UND92,96

I agree that Rypkema was viewed as a project coming out of high school, although it seems strange in retrospect that he wasn't more highly sought-after since 6'11" guys with coordination and who averaged 22 pts and 12 boards a game in a pretty good basketball state (Wisconsin) are tough to find.

I don't know whether or not this is factual, but according to a poster on the wisconsinpreps.com board, running back Mike Rohde from D.C. Everest high school in Schofield, WI has committed to UND. He is pretty small (5'8", 175) but very fast. He was a second team all-state selection despite missing much of the year with a knee injury. He had 221 yards and four td's in the division I (largest class) state championship game.

From the Wisconsin State Journal (in Madison):

I respect your opinion, Corella, and again I'm not trying to bash the kid especially considering I've never seen him play, but I'm just curious whether there were other prominent midwestern basketball schools who were after the kid and if not, why not? If he had been offered by SDSU, SCSU, USD, UND, etc. but had chosen NDSU, that would be one thing, but I guess I just can't get past the fact that Northern St. was his other finalist. They have had some success over the years, but usually it seems to be with guys NCC schools weren't all that interested in.

I could be wrong, but I thought that since Davis went to Fargo this year, NDSU goes there next year.

I kind of figured maybe UND didn't recruit Lunde all that hard since the Forum reported that he chose NDSU over Northern St. No offense to Northern, and I'm not trying to rip NDSU, but it would seem that if Lunde was really a high caliber recruit, he probably would have had a better program than Northern as his runner-up. But then again, who knows, maybe he'll develop into a good college player.

There's more help on the way for the UND womens team. Recruit Danye Guinn from St. Francis (in the cities) is averaging about 23 points and 6 assists per game, and scored 42 points in a game this past weekend. She is currently the leading scorer in the twin cities metro area. She's 5'10" and can play any of the three perimeter positions.

Does anyone know whether UND ever recruited the Moormann kid from Dickinson? How about Lunde?

That was quite an effort for your first post, "ndsubison." I only hope we can look forward to more of these brilliant witticisms in the future. BTW, neither Montana nor Georgia Southern is on your schedule next year, but one of the teams you made a feeble attempt at belittling--Duluth--is.

So what do you guys think are the primary areas of need this year in terms of recruiting? I'm not sure there are any glaring needs, but of course there's always room for improvement. Here's how I see the state of the various positions, with names of those who have been recruited the past two years in parentheses: quarterback (Bellmore, Manke and possibly Groeschl) It wouldn't surprise me if we bring in someone this year, although it may be tough to get a blue-chipper considering there are two or three good quarterbacks already here who have three years of eligibility left. One guy who I believe UND has shown interest in is Danny Freund from Wisconsin, who was an all-stater this year. running back (Strouth, Sundby, Christensen and Stewart) Strouth was effective this year, and I see Sundby as being in the Roland mold. I'd love to see us get a guy with a combination of size and speed to potentially be an every-down back. Lumbala would be ideal if we could get him, but it will be tough. I'm sure there are a number of running backs being recruited this year. wide receiver (Presthus, Groeschl, Ott and Hegg) Caufield and Dressler are already committed. I'd love to see a deep threat a la Lueck. I'm not sure if Heckendorf is still a possibility but he would fit the bill. Also may be some Canadians who are being looked at. tight end (Thomas and Turgeon) While it would have been nice to have gotten the kid from Fargo South, I believe Thomas brings far more speed so that's a plus. I'm not sure if Jared Bardon from Wisconsin is still being recruited, but I understand he's pretty athletic and also an excellent basketball player. offensive line (Bauer, Bonnet, Braegelmann, Bronson, Hoffelt and Soll) This is an area where you need to sign some guys every year. I'm not really aware of any North Dakotans who are considered good o-line prospects, unless Samson from Cavalier would play offense instead of defense. defensive line (Cadwell, Muro, Richter, White and Wolff) I would think defensive end would be a position where we will see a few signees this year. Canadian Mike Stadnyk may be the number one guy here, but he's apparently receiving a lot of division I interest. Nose guard should be pretty solid with Muro in the fold and Wolff who can probably play either on the nose or at end. linebacker (Brennan, Ullsperger, Babington-Johnson, Meek, Reiff, Schmitz and Wise) Linebackers are signed every year, but if ever there was an area where you could get away with not signing anyone for a year, this would be it. There is obviously a wealth of talent here, so anyone who does sign will either have to be willing to wait several years to see the field, or be an absolute blue-chip player. defensive back (Hoffschneider, Alexander, Aagaard, Carmin, DeSautel, Greenwood, Guenther and Wenzel) Another position that appears to be very well-stocked for the future. However, it also appears that a number of defensive back prospects are being recruited including Rory Manke, Brandon Jordan and Matt Lien.

