UND92,96

Scott Howe, Air Force Joey Gasparini, Vermont

The one consolation is that St. Cloud, another team that loses a large majority of its scoring from this year, hasn't announced any signings yet, either. Nor has USD to my knowledge. At least UND already has a pretty good class with Austin, Doyle, Gutter and Jacobson. Not that they don't need at least three more good players, but that's a pretty good start.

DMB- Should we be concerned that nobody has signed yet? I know you said Ferguson probably wouldn't sign with anybody this week, but I figured one or two others would sign within the first couple of days of the signing period. Any new info?

I see where Josh Johnson is going to be joining Jeff Brandt at Minot State next year. If UND plays them again next season, it should be pretty interesting to see what the fans' reaction will be to their return.

I agree, and would add Megan Glynn to the list of possibilities. However, she is very tall so she may eventually become a decent defender, and in particular as a shot-blocker, if she were to stick it out for five years. I have wondered the same thing about Perrizo. I am by no means saying that she should leave, but with Mahlum clearly being a better pure point guard, the addition of Jahner and Maffin who can also play the point, and the fact that it would be tough to play Perrizo much at the wing considering her very low shooting percentage, I have to wonder about her playing time next year.

I think it's safe to say that there will be a few womens basketball players who will not be returning next year. There are 12 players on the roster this year with at least one year of eligibility remaining, plus the five new recruits. I suspect at least three players will not be back.

The UND women have added two more basketball recruits: womens basketball recruits With this five-player recruiting class along with red-shirt Jami Glick, next year's team will certainly have a different look. Hopefully Val Sannes can recover from her knee injury. If so, this could be an excellent class.

Erbes is a guy who has apparently gotten pretty much the maximum out of his ability, and that's admirable. But the Forum seems to be portraying him as a potential star, and I don't believe that's accurate nor fair to the kid. There have been a lot of North Dakota kids in the 6'5" to 6'6" range who have been very good interior players at the high school or even junior college or DAC-10 level, but I can't recall any who were or likely could have been much of a factor in the post at the NCC level or above. If Erbes is the exception, more power to him. But I personally would expect him to struggle guarding bigger and/or quicker players, not to mention consistently scoring inside at his size. As far as Ferguson goes, I imagine most college coaches would feel that his upside is much higher because of his physical strength and leaping ability. As for the Williston kid, I know nothing about him, but I don't believe anyone is portraying him as a potential star. He's apparently 240 pounds so at least he could potentially be the physical interior player UND has lacked since Mustard.

Here's a Forum article on some local basketball prospects: recruiting article With regard to David Erbes, I realize he had a very nice career at NDSCS, but I have a hard time believing a 6'6" post player with fairly limited athletic ability is much to get excited about.

Did anyone hear how Ferguson's visit went this past weekend? Were there any other potential recruits visiting?

According to Sunday's Herald, Jerome Beasley was named MVP of the Portsmouth Invitational! Also, according to this ESPN article, Jerome definitely made a name for himself at the tournament (scroll down a little ways): Beasley article Way to go, Jerome!

I wasn't born yet when Jackson played, but based on what my dad has told me, those were some really outstanding teams. Back to back semi-final appearances (college division) and a third-place finish in 64-65. Phil had quite a supporting cast, as those teams had four all-NCC players for two years in a row. Jackson was actually only the third-leading scorer on the 64-65 team as a sophomore. UND even beat DePaul in one of those years. Beasley is unquestionably the most talented basketball player ever at UND, particularly offensively. It is unfortunate that due to circumstances beyond his control, i.e. Lollar's disinterest in attending classes and Allen's ineligibility, he didn't have the supporting cast which would have enabled UND to potentially do something in the tournament this year comparable to what the Jackson teams did.

If he's from Trinidad, I'm going to throw out a wild guess that he played at Williston. They have had a number of Trinidad natives over the years and I believe two starters from this past year's team.

As Jim said, I think we all agree that if UND is going to get good non-conference opponents to come to the Alerus, they will have to pay the going rate, whatever that happens to be these days. I think it's safe to say that the money is there to at least bring in one ranked non-conference opponent per year. Unfortunately for NDSU, they have not always gotten what they paid for. It's hard to believe Moorhead and Western St., for example, actually warranted $50K, if that's what they got. Those games weren't any better to watch than UND's games against Crookston or Mesa. In recent years, even the supposedly good opponents like TAMUK and Angelo have turned out to be duds. That's the risk, I guess. Just because you pay out the big bucks to bring somebody in doesn't mean you'll get a game any better than what an NSIC opponent would give you.

