UND92,96

I would argue that UND should never have been invited to or accepted an invitation from a post season tournament based upon what players were actually available to play. And I would say that after Weber St., the top few teams in the Big Sky were down, and maybe way down from past years. Both Weber and Montana were far better in 2012-13 than anybody in the Big Sky this season IMO.

I'm not sure whether this was previously posted or not, but another UND recruit, Josie Buckley, suffered a scary injury this season: http://www.leadertelegram.com/sports/prep_basketball/article_7983e872-775a-11e3-932f-001a4bcf887a.html I know the article indicates that she still plans to play college basketball, but considering the severity and nature of the injury, I have to think her status may be in question.

Strand scored 23 points today to lead Fergus Falls into the MN 3A semi finals. UND recruit Grace Sawatzke will be playing later today in another 3A quarter final. Both players have a chance to contribute next year IMO. Strand averaged about 21.5 ppg this year, while Sawatzke averaged 16.5 ppg and over 4 assists per game. Both have over 2000 career points.

It's crazy how one freak play can change a team's fortunes for the worse. Think back to the UND-NDSU game from December of 2012. Brandon Brekke takes an elbow to the face, gets a concussion and is never the same. Prior to that game, Brekke had something like 24 double-figures scoring games. After that injury he had one, and couldn't play at all his senior year. What a shame. In case people forgot what he was capable of when healthy: http://www.undsports...TCLID=205363657

I would probably go with a starting lineup of Anderson, Hooker, Huff, Stefan and Traylor, and rotate in Antwi and Calcaterra. Anderson and Huff will probably both play very close to 40 minutes. If fouls or injury necessitate, Benton and Salmonson may also need to play some minutes.

So it appears UND may be without four of what were expected to be its top six players coming into the season--Brekke, Webb, Schuler and Nash. Since I'm positive the trolls will be coming out of the woodwork should UND lose to the Summit's sixth-place team on Wednesday, let me ask this--who would you expect UND to be favored against, on the road, in the Big Sky with this short-handed lineup? Anybody besides possibly SUU (and there's no need to even bring up the result of that game from earlier this month)?

I'm happy for him (and for UND, since it reduces the buyout), but the destination seems a bit surprising. I don't really understand why he didn't go to SIU, unless he just didn't want to move that far away.

I acknowledge there's probably not much downside, but I doubt there's going to be any real practice time, either. Maybe a walk-through today, and another tomorrow night in Omaha. It's just a bit hard to get too excited about playing in the same tournament for the fourth year in a row, and with a severely depleted and fatigued team, to boot. But for a team like UNO, who wasn't even eligible to play in its own conference tournament, and who hasn't played in two and a half weeks, it's probably a great thing.

I tend to agree that IF Webb, Nash and Schuler are all out, it may be have been prudent to simply decline the invitation. There is speculation that both UNI and Montana may have turned down invites.

Yes.

That seems to be a popular sentiment, and I understand it to an extent given the history of 12's vs. 5's, but NDSU hasn't beaten anybody with an RPI of higher than 67 this year, and OU is at 25, so it's going to probably take their best game, plus an off game by the Sooners.

I hesitate to even contribute to this thread, but what has been difficult to accept is that two years ago, UND beat Montana (Big Sky tournament champion), SDSU (Summit tournament champion) and NDSU (with four of the same starters as this year's Summit tournament champion). The future looked very bright given the fact that the team was nearly all sophomores. But for a variety of reasons, most notably the loss of Brekke for most of the last two years, an inability to ever really replace Patrick Mitchell, a series of in some cases freak injuries (Huff's jaw last year, Schuler missing a total of 16 games in the past two seasons, Webb going down in this year's Big Sky tournament, etc.) and other various unfortunate circumstances (Traylor missing most of last year due to academics and Nash having to sit out a year when many other similarly situated players were given immediately eligibility upon transferring), UND was really never able to be at full strength. So now we're left to wonder what might have been.

That seems pretty unlikely, having USD as a higher seed than UND. UND's RPI is presently 89, whereas USD is at 136.

UND's rash of injuries the past few years has been borderline absurd.

Official capacity is 3300. There is absolutely no way the place was only about 60% full. It was at least 80% full, and probably more.

Webb will try to play tonight.

You can watch the De La Salle game now on midco channel 322.

Very proud of the women's team. I am going to be honest enough to say I had some concerns after last season. But Brewster deserves major kudos for turning things around so quickly. Maybe the most impressive thing is that of the eight-person rotation, how many were really highly-recruited? Not many. Loyd in particular turned out to be a complete steal.

If I'm not mistaken, all four Dakota division I schools have earned at least one trip to the NCAA men's or women's basketball tournament within two years of being eligible. That's pretty impressive.

Not that I ever thought it would get to this point, but this is precisely why I never thought Hooker would red shirt. As much as it will sting to be minus those two, at least we're not yet in a position of having to play somebody completely out of position, or somebody who has barely played all year.

Definitely. Evers will of course be good in her role again next season, but who is going to platoon with her like Wall has done? And Evers only has one more year of eligibility.

Interesting question. In terms of what it means for the program, probably yes. On the other hand, I don't want to completely overlook how huge some of the games during the Jackson era probably were.

Not to open up a big can of worms, but I'm still bitter Hyslop wasn't renovated and retained as the home of UND basketball. I loved that place.

Is this game televised in the GF area on the same channel as the MN state hockey tournament?

Agreed. She should step right into the rotation next year. Hopefully the expected return of Lauck and the addition of Strand will somewhat offset the lost scoring of Buck.