happened a number of times to pretty strong (on paper) out-of-region teams playing NDSU in the Fargodome early in the year.

Yes, I saw it also. He said flat-out that he is very interested in the job. Since I can only assume that he's well aware of what an assistant coach makes compared to what his current salary is, it certainly sounds like he is willing to take a pay cut in order to come back to GF.

I'm pretty sure something happened to the link overnight since yesterday it was linking to an article about Mary and division II. In any event, if you go the current archives of the Tribune, you will find the Mary article.

From the Bismarck Tribune: link

From a recent St. Joseph (MO) newspaper article:

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking, so I hadn't replied until now--not that I'm an expert, anyway. According to a January 22, 2004 Herald article, the Alerus Center gets one quarter of each year's city hospitality tax, in addition to the sales tax it generates itself from ticket sales and concessions. In 2003, the amount of that hospitality tax was $304,000 according to the aforementioned article. The article also stated that the arena made a $162,000 profit, while the convention center lost $322,000. I'm not sure the convention center itself will ever turn a profit--nor was it necessarily ever contemplated that it would. I do think that it's safe to say that there will be far more big conventions once the Canad Hotel is completed. That should give a truer indication of the extent of losses the convention center can expect in the future.

I think most of us are used to not getting much love from pollsters, so not very many UND fans will get very worked up over a perceived slight like this. With that being said, all you can do is laugh at any poll that has Nebraska-Kearney as high as 11.

Thanks for the post. I was curious as to why the games aren't played at Memorial. I suppose the other alternative would be to see whether the Grand Forks Public Schools would allow the team to play games at Cushman for a nominal fee. Natural grass, plenty of seating and parking and no snow fence! I don't see much of a chance that UND will ever build a soccer facility, nor is it probably cost-effective, so Cushman may be the only real alternative. With football at the city-owned Alerus and baseball at the park district-owned (I assume) Kraft Field, such an arrangement wouldn't necessarily be unprecedented, other than UND would be dealing with the school district instead of the park district or city.

I just got the new issue of Sports Illustrated in the mail, and Weston Dressler was one of the "Faces in the Crowd." It reads:

Yes, as of now he's still the g.m., but the word is that within 30 days, he won't be. Is this gossip? Sure. But I personally wouldn't have posted it had I not heard it from a pretty reliable source. If he's still around in 30 days, I'll be the first to post a mea culpa, but the fact remains that a lot of people apparently don't like the guy.

I have also heard that Berning is out. The word is that he was very difficult to work with. I don't know that first hand, but I have heard many people express that opinion.

Does anyone know which schools are on Kimbrough's short list? I'm selfishly hoping that with Minnesota's recent success and judging by their most recent recruiting class, they're doing a little more national recruiting which may help UND and some of the other area dII programs land some of the dI-caliber Minnesota high school players who may not want to go too far out of state to play.

It's been a pretty good week for Dressler. He was named by Gatorade as the North Dakota track athlete of the year, and yesterday, he was named male high school athlete of the year by the North Dakota Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. Brady Trenbeath was also a finalist for that award. The female high school athlete of the year was UND basketball recruit Karla Beck of Munich.

Another thing that killed UND in '91 was the fact that the Sioux were supposed to have hosted UNC, but the game was cancelled due to a blizzard. Had UND won that game, I suspect a playoff bid would have been awarded. So what was/is the deal with the 10-game schedule? Now, it's tougher since you need 4 or 5 instead of 1 or 2 so from a purely logistical standpoint, it's tougher to fill out a schedule. But back then it should have been at least somewhat easier, and if there was even a chance that playing one fewer game than most other teams would hurt playoff chances, I don't understand what Wanless/RT were thinking? There must have been some theory they were subscribing to, even if it wasn't necessarily correct.

I have a feeling that had Dressler put up the kinds of times in track as a junior that he did this past spring, he may have been recruited far more heavily than he apparently was. I don't think too many recruiters honestly thought he could run a wind-legal 10.66 100 meters, a wind-legal sub 22.00 200 meters, and/or a sub 48.5 400 meters. There are a lot of fast guys out there, but when you have the football ability that he does AND you have serious speed, that's a lethal combination. He can make a huge impact returning punts and kicks, getting a dozen or so carries, and catching 3-5 passes per game.

I don't know what the problem is with the North Dakota team in most of these games. Aside from quarterback, I actually thought the talent at the skill positions was quite good this year in ND, and yet they could only manage 7 points. I don't think there were a lot of good offensive linemen this year, though, so that may have been a big part of the problem. Defensively, the only thing I can think of is that in North Dakota high school football, you see very few good passing teams so the typical ND high school defensive player is probably not going to very well-versed in pass defense, particularly when playing against a good quarterback. Combine that with the fact that apparently Montana produces some pretty decent quarterbacks and receivers, and you have a potentially bad combination in terms of matchups. In terms of speed, it's very difficult to know whether there's much of a difference. Comparing the state track results from the respective states, it would appear that North Dakota more than holds its own, although obviously there's no guarantee that all the better football speed guys necessarily run track. I highly doubt Montana had anybody faster, or even as fast as Dressler. I personally think ND should try to start a game against SD, instead. I think there's far more of a natural rivalry between North and South Dakota than between ND and Montana, anyway.

Yes, that '99 win against UNC was one of the more satisfying regular season wins I can recall. Riendeau's hit was incredible. Unfortunately, it still irritates me that despite both teams having one regular season loss, and UND having the head-to-head win, UNC got the higher playoff seed and a home playoff game.

The thing to keep in mind is that the arena portion of the Alerus actually does make a modest profit. The list of events it has hosted thus far is quite impressive. It's the convention center that loses money due in large part to the lack of an attached hotel. With the construction of the hotel and the entertainment complex in the near future, the finances of the convention center should take a turn for the better, which should more than offset any diminished UND football revenue the Alerus receives due to the new deal between the city and UND.

I agree with you regarding the '98 team. Another disappointing team would be the '96 squad, which was probably one of the two or three most talented teams ever at UND. However, three losses in the first half of the season kept them out of the playoffs. That was the senior year for guys like Callahan, Cheatham, Tibesar, Borowicz, Prinsen, Gomez-Tagle and Ell, plus you had Moore, Kleinsasser, Lotysz, McKenzie, Howe, etc. as younger players. The big difference between the '96 and the '98 teams was that the '96 team actually got on a roll late in the season and very possibly could have made a nice playoff run had they gotten in. It's still hard to believe that during the four-year careers of Phillip Moore and Jim Kleinsasser ('95-'98), UND failed to win a single playoff game.

I'm assuming you mean the UND population, as opposed to the reported population of 49,000-plus in Grand Forks. It's true that not every UND student lives in Grand Forks, although I suspect that the vast majority do. And if we further assume (I know the old saying about assuming anything ) that a good percentage of those students are claiming anything other than Grand Forks as their residence for census purposes, then the population of Grand Forks is artificially low. Whether they're counted as such or not, there's something like 10,000 or more UND students here for at least 3/4 of the year, and they're as much of a resident as those of us who live here year-round as far as I'm concerned. If somebody has data to dispute my theory, I'm interested in reading it. I'm generally skeptical of census numbers since I don't believe they are particularly accurate, but I suppose there's no better method at present for measuring population.