UND92,96

24 bench points for UND in first half! Smart and Buck are leading scorers. 30 of UND's 37 points scored by freshmen and sophomores.

23 UND 15 HBU 3:12

19 UND 13 HBU 7:47

14 UND 8 HBU 11:41 left in first half

I used the 6/13 ratio assuming a juco transfer is brought in, as it sounds like that is the direction the staff is leaning for the 13th scholarship. It's a tough situation. On the one hand, I agree that it's difficult to not renew a scholarship based solely on lack of progress on the court if the kid has tried hard and has met all expectations in the classroom. But on the other hand, it's not exactly fair to the current freshmen if they're not given the help they need to make contending for a Big Sky title attainable because there are three or four scholarships being used by upperclassmen who aren't capable of playing at the dI level. We really need to hope that there are no recruiting "misses" in the next two classes, because there is almost no margin for error at present if all the red-shirt sophomores stick around for two more years on scholarship (unless a couple of them improve tremendously).

I just read Vandrovec's live chat at the Argus Leader site, and he said Douple did make a comment along the lines of the Summit would still be interested in UND. Apparently this was part of a radio interview last week.

It sounds like UND is actively recruiting one or more junior college players for the last currently available scholarship. So assuming a juco transfer is brought in, and nobody leaves from the current red-shirt sophomore class, that would mean that 46% (6/13) of the scholarships for next year would be accounted for by one class. And barring one of the current starters being demoted, getting injured or leaving early, none of next year's juniors is likely to start, and realistically three or even four of them may not even be in the regular rotation. Regardless of whose fault it is, such a situation would really seem to hamstring the program for the next two years. I think the classes will be evened out to some degree. Exactly how that might happen is an open question, but it seems like a fairly strong possibility that it will happen.

The football issue will be huge. If the MVFC is willing to expand again, I suspect UNO would go that route. If not, they're in the same situation UND was in, and I imagine they might choose the Big Sky. And of course, this would all be contingent upon the Board of Regents even agreeing to allow UNO to go dI.

You have to wonder whether Fullerton has been in contact with Alberts, also.

From the Herald:

Actually, through the first three years of the dI transition, it appears UND has done better than SDSU. In their first three years, SDSU had 25 total wins, with 17 of them being against dI opponents. UND has 40 total wins, with 23 being against dI opponents.

For a team with an RPI of 345, yes they are.

Times have really changed the past year or so. It seems now any halfway decent dII school is a sought-after commodity by at least one, and in some cases multiple dI conferences. A few years ago, it was obviously a whole different story.

It's now 42-33 UND with 15:50 to go.

Turnovers have been a problem this year. I believe UND averaged a little over 20 per game, which is way too many.

It seems to me that last year's Olympics pretty much showed how the Lamoureux's compare to other American college-age players. And there's nothing "second-best" about their play IMO.

Sounds like USD has replaced the Lamar game with NAIA Northwestern Oklahoma State, per a tweet from Mick Garry.

With what Oakland (currently RPI 56) loses, I would expect them to plummet next year, perhaps similar to how far NDSU fell after Woodside and co. left. That alone could tighten things up somewhat between the two conferences. What seems to be killing the Big Sky right now is that there are four really weak teams--Eastern Washington, Portland State, Idaho State and Sac. State. They are all in the 293-330 range. By contrast, the Summit has just two teams in the 290's or worse (maybe two again next year even without Centenary unless USD improves greatly). Hopefully a couple of the current bottom-tier of the Big Sky can improve to the point where they're not dragging down the conference's ranking as badly as they currently are.

Even though I freely admit that it makes no difference in the scheme of things, I look at it this way: Houston Baptist has two rather good wins--Middle Tennessee St. (213) and Texas State (231). Centenary has one win total, and it was against Western Illinois (337). So even though I realize strength of schedule plays a big role in the computer rankings, and the Great West teams all have low strengths of schedule, it really seems that common sense suggests that Centenary has far more of a claim to the coveted "worst dI team in America" title than does Houston Baptist.

I understand that, but my point is that realistically, a good case could be made that Centenary is in actuality the worst team in the country, even though using RPI as the sole measuring stick, they are not. It's difficult to conceive of a dI team losing to a team with three scholarship players, but obviously Western Illinois managed to do so.

It's certainly not a great win, but any road win is something of an accomplishment for this program considering how few such wins there have been in recent years. HBU does have the worst RPI in the country right now, although they did recently beat Middle Tennessee St. from the Sun Belt, which has an RPI of 213. I'm still not sure how Centenary, with only one dI win (not to mention just three scholarship players), isn't the lowest-ranked team right now.

Just watched part of the first half of North Star's first round game at the Class B state tournament. Lindahl has 21 points (including five 3's) at the half.

On paper, this could be the most talented group of young receivers we've had in a long time. Really looking forward to seeing how much Hardin and McGill will improve from last season, and how much of an impact Townsend, Ivery and Carrasco will have in their debut seasons.

UND seems to match up well with Cal Poly. The Sioux won two years ago, and lost by just one on the road last year. With competent quarterback play, I think UND has a very good chance to beat Cal Poly at the Alerus.

Sioux lose 59-52.