UND92,96

I don't think Lindahl is a savior by any means. I just think that a) he's a good player--maybe even all-NCC as a sophomore; and b) he's better than Grant. I am interested in UND Fan and Corella's opinion on this one, as well. Take this for whatever it's worth, but in a head-to-head matchup in Aberdeen this year, Lindahl out-scored Grant 22 to 4. Since both play the same position, I assume they were guarding each other for much of the game.

I can't agree that Grant is a better shooter than Lindahl. Lindahl is one of the best shooters in the NCC right now. He's also made great strides as a rebounder, and he's not quite the defensive liability he was last year, either. I'm pretty sure that Northern and perhaps one or two other NSIC schools were the only dII schools who seriously recruited Grant, whereas Lindahl was recruited very hard by UND, NDSU and others. I agree that Grant looked good at the state tournament two years ago, but that's not always the best barometer of who will succeed in college. Brandon Badding looked very good at state his junior year, too.

Grant is actually averaging 12 points a game at Northern, so I guess that makes three North Dakotans averaging in double figures at the dII level right now. However, I don't think either UND or NDSU really "missed" on him. He's essentially a "poor man's" Evan Lindahl. He's shorter, slower and less talented offensively than Lindahl, in my opinion, but he's a pretty good shooter. Nelson is red-shirting, I believe.

Was it REA management or RT who made the ultimate decision as to the capacity? All they had to do is look back about 10-12 years ago when the average crowd was just under 5000 to see that with good teams, people will come out in bigger numbers.

I completely agree. From the time it was announced that the seating capacity for the Betty would only be in the 4000 range, I kept hoping that common sense would prevail and another 2000 to 3000 would be added to the capacity, but no such luck. I think the Ralph is good in terms of a recruiting tool, but it provides no atmosphere at all for basketball.

I hate to single out players, but since you mentioned Terry, he's one of the primary culprits of a guy who looked very good in high school but who's pretty much been a bust in college. There have been at least two Mr. BB winners in the past 3 or 4 years who have been major disappointments in my opinion, and that along with the fact that there are really only three ND players right now who have distinguished themselves at all at the dII or dI level (Jacobson, Keaveny and Lindahl) prompted me to start this thread. Yes, there are others who may also do well eventually, i.e. Koenig, but it seems like this is a very down period for producing successful college players from North Dakota. I don't see kids like Mike Boschee anymore. Kids with limited athletic ability and/or size but who can shoot the lights out and who are able to carve out very successful college careers through sheer hard work.

Obviously this is a very good football schedule, although there were no real surprises since these are all opponents that have been mentioned on this board. The question I have is this: since the game with Kutztown apparently fell through, wouldn't it be better to add one cupcake opponent--other than UMC--and have an 11-game schedule instead of a 10-game schedule? I never like the idea of playing one fewer game than most other schools because it just means there's that much less margin for error.

Here's the release.

I was just thinking of how few North Dakotans there are right now who are currently averaging double figures in points at the dII level. As far as I can think of, there's only Jared Keaveny at SW St. and Evan Lindahl at UND. Obviously Nick Jacobson is doing well at Utah, and Koenig at WI-GB probably would have done pretty well in the NCC, but it seems like there should be more decent basketball players being produced in North Dakota. I don't see too many current high school players who look like they will go on to successful college careers, either. It seems that there are a lot more players who have disappointing careers, i.e. some of the recent Mr. Basketball winners, than those who actually live up to their high school hype, i.e. Scott Guldseth and Chris Gardner. Is this just a down period, or more of a long-term trend?

This has to be one of the weirdest NCC men's basketball seasons I can remember. First, you have a team in first place who has practically no margin for error to even make the post-season since they already have 8 losses overall. NDSU still has very tough games yet to play at USD and UNO, not to mention difficult home games against SDSU, St. Cloud and Mankato. Plus, there's the NCC post-season tournament. If they get to 10 or 11 losses, they would very possibly not even get in unless they won the post-season tournament. It will be interesting to see how far they slip in the regional rankings this week. Second, there's basically very little difference between the first place team, and the team in 7th. Notwithstanding the lop-sided loss in Fargo, you have one team at 12-9 overall, one at 13-8, and a split in the season series. And that's despite the fact that this is one of the weakest UND men's teams in many years, albeit due in large part to injuries. Also, other than Rypkema, there's not a single true center in the top 20 in the league in scoring. While there are players like King who post up a lot, at 6'5" he's not exactly a true center. Where have all the post players gone?

