UND92,96

Rypkema and Lindahl are really headed in opposite directions right now. When he's not in foul trouble, it doesn't look like anybody in the league can guard Ryp one-on-one once he gets the ball on the low blocks. If he could make free throws, he'd be unstoppable. Granted, the post play in the NCC is really down, but Ryp appears to me to be by far the best offensive post player in the league. Lindahl, on the other hand, has completely disappeared the past two or three weeks. I have no idea what happened to him since he was on his way to being an all-NCC selection at the halfway point of the conference season. Between Lindahl, Jacobson and Jahner, I'm not sure who played the worst last night. The best lineup right now would appear to be Ryp, Wells (for defensive reasons only), Johnson, Austin and Dahl.

In another interesting matchup last night, Kimbrough out-scored NDSU signee Ali Sonstelie of Sacred Heart 33-17 in an easy B-G-MR win.

It was definitely a great performance by the women last night. Leighton and Boese are the best one-two punch in the league. There are also some definite parallels between UND's home games with SDSU in both football and women's basketball. On the road, it's almost always going to be tight, but at home, the games are nearly always blow-outs. It's been 7 or 8 years since SDSU has come within 12 points of the Sioux at Hyslop, and many of those games have been very one-sided, including a 24-point win last year and a 38-point win two years ago.

Kimbrough out-scored Langen last night 19-11, but Kittson Central won the game by two. Langen had been consistently scoring 25 per game over the past several weeks, so evidently Kimbrough must have played quite well defensively.

And now this little gem from Jeff Kolpack: Weenie? Nice word, Jeff. Somebody get this guy a thesaurus, and quickly.

He's still listed on their web page as being on the football coaching staff.

This was in the Herald recently:

As long as we're talking about mythical, pre-1973 "championships," we can't forget about UND's 1966 midwest region college division title. Quick, somebody tell Roger Thomas to get that banner ready!

Lennon hires ex-Augie assistant to coach db's, according to this link.

Apparently UND is supposed to keep playing NDSU until some hypothetical future time when UND starts to lose consistently and NDSU unilaterally determines that yes, the scholarship differential has officially taken effect. Then, and only then, would they consider it acceptable for UND to bow out from the series.

I can only assume that Anderson realizes that NDSU has also never even come close to filling the Fargodome except for when they play UND, either.

Nobody has speculated that there's something wrong with the SDSU women's program. I merely speculated that the only possible reason I can think why Oien would freak out over something so seemingly innocuous is because SDSU has lost at least one high-profile athlete to another NCC school. If you have another theory, please feel free to share it because as Corella correctly pointed out, athletes and coaches from opposing schools do speak with each other after games quite regularly, and without officials from those schools having a fit about it. I see nothing wrong with what Glas did, nor would I have any problem with any of the SDSU coaches talking with any UND player after this weekend's game.

Yes, that occurred after the Oien/Nagy/Glas incident. My understanding of it is that Lindsay Draayer signed an LOI with SDSU in the Fall of 2002. After that, her sister transferred from SDSU, and Lindsay apparently sought and received her Release from the LOI. She then signed with UND last spring. I don't believe it was ever explained in the Herald, but I know for a fact that she signed an LOI with SDSU (I remember reading the press release on the SDSU site), so they must have granted her request for a Release.

I almost wonder if Oien is paranoid after the Mandy Koupal transfer from SDSU to USD. I have no idea why else somebody would freak out over a coach chatting with a player after a game, especially when there's absolutely no track record by Glas of tampering with opposing players, or any history of a transfer from another NCC school to UND for men's basketball. This whole thing is bizarre. I could care less if Nagy or any other coach was talking to Lindahl, Rypkema, etc. after the game on Saturday. If you're confident in your program, it seems to me you would have nothing to worry about even in the highly unlikely event that a coach did have unethical intentions (which I'm positive Glas did not).

It seems like the women's team has gone to a lot better places than the men in terms of tournaments or "warm weather" trips over the years. In the past ten years, the women have gone to Hawaii three times, Florida four times, Arizona twice and California once. The men, on the other hand, have been to Hawaii just once, California twice and Arizona once. There have been other trips by the men to places like Washington, Oregon, Kansas and Colorado, but those don't exactly compare to going to Hawaii or Florida in December as far as weather is concerned.

I was a little disappointed that there were no questions by Swygman or Hennessy or calls regarding this incident on the coaches' show on 1440 last night. I got the impression that there may have been some colorful discussion about it during one of the commercial breaks, however. It's probably just as well that the issue was left alone since Roebuck probably would have ended up saying something on the air that he'd have regretted later.

It seems surprising now that UND agreed to play in the holiday tournament in Brookings this year considering the hard feelings I'm sure this incident caused. It makes me wonder if maybe Nagy called Rich to apologize after he talked to Jones and his parents and realized that he and Oien completely overreacted.

Considering the injuries and the lack of the "real" Aaron Austin this year, what kind of record would make this a successful season? I'm thinking that 15 or 16 wins would actually be a good season all things considered, although I know some will disagree with that. I honestly didn't think the Sioux would win more than 3 or 4 games after the Mary debacle.

I guess St. Cloud got a lot of power points by winning at Concordia-SP and USD, but realistically they have no business at third. Yes, it's all decided by the infamous strength of schedule index so I'm not accusing the committee of bias, but St. Cloud is likely going to lose by 25 at UND and NDSU and they'll plummet back to where they should be--four or fifth in the NCC and seventh or eighth in the region.

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.