UND92,96

The new poll: Midwest 1. North Dakota (6-1) 2. Emporia State (6-1) 3. Winona State (7-1) 4. Pittsburg State (6-1) 5. North Dakota State (5-2) 6. St. Cloud State (6-2) 7. Nebraska-Omaha (6-2) 8. Concordia-St. Paul (6-1) 9. Central Missouri State (6-1) 10. Northwest Missouri State (5-2)

True, but I figure if they're going to go to the trouble of compiling one, we owe it to them to provide a little constructive criticism of their work.

Savior? No. But he made good decisions for the most part, threw a great pass to Lueck for the long td in the second half, scrambled for a first down (I didn't think he had that in him), made a clutch throw to get a first down in overtime (the timing route to Lueck on 3rd and 12), and the throw to Johnson for the td in overtime. He really had to bullet that one in there. He deserves a lot of credit in my opinion. He's not perfect, but he has shown improvement over last year. Last season, int's were his big problem. Now, he's only thrown 3 compared to 12 touchdowns. I don't think any other qb in the league has a better td to int ratio.

Not me. I was upset with him after the Augie and St. Cloud games, but it's certainly now looking like those games were aberrations rather than the rule. A great performance on the road in a tough environment, and a clutch performance in the most pressure-packed of games would have to make believers out of pretty much everybody. And you have to like the 12 to 3 touchdown-to-interception ratio.

For what it's worth, UND still isn't getting any love from the d2football.com pollsters. The Sioux rise a whopping two spots to number 13, and are still ranked behind Pitt St. and even Central Mo., believe it or not. Pitt St. at number 10 is the highest ranked midwest team. I guess the midwest is now the weakest region, huh?

Lueck was also a juco all-american at NDSCS in Wahpeton prior to transferring to Murray St. He may very well be as talented as any receiver in the NCC.

Debating you is really an exercise in futility. As I said, when both teams are in the same division, it's as close to a level playing field as you can get. If one team chooses not to be fully funded, that's their problem. When two teams are NOT in the same division, then the playing field is per se not level. To claim otherwise is essentially stating that there's no point in moving up in the first place. That's not to say that the lower-division team can't win on occasion, but when that does happen it doesn't speak very well for the team with the big scholarship advantange. Why don't we just boil all this down to as simple of terms as possible: you are bothered by the fact that NDSU has not done well at all against UND over the past decade. You very much want that trend to reverse. What better way than an extra 27 scholarships?

O.K., I know it's poor form to quote myself, but...what the heck. NDSU--37 carries for 76 yards (2.05 yards per carry). That was the big question, could UND stop the run? The answer was a resounding yes. This was at least the fifth game in a row against the Bison where UND has allowed less than 2.5 yards per carry. Bohl and his staff are almost certainly a big improvement over the Babich regime, but it looks like it wasn't all Babich's fault that the Bison have had trouble running on the Sioux. BTW, I was wrong about Gordon--he did have one 100 yard game against the Sioux (2000), but never did get a touchdown in his career against UND.

I'm not saying that UND should or shouldn't play NDSU next year, but the difference between the schools you mention is that they choose to be in division II while not offering the maximum scholarships allowed, and/or choose to be in a conference that doesn't allow 36. They are, in effect, choosing to operate on a non-level playing field. If UND went I-AA but continued to offer 36 scholarships, then they would be choosing to be disadvantaged. But so long as UND is in dII, they shouldn't have to apologize for the fact that some of the teams they play are handicapping themselves by being in a division they probably don't belong.

Pitt State lost to Emporia today. UND may be the new number one, although who knows with the goofy strength of schedule index.

Thanks! I'm so seldom right that I need to revel in those instances where I am!

My understanding is that when they play college teams, it's a legit game. They are trying to win, just like the college teams are. When they play the Washington Generals or whatever their "opponent" is called these days, it's a show. That was what was in the Fargodome, and what was at REA last year. I plan on going, so I'll post afterwards whether it was a competitive basketball game or just a bunch of clowning around.

bisonguy: Check out this link for info on "real" Globetrotter games.

I'm not sure whether anyone has posted this yet or not, but Zach Parise is playing tonight according to Dean Blais at Sioux Boosters today.

Yes, that will be a very interesting game. I wasn't sure whether "Meet the Sioux" was going to occur first. I guess I assumed it was, but perhaps not.

I probably could have been clearer with my previous post. I certainly agree that the NCC is better top-to-bottom than the NSIC. My point is more that if a program is not dominant in its current division, how realistic is it that it will become at least competitive in a higher division? A big problem, as I see it, is that recruiting will be a huge challenge when you don't have even the possibility of an NCAA tournament appearance for a long, long time to use as a carrot to potential recruits. Plus, recruiting juco players will be more difficult as well because you no longer have that pool of talented players who weren't eligible for dI but were for dII. A comparably talented player to a Jerome Beasley or a Mark McGehee, for example, if eligible to play dI, is likely going to sign with a more established program that offers a chance to go to the Big Dance. With those two handicaps, I'm not sure how realistic it is to expect that the caliber of player NDSU is able to recruit will be better than it has been. Without the jucos, it may even be worse. Combined with the fact that you will be presumably playing against better competition, it could very well lead to some really ugly won-loss records. I guess we'll see over the next decade or so. In the interests of fairness, I think the same would happen at UND if it was to go dI, and that's why I'm really not for it at this point. It's fine for football due the existence of I-AA, and obviously for hockey, but basketball? I don't see how it can work. Just my opinion.