It's a turnstile count. Every ticket is scanned on the way in. I don't have any doubts that there were that many people there at one time, but as I said a lot left early. Unless you've been to several basketball games there (I have), it's very difficult to render a semi-accurate guess of the crowd size just by looking. Last night, I figured there were about 7200 to 7500, and that was about right for early in the men's game.

Obviously this can be taken with a grain of salt, but I checked out recruiting "guru" Tom Lemming's master list of college prospects on the ESPN site, and five UND signees were listed: Freund, Moe, Nicholas, Otto and Troen. Needless to say, where a kid is from plays a big role in these types of lists as I don't believe North Dakotans, for example, are ever listed. Also, it would seem players like Manke and Yilek, for example, should have been on there as well. But again, you have to take these lists for what they're worth. I mostly found it interesting that a kid from a relatively small town in northern Minnesota (Moe) would have found his way onto the list.

I can't believe this is worth arguing about, but yes, they did sign 36 according to this link. As tuggnutt correctly pointed out (see the link he provided), a LOI requires some sort of financial aid. Otherwise, it would unenforceable because you can't have a binding agreement without consideration. Without some financial aid, there's no consideration.

A few thoughts on some other NCC teams' signings: --Mankato is certainly looking for a quick fix with 13 juco transfers. Yeah, that's the way to build your program, Holley. --the new USD coach must be planning on losing or getting rid of a number of current players since they signed 36 recruits! --Bubba looks like he has a nice class. He got one of the better running backs in Minnesota. I would expect that UND and UMD will be recruiting a lot of the same Wisconsin players over the next several years. --I was surprised that St. Cloud didn't sign a quarterback. I wonder if they're expecting a transfer? They only have three qb's on the roster, none of whom has really played at all, and two of whom red-shirted last year. I don't believe any of the three were highly-recruited, but maybe Hedberg feels he can develop at least one of them. In any event, it will be interesting to see how their offense functions without Heckendorf at the controls.

An article on the signing of Brian Troen. And another on Jordan Armentrout.

I kind of figured that either he was misquoted, or else he simply misspoke. Again, no disrespect to Jangula or Belquist, but I don't think most people would have necessarily had them ranked among the top five players in ND this year. Roehl and Wurzbacher? Yes. Harrington? Maybe. I'm not a scout or a coach, but I would say the top six ND players were, in no particular order, Dressler, Roehl, Wurzbacher, Trenbeath, Harrington and Caufield.

I had thought that perhaps something to that effect was in Kupchella's letter regarding division I as it pertains to UND, but upon further review, there was no mention of it.

I must say that you also showed some objectivity here, tony. Regarding recruiting North Dakotans, I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I've always felt that the top few North Dakotans most years could easily play I-AA. But historically, either I-AA schools didn't bother recruiting here, or else most local kids simply preferred to play for UND or NDSU. I think the fact that there hasn't been a ND kid who has played I-AA for as far back as I can remember (until this year with NDSU)--but several have played for I-A schools--supports this theory. Regarding Kupchella, he definitely doesn't speak for many UND grads on a number of issues, but that's a whole other story.

Your objectivity is refreshing. Regarding offensive linemen, it's interesting how different programs recruit that position differently. For example, UND typically signs 3 to 5 every year. Other programs prefer to load up with several every few years, but not sign anybody on the opposite years. Minnesota, for example, didn't sign any this year, although that wasn't necessarily by choice since they lost Murtha at the last minute.

Here are some of the other players whom UND recruited, and where they ultimately signed: Matt Lien, Duluth--Augie Rolly Lumbala, Calgary--Idaho Bobby Coy, Denver--Mesa St. Brandon Jordan hasn't signed anywhere yet as far as I could find.

I believe it was also documented that they were actively recruiting Dressler, and I'm almost positive they recruited Caufield, as well. Not to take anything away from players like Belquist and Jangula, but to even suggest that they were among the top five players in ND, but that Dressler, Trenbeath and/or Caufield were not, would be ridiculous. I'm not sure whether Bohl was just misquoted, or whether he's telling an outright lie with his "we got everybody we wanted from North Dakota" statement.

Lower divisions than what? These are high school stats. Duh. Why do you even bother posting here when you already have a forum in which you can bash UND all you want and everyone will agree with you?