DMB- Any chance you can give us his name and/or juco where he played?

Even though the UND non-conference schedule is sub-par, at least we don't have St. Cloud's home schedule this year. They only have four (out of eleven) games at home, and three of them are against Northern State, Augie and USD. And it's kind of surprising that they would agree to play AT Crookston, particularly when they only have one out of their four non-conference games at home.

This was an excerpt from an article in Sunday's Forum: Carr Sports Associates of Gainesville, Fla., has consulted for NDSU since fall 2001 as the university moves toward Division I-AA status from Division II. It gave Taylor a three-page form to complete on what the university should look for in a new head football coach. The recommendations listed three

It's an interesting question, but I don't really know the answer. The hockey program was certainly not at its highest point during the glory years of the basketball program, so there may have been some fans who basically chose basketball over hockey to an extent. But things are so much different now with the new arena and the fact that excitement about Sioux hockey has been extremely high during the Blais era, and in particular since 1997. I don't foresee a dip in interest in Sioux hockey anytime soon, so basketball probably needs to create its own excitement to get the fans back into the 4,000-plus per game range where it was 10 years ago. I think that if the mens basketball program would win a bit more consistently and cut out the ridiculous early season losses to schools like Minot, Bemidji and UMC that have occurred in recent years, the fans would come out again in larger numbers. But a new facility is almost a must at this point. People's tolerance for the lack of comfort of Hyslop seating went way down when the Alerus and Engelstad were built. Wood bench seats just don't cut it anymore. Hyslop certainly served its purpose, but its time has come and gone.

You are correct in that this area has been spoiled to at least a degree by success. What surprises me is how few students go to basketball games when you consider that the majority of them are probably from high schools where basketball is king (i.e. ND Class B). There has got to be a way to get them interested enough to go to basketball games, particularly when it's free. Regarding Engelstad for basketball, it is too big. But it would have been interesting to see what the atmosphere would have been like at the NDSU game had the game actually been well-played instead of the poor shooting foul-fest it was. That was the worst-played game of the entire home schedule, and it happened at the worst possible time considering the big crowd and the TV audience. It certainly didn't make any casual fans want to go to another game.

You may be correct, but I think there are two things that will bring people out to the tune of 4,000-plus per game: a nice facility or a great team (preferably both). Obviously, the condition and age of Hyslop is a problem, and one way or another a decision needs to be made soon as to the future home of the basketball teams. As we can all probably agree on, the mens team hasn't been great since the early 90's, but the attendance has been at least O.K. even during the poorer years. Hopefully, the NCC will get back to the old Friday-Saturday games again this year now that there will at least temporarily be an even number of teams. Thursday games aren't typically good for attendance as it severely cuts down on the number of out-of-towners who can go. I'm an eternal optimist when it comes to UND sports, so I'm not going to give up on the idea that we can get back to the level of the early 90's. The NCAA site only has attendance numbers going back 10 years, but according to that site, UND averaged just over 4,200 in 1993, and that was down more than 700 per game from 1992. So it can be done, but we need to get back to something approaching that level of success, and hopefully get a nice arena, as well.

The thing that I found so strange about Brandt's comments in the Herald article last week was that he seemed to almost be saying he was homesick, i.e. wanting to get back to his family and friends in Minot. The guy is finishing his fourth year of college! I would think that most of his Minot friends don't even live there anymore. It makes no sense.

Just one more question for you, DMB, since you obviously have good sources. Was Brandt's departure much of a surprise to the coaches? How much of a loss do you think he was?

If we could get b-ball attendance to just 40% of hockey attendance, it would be in the 4,000 to 4,500 range. Not an easy goal, but it could be doable, particularly in a facility better than Hyslop and if the teams are doing fairly well. I know that there are a lot of UND hockey fans out there who don't care at all about basketball, but for those who are willing to give it a chance, I don't think they'll be disappointed in the entertainment value. Unfortunately, the opportunity to see a Jerome Beasley-type talent perform will likely never happen again.