I have only seen a brief story on the WDAZ sports where they showed Derrick Franklin throwing down some dunks. I would assume "Meet the Sioux" should be within the next few weeks, so that should be a pretty good opportunity to see how the new players look in a scrimmage situation.

While anything is possible, the NDSU mens basketball program has generally been very average in dII, so I would be surprised if they have much success in dI--even at a conference level in a relatively low-level basketball conference like the Big Sky or Mid-Continent. Our geographical location makes it far more difficult to have Gonzaga or even Valpo-type success in North Dakota than if we were in Washington, Indiana, et al. And even if a conference is found in the near future, the issue of scheduling non-conference home games is probably always going to be a huge challenge. I have no problem with this statement if we are talking about football. But in terms of basketball, that statement comes across as more arrogant than based upon lack of competitiveness of NSIC schools. NDSU isn't typically any better than most NSIC schools in basketball. That's not necessarily a dig at the Bison, because in reality there doesn't seem to be the large chasm between the have's and have not's in hoops as there is in football. In fact, all the talk about the impending doom of dII should probably be limited to football, because the caliber of basketball in dII and the overall competitiveness seems to be quite good. I don't believe there have been any serious talks about reducing scholarships in basketball, although admittedly I'm not sure of that.

Don't get me wrong, I'm neither particularly surprised, nor do I care what anybody from the Forum thinks. I do think it's interesting, however, that in a matchup of two 5-1 teams, eleven out of eleven prognosticators picked the road team--especially considering the success UND has had against NDSU over the past decade, and even in years NDSU was considered a pretty big favorite by many people, i.e. 1993, 1999 and 2001.

The Forum evidently doesn't have any doubts about NDSU winning: link Of course, I imagine they all picked NDSU in 1999 and 2001, too.

I mean no offense to you personally, but that's a pretty outlandish statement. If everybody who chooses to go to this game is an alleged rich person because they are paying anywhere from $10.50 (senior citizen price) to $27.50 for a ticket, what does that make someone who goes to an NFL, NBA or NHL game, or a big-name concert? Those ticket prices are generally more than $27.50. I understand the frustration with rising ticket prices, but I don't think there's any reason to attack or generalize those of us who do go to the games.

That will probably be the deciding factor in the game--whether NDSU can run on the Sioux. If they can't, then UND has an excellent chance to win. It has been a number of years since NDSU has really run successfully against the Sioux. It really never happened with Gordon running ball (no 100 yard games and no td's), which is quite remarkable when you think about it. And I'm not sure that the Bison offense is really any better than it was during the Babich era, excluding last year, although it does seem to be more diversified. I would assume that the Sioux will make it a priority to stop the run and make Stauss beat them. Considering the relative struggles of the NDSU offense for much of this year, I wouldn't be shocked at all if they have problems running the ball on UND. UND hasn't run the ball successfully against pretty much anyone, although they have shown the ability to win anyway. If the passing game is working, however, it may open up some running lanes.

I too have been critical of Bowenkamp, and certainly he hasn't been consistent considering his performance in most of the Augie game and in the first half of the St. Cloud game. But if we're going to be critical of him when he plays poorly, we really should give him some credit when he plays well. He completed 23 of 37 passes against SDSU for 284 yards with two touchdowns and no int's. That's pretty good. Let's also remember that he's not the one calling all those screen passes. I'm not offering these numbers in an attempt to denigrate Tony Stauss, but rather to show how Bowenkamp has compared to the far more highly-touted Stauss thus far: Overall JB 61% completion percentage, 9 touchdowns, 2 int's TS 67% completion percentage, 2 touchdowns, 3 int's NCC only JB 57.5% completion percentage, 3 touchdowns, 1 int TS 61.5% completion percentage, 1 touchdown, 2 int's I really think that if Mussman would open up the playcalling in the first half, similiar to what was being run in the second halves against St. Cloud and SDSU, the running game would actually be far more effective. Look at St. Cloud as an example. Yes, Birkel is a good back, but they were able to run pretty well against the outstanding run defense of UND in the second quarter with their backup running back, in large part due to the threat of the downfield pass. It's a case of the pass setting up the run instead of vice versa.

Here's the new poll: Midwest 1. Pittsburg State (6-0) 2. North Dakota State (5-1) 3. North Dakota (5-1) 4. Winona State (6-1) 5. St. Cloud State (5-2) 6. Nebraska-Omaha (5-2) 7. Emporia State (5-1) 8. Concordia-St. Paul (5-1) 9. Northern State (5-1) 10. Central Missouri State (5-1) Wow, have things changed from just a few years ago. Who would have thought that an NSIC team could be ranked in the top four one week removed from a loss? It's looking like it will be a battle between the NCC and the MIAA to see who gets a second team in, because unless they lose again, Winona is in for sure. Fortunately, the NCC seems to have the inside track since both Emporia and Central Mo. are now ranked pretty low and still have to play Pitt St.