the green team

Unbelievable, you can watch the Women's NCAA tournament and Ball St. , the team the Sioux took to overtime in Muncie, Indiana, has just beaten- granted a young- but still a Tennessee Lady Vols team (this is the 1st ever- 1st rd loss in their tournament history). Wisconsin- GreenBay hung with LSU, Iowa State who hammered us-hammered their opening round opponent and even though we haven't played them for a few years, old NCC foe SDSU- won going away over TCU. The Sioux have a ways to go, especially with the 2 players we lost. But it's been interesting to see how these teams do.

I say heck, the Bison are already there- they already have guaranteed their check for making the tournament (which to me is what I'm jealous of, I wish we could get that infusion into our athletic budget)- I don't have a problem wishing them well. They have accompolished a lot with that win- and deserve the recognition they are getting. There are very few times in my life I could ever consider wishing that program well-but this indeed is one of them.

I don't know why we were anyone should be sensitive about his remarks- maybe because they hit so close to home. Our fans, including me are getting older, that Men's game against USD showed that the fans could at least come a live a little (great job by the way- I had so much fun seeing our men finally get USD at home again)- but there weren't hardly any students involved in it. I always get the feeling that our fans at the women's games just sort of lean back and say "impress us" because for as many as there are- and I am impressed by the numbers we get for the womens games, as I think most of our opponents are, they tend to be on the quiet side most of the time.

thanks for the update- I didn't have a chance to catch the show. Let's hope our players heal up as well. I would say our freshman who redshirted this year- will not be like typical freshman who come out of their redshirt season, because they never had a chance to practice and acclimate to the college game, (granted there always is still some adjusting, but at least they've had some work at this level) because they were recovering from injury, it just makes depth so very precarious, next season, in my view.

Lets not kid ourselves- we will never be getting any Big 10 or Big 12 teams to come play here...ever. I believe I should borrow a line from Han Solo "I'm out of it for a little while and everyone gets delusions of grandeur" The only reason Kansas did is because it allowed Boshee to play in front of the home state. The reality is, none of the schools Big 10 or Big 12 or any of the BCS basketball conferences for that matter, rarely play non-conference games outside their home arenas. They will go play a road game against another BCS basketball conferences- ie. N. Carolina at Mich St. (Ford Field) Arizona at Kansas, but these schools simply won't come here, because they don't have to. And because... money talks, if we want to play them- we do it on their terms and play them there. That's how it works. The Northern Iowa's and the Wisco GreenBays are about as big as it will get for us. But don't feel bad, most mid-major programs don't get those team at home either. I am pleased with the way our year 2 schedule is shaping up-for both the men and the women, and even though it would be nice to get the BIG conference teams at home I'm more than ok with some of the mid-major programs that will be coming to town.

I was disappointed to see Fargo South's coaches reply- It didn't seem to reflect dissappointment in his players behavior, instead he seemed to think all is well- well apparently, all is not well-there was a problem, and it sounds like you are refusing to address it.

I saw all the games yesterday, and no disrespect to Long from Standing Rock, because she is a superb player, who had an outstanding performance, but there is no player in the tournament that would be categorized as a d1 potential player-and I believe that includes her. It's nice to have the a B tournament in Grand Forks, I hope we do a good job putting it on. But you know if I'm wrong, then that's great too. This is just what I saw.

The guys on the radio broadcast tonight said that initially Sallley just chose to go to Seattle for school and wasn't even playing basketball until the coaching staff saw her in a pick up game. Apparently, when she left Minny she thought about hangin it up- but after the Seattle coaching staff saw her in intramurals I guess she had a change of heart. After seeing her tonight- you can tell she is a very good player.

It was reported last night on WDAZ that Whitney Ledger, may have suffered a season ending knee injury in practice. She has tests done today. This has been a truly crazy year in regards to injuries. I'm hoping for the best in regards to Whits knee-it would be nice to recieve some good news for a change, when it comes to injuries.