Last night's loss was very disappointing since the Sioux led for most of the game, and I don't think UNO is as good of a team as their athletic ability suggests that they should be. It really hurts that we allowed Tola Dada to score 20 points considering he has, bar none, the ugliest looking shot in basketball history. For those who haven't seen him play, he shoots a bizarre looking set shot that you don't even realize is a shot at first because it more closely resembles a pass. Where he learned to shoot that way, I'll never know. I doubt he'll ever hit three 3-pointers in a game again, but he managed to do so last night. On the bright side, Lindahl was again outstanding. He's now the leading scorer AND rebounder in the NCC through four conference games. Johnson was also very good, and Stoute played some outstanding minutes. He probably should have played more than he did in the second half since Ryp was struggling. Considering how balanced--and in my opinion mediocre--the NCC is this year, it is very unfortunate that UND doesn't have Parks and Nobles. I really think that the Sioux would have been right in the mix of things. But without another scorer (Parks) and a good point guard (Nobles), we're a little out-manned in most games. We just have to keep reminding ourselves that will we return virtually everybody next season, as well as getting back Parks and Nobles, and adding this year's red-shirts and Harkins. Knock on wood, depth and having too few scorers won't be an issue next year.

I must admit that I really thought this might be something of a rebuilding year for the Sioux after losing two All-American players, and I kind of expected that UND may finish as low as fourth in the NCC for the first time in a long, long time. But through the first 17 games of the year, UND may very well be the best team in dII. I'll be the first to admit you can't put too much stock into comparing scores against common opponents, but you can't help but notice, for example, that UND beat UNO by 51 one night after NDSU beat them by 12, and UND beat USD by 23 (and the game really wasn't even that close) one night before USD beat NDSU. SDSU has also shown to be pretty vulnerable judging by their loss last night at St. Cloud and their two non-conference losses to NSIC teams. Enthusiasm probably has to be tempered somewhat until after the next couple of weeks, however. UND faces arguably its toughest three-game stretch of the regular season with consecutive road games in Brookings, Sioux Falls and Fargo. If the Sioux can win two of those three, then I think the sky's the limit for this team. Even one win out of three will keep the Sioux in pretty good position for a possible NCC title.

I thought Mueller was terrible last night. Actually, he's looked pretty worthless the last two times USD has come to Grand Forks. He insisted on taking the ball inside on several occasions only to get his shot blocked. Probably not too surprising since he's about 5'11" with what appears to be about a 2" vertical. How's this for a slump: USD has now lost eight straight against NCC opponents going back to last year. They dropped their last four conference games of the 2002-03 season, lost in the first round of the NCC tournament, and are now 0-3 in the conference this year. As for the Sioux, is Lindahl the most improved player in the league or what? 26 points, 16 boards, 2 blocks and 2 steals. He's gone from averaging under 5 points per game last year to 15 per game this year. Plus he's become a pretty effective rebounder as witnessed by last night's game.

From allcanadagridiron.com: It's pretty doubtful we would have much of a chance of getting this kid if he's drawing serious IA interest, but it's pretty impressive that we could get him to visit. I believe he's one of the top few running backs in Canada.

An update on Matt Lien of Duluth Denfeld (you need to scroll down a little bit).

I got my SI yesterday, and as expected, UND and/or Grand Forks were well-represented in the ND feature. Some of the highlights were UND hockey being listed as the favorite college team, four of the six "alltime best" athletes being Grand Forks or UND athletes, four of the five "numbers" factoids being about UND athletes or coaches (including Bowenkamp's dII title game record 28 completions), and Grand Forks having the most factoids in the "who and where" section. NDSU fans can't be happy about being referred to as the "Bisons."

While I would agree that the UND front seven is not particularly big, I don't think this year's roster was very accurate and thus, it might be a bit misleading. Cases in point: Shane Duchscher was listed at 237 in the "official" roster, and 260 in the media guide. Jason Peterson listed at 230 in the roster, and 257 in the media guide. Digger Anderson listed at 210 in the roster, and 222 in the media guide. Eric Halstenson listed at 210 in the roster, and 227 in the media guide. Tony Hermes listed at 200 in the roster, and 227 in the media guide. Brook Meier listed 210 in the roster, and 230 in the media guide. Jake Nordick listed at 210 in the roster, and 224 in the media guide. There are other examples as well, but you get the idea. I believe that whomever was compiling the roster was using old information in many cases, and in some cases two and three year old information. Chris Kuper made reference to this fact in an article posted awhile back in the Anchorage newspaper about how he didn't have any idea why he was listed at 280 in the roster when he's actually closer to 315. With all that having been said, I think the only guys who are significantly undersized for their position(s) are probably Dahlen, who probably isn't any more than about 200, and Babington-Johnson, who is probably about the same. But of course, Dahlen was all-NCC as a sophomore, and Bab-John has shown the ability to make plays, so their lack of bulk hasn't been and probably won't be a problem.

From allcanadagridiron.com:

I guess it just all depends on how a person wants to define what it means to be a sports town. For me, I couldn't live in Bismarck because I love college sports and Mary and BSC aren't too enticing to me personally. They do a nice job with hosting state tournaments, however, and in terms of providing opportunities for participatory-type sports, maybe they are better than GF and Fargo. Although I'm sure many NDSU fans would disagree, I think Grand Forks is the best sports town in terms of having the most and best variety of games to attend. UND football, mens and womens basketball and hockey, state high school hockey every year, state track every other year, state football every other year, recently hosting state Class A girls basketball and state volleyball, occasional NHL exhibition games, world junior hockey coming up, dII mens basketball elite eight coming up, etc. Really, about the only major state sporting event Grand Forks doesn't have is state Class B boys basketball, which admittedly is probably the best ND high school event.

Getting back to the matter at hand, UND is apparently recruiting another kid from Alaska, according to this link.

That could be. White does have the big frame (6'6") that you typically like to see in an offensive lineman, but upon further review you're probably correct.