PCM

Who filed for divorce?

I agree. The NCAA, in effect, is saying to UND, "Just admit that you're a racist institution and change your name -- or else!" The NCAA Executive Committee issued a decreee without putting it to a vote of the membership and now wonders why people out here have dug in their heels in oppositon. For schools in states that either don't have significant American Indian populations or don't have a significant number of American Indian students, rolling over to the NCAA is probably little more than an inconvenience. It's not the same here.

Unfortunately, there will be many in the media who consider Jackson an expert on the Sioux name issue.

From the Grand Forks Herald: VIEWPOINT: Racism at protest shames UND

That's a statement with which I can totally agree. There have been Sioux teams in recent years that I'd consider "underachievers." Those would be the 97-98, 98-99 and 03-04 UND teams. I don't think anyone would have been surprised had any of those teams won national championships.

My photos from Tuesday's autograph session at Ralph Engelstad Arena can be seen here. This one's my favorite. I'm not sure why. Sioux-cia's unique award to Mike Prpich is a "must see." Hocky Mom's Avatar also put in an appearance.

Nobody's trying to have it both ways. There are three possibilities. Either the team underachieved, overachieved or finished about as expected. Clearly, reaching the Frozen Four with 9-10 freshmen playing every night is not underachieving. Was it realistic to expect a team with that many freshmen to reach the Frozen Four? I don't recall anyone with any hockey knowledge making such a prediction before the season started. If you know of such experts, kindly list them here. The only remaining conclusion is that the team overachieved. If you disagree with that conclusion, please feel free to list those experts who said UND would be a Frozen Four team by season's end. Most people felt that if the Sioux could qualify for the West Regional, they'd be doing well. The "too young to win anything this year" label was hung on the Sioux early in the season and stayed there until they won the Broadmoor. Even after that, there were quite a few teams in the PairWise Rankings above UND.

I took some shots at tonight's signing session at the REA that I'll post under the SiouxSports.com gallerys. I'm just now getting on the computer, so it might be another hour or so. I'll post a link here.

You can only say that a team overachieved or underachived by establishing a realistic base point at the beginning of the season. Do you know of anyone more qualified to do that than the WCHA coaches? I don't. Every year, there are a number of teams that do better than expected in the league and teams that do worse than expected. UND did slightly better than expected. So I ask again: How many experts named UND the odds-on favorite to win the Broadmoor Cup? How many experts picked UND as the odds-on favorite to advance to the Frozen Four out of the West Regional? With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, you now pretend to know that anything less than a national championship for UND represents underachievement. How convenient.

Simple math: 0 > 18 0 > 13

Again, you are making these statements with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. When a team picked to finish fifth in its league ends up as one of the top four teams in the nation, saying that the team overachieved is not a stretch at all.

The Sioux were picked to finish fifth in the WCHA by the league's coaches. Many wrote them off after being swept at home by SCSU. They dropped down to sixth place in the league and out of the top 14 in the PairWise Rankings. Many picked them to lose the series with Mankato, one of the hottest teams in the WCHA at the time. Remember the Mavs? They were coming right off sweeps of Wisconsin and SCSU. And I don't recall too many people picking UND to win the Broadmoor, do you? A lot of people picked Michigan to beat UND at the West Regionals. And even if the Sioux got past the Wolverines, many didn't think they had any chance of getting past the Gophers. It's very easy in hindsight to look back and pretend that you and everybody else knew that UND would make it all the way to the Frozen Four. But the truth is, if the Sioux hadn't finished in the top five of the WCHA, nobody would have been surprised. If they hadn't made it to the WCHA Final Five, nobody would have been surprised. If they hadn't made it out of the West Regional, nobody would have been surprised. So, yes, I think it's easy for Sioux fans to say that their team overachieved because it did.

Nobody's saying that you're supposed to love it. However, you do make a good point. It's best to take such off-topic discussions to e-mail or private messaging. That's what they're for.

I can't make any meaningful predictions until I know what each team loses to the pros.

The link is not working for me, either. I sent them a comment about it.

Great pictures, as usual, Melissa.

I guess Ryan Bakken is right.

I didn't realize that NDSU and SDSU controlled the Big Sky Conference. The last time I checked, they weren't even in the conference. If UND is invited to join the BSC, it will be because the presidents of the BSC schools and Fullerton are convinced that it's in the best interest of the conference to have UND as a member, not because NDSU and SDSU approve.

Your guess is as good as mine. My guess is sooner rather than later.

The correct spelling is "Vaht?"

I rest my case.

I can only hope that NDSU's leadership has more common sense than you.

No, I'm not being loose at all with the word "final." As it stands right now, that is the date the NCAA has set for deciding all outstanding appeals. Yes, the NCAA could decide to do something else to drag the process out further if it so chooses, but as of right now, it has given no indication that will happen. If you know something I don't, please share it.

After watching the game against BC again, I thought back to how often during the season Hakstol discussed Jordan making big saves early in a game to give UND the opportunity to take the lead. There have been few times this season where that hasn't happened, and when it hasn't, the Sioux usually lost. Unfortunately, against BC, it was one of those games in which Parise didn't make the big saves early and Schneider did. I'm not hanging the loss on Jordan by any stretch of the imagination. There were pleny of bad penalties, poor line changes and blown defensive coverages throughout the game to spread the blame around. Really, I think it's quite an accomplishment that the Sioux made it a one-goal game at the end.