Honestly, I'm ashamed of some of the people who consider themselves UND sports fans. Many say their fans of UND, but really their only really fans of football, or hockey, or women's basketball. I love cheering for all our teams-win, lose or draw(I believe that used be an old game show on TV) but sadly that just isn't the case with most people. Even when the Sioux men win, people will say to me..."well look who they were playing" "or they didn't win by enough" good grief, some people in this world I believe refuse to be satisfied with anything, and whats really sad is that they take pleasure in it and are happy about that character trait. Even though I couldn't get to Vermillon, I watched and listened to both games, and was glued to it to the very end, granted I was a little woozy after that dismal 1st half by the men, but was very proud of their second half performance. I think if the South Dakota men were in D2, this year I would think they could have very well won a national championship--if I was a coach, fan, or player... I would be a little POh'd because this season of transition may have taken away a national title.

I thought it was interesting when listening to the Iowa St. game the other night when they talked about that Ames is a community of 26-27,000 and when school is in session the town expands another 26000 thousand- and even though school was out they still had 7000 in attendance, that's awesome, now granted Des Moines isn't that far away but still the support sounds amazing. Unfortunately, here is what I think is a very possible reality... 1. This transition to Division 1, results in more losing- this being a front runner fanbase, for hockey, football, basketball etc. It completely depletes whatever fanbase we have left and we never get to a fanbase point in my lifetime where we have to consider moving from the Betty. Plus, I really hate the idea of "well if we ever have any big games will move them into the Ralph", if I'm the home team I want to play those big games on what I usually play on... my home court, and my home atmosphere. 2. Because D1 athletics are incredibly expensive to fund, we reach a point where we continually have to sacrifice other programs to make budget. 3. There will be a point where our tradition won't be recent enough to resonate with attainable recruits and they choose to go elsewhere. Good recruits like to go to winners. Clearly, this move was made for the sport of football, (don't get me wrong I love cheering for our football team) but most other transitional schools except the ones in the Dakotas (notice I said, most) have made the move for the reason of basketball and the community and the student body at these institutions understand this and embrace it. I'm not sure that people realize that if we're going to be Divison 1, it would be imperative to have successful basketball programs, and one way to get better players to come here is to impress them with overwhelming fan support. Go ahead and ask a player if they want to go play in front of 1000 or 6000, if I'm the player and everything is fairly similar in other areas, student life, emphisis of study, I know where I'm going to go. I'm just not sure our community and student body are ever going to come around to it. I hope I am wrong in my pessimism, and since there is a long way to go in our transition, I will be interested to see how it plays out. Because, it would be an awesome day when the Betty is not big enough to hold the Sioux Basketball fanbase. I think its important to point out that the players on both the men's and womens basketball programs, this year have worked there butts off this season. They have my full support, I will go to as many games as I can and I appreciate their efforts as our programs forge ahead into a new era.

After the first 8 minutes the game was like 12-4, but after that it was ridiculous. I agree with game recap in the paper where the team equates this type of performance over Mayville St. to the things they've picked up while playing the division 1 programs-they are trying to raise their level of play. It was amazing to see how much more they dominated the Comets in every facet of the game compared to their last meeting in early November.

I agree coachdaddy, we all want to see this program improve--I think that is what gets all our blood boiling sometimes. There are definitely different ways of building the program- let's hope this path is the right one- this school can and should have a strong men's and women's basketball program. So did Jamestown cancel because they heard how great we were in the game against VCSU the other night? I was really surprised to see this happen -it's pretty rare that they cancel a college game. The weather isn't even bad yet, who's to even say there will even be a storm, how many times did the National Weather Service cry wolf last year. Even if their prediction is right, they seem to be predicting that the storm won't be here until later this evening- even if they got out of here by 5p after the game they could of made it back- plus they are a college program and if the weather got bad enough, couldn't they get rooms in GF.

I disagree, d1 type talented jucos are the ones being recruited by established programs (and they are choosing these programs) if they're not being recruited by others most likely they are not at the level of play needed at the d1 level, and secondