Big A HG

What would you deem incorrect or false?

You don't understand and I don't know if you're playing ignorant on purpose or just don't get it, but I'll humor you nonetheless. We've won one NCAA game in the past seven years...against AIC....one. Woopdeedoo. We've missed three NCAA tournaments on merit since our title many years ago. The Ralph is emptying and big time recruits are less interested in UND than ever since the new Ralph opened. We used to get excited about all the first round picks we'd land, now we're excited about Carson Pilgrim...a very good player, but overly exaggerated only because the rest of Berry's recruits lately have been so lackluster. Berry's accountability with the roster has led to an ENTIRE defense leaving all at the same time, both of our top goalies leaving at the same time, and a bunch of forwards on top of that. It's normal to have the odd player or two leave earlier than expected, but it's not normal to lose that many kids at once unless you have someone incompetent running the program. Because of incompetent roster management, the best we can do is pluck players from Alaska and Lindenwood. Then, our head coach secretly trademarked a logo through various levels of anonymity and still got caught, only to have it swept under the rug. We're the UNIVERSITY of NORTH DAKOTA. We should be setting the f'ing standard with college hockey. Instead, we've looked like a bunch of buffoons while Duluth and Denver are winning championships and the Goofs are playing in title games too. I'm sorry you set the bar so low that you can't see anything but rainbows and tulips, but I have a higher standard for North Dakota hockey.

Complacency kills.

Who said Duluth wanted him?

Way to go Wooly!

Really? Wow! Here we have a kid who WAS a Sioux fan at a young age watching Hak's program. Then, after watching UND under Berry's control he ends up a Duluth fan?

Been here for 16 years and have hardly been all that negative. I'm sure after thousands of posts a few have slipped in. The sudden change is that I, and many others, have given Berry his multiple chances to get the program back on track, but the program keeps getting worse while rival programs have had success. Our program seemingly had multiple good recruits every year, not just the occasional good recruit maybe every couple of years. We had more accountability top-to-bottom and now there seems like there is none when you see what kind of roster turnover and the fact we are relying on the portal more than peers to even make a roster.

Thank you, sir!

The kid became a fan in the Hak era, not the Berry era. Did Berry even try recruiting him or did Carson just state he was playing for UND and Berry said "oh, what? a kid WANTS to play for us? We don't have to get only upperclassmen from Lindenwood and Alaska to make a team?"

Hak still getting commits even when no longer here!

Ope, yep....going from all the talk about NIL lately I brain-farted my way through the rest of my message about NLI. Somehow I managed to get the first NLI right. It's only Tuesday and the brain is already dead.

I've never signed an NLI so I don't know the full extent of what they're signing, but generally isn't there an out with an NIL if a coach were to leave since you're really not only signing to play for a program, you're also signing to play for a coach? From a raw athletics point of view, NIL sucks. From a neutral point of view, NIL makes sense. You go to college as a foundation for the start of your career. For some, athletics will become their career, for some it's the academics, and for others it's the opportunity for both. If a kid has an opportunity to improve that foundation, they shouldn't be locked in anywhere and should be able to make the best choice for their future.

Remember, more conferences equals more auto bids. This makes it more challenging for the power conferences to get more schools in the tourney, such as one that UND would likely be in. This is also presuming a tourney would remain at 16 teams versus a 20 team format where 4 and 5 seeds could theoretically do play-in games the day before playing the 1 seed in a regional.

Agree. We no longer owe them anything. We never really did, but they were a constant on our schedule to help them out when they were on shaky ground. The games weren't always easy, but even our bad games usually still resulted in a win. Now, they're plenty stable in their own conference and don't need any help staying afloat. Plus, the style they play can be a PWR killer for us when they do beat us now, and they're plenty capable of doing so.

Ditto! Would be more fun with a few beers bellied up to the bar, but the forum will have to do for now.

Just the relevant ones! And you're right, that Brad Guy is the Bad Guy.

A superhero movie without a bad guy would get boring pretty fast.

The problem with the "old upperclassman" team is that you have to make your runs count every few years when you have 'em. It'd difficult to have an old team every year.

You keep trying to argue with me about "your point" when I've never been discussing "your point". I keep telling you that I the Johannes pickup is fine for what it is while ignoring that it's not my point. We keep going around in circles like dogs chasing our tails. Go back to my first post I made today post-Johannes pickup and it had nothing to do with your point at all, yet you feel compelled to keep quoting me. I'm a big picture guy. Johannes is like a tulip growing on a grim, apocalyptic landscape...you keep wanting me to approve of your tulip while I'm looking at massive issue at hand with why our program has fallen so low on the roster management side of things.

I'm not talking specifically about Caulfield's replacement, UND did what they had to do based on the situation...I'm tired of repeating myself here. Generally speaking, it's already been working out poorly, it can hardly get any worse at this point (scary if it does!). Justifying this type of roster management is shameful for a program of our stature. I put our program on a pedestal and wish others did as well. Berry needs to be a roster accountant as part of his recruiting. You need to have a gauge for how long players are going to stay and how many you're going to need. You can just throw s**t at a wall and hope something sticks. It will never be exact, but most guys you should be able to get a general sense of how long they'll be at campus and our situation this year is horrendous for a program of our stature losing all six D-men at once, our top two goalies, half our forwards. Now we'll have SO many freshmen that if they don't pan out, you have to keep many of them for four years.

You're missing the point. No one is arguing that Johannes is a bad pickup under the circumstances. We're arguing that UND shouldn't be in these circumstances to need a Johannes.

AGAIN, I've said that we can't ignore the portal, multiple times now. I may not have clarified that with my direct reply to your comment, but I've said it multiple times already so didn't feel the need to say it again. We should have an abundant and rich recruiting pipeline and use the portal to flesh out a final piece or two when needed with additional high end talent that slipped through the cracks and ended up at smaller hockey programs. It should not be relied upon to merely flesh out a roster if we want to compete at an elite level each year. AGAIN, I'm not saying you can't bring in guys from the portal, but this is more than just bringing in a final piece to a loaded roster...this is key part of how Berry has needed to create a roster, which is what we shouldn't rely on. You mention Jandric but fail to mention Farmer or Sidorski. Jandric has a history of multiple years of being a capable player and it shows. Sidorski didn't do much before he got here and didn't do a lot while he was here. Farmer was up and down prior to being here and was up-and-down while here. These players are what they are and guys like Johannes aren't going to do much based on their overall career arc going back to juniors.

Croal is already scoring at a decent clip for Muskegon, leading their team in overall scoring (though not on a PPG clip) and would be 20 years old by fall. I don't see a lot of reason to leave him in the USHL another year personally. I would rather bring in a kid like that than another portal kid.

We all still love each other. These arguments remind of being a Packer fan living in Wisconsin back in 2008 when the Favre>>Rodgers transition happened...fights at Christmas, fights at the bar, fights among friends and neighbors. Brian doesn't like it when I say mean things about Berry though, so I have to be careful, even though I still like him too!

You brought up the Caulfield/Johannes comparison and I even went so far as to give you the benefit of the doubt in terms of potential performance for Johannes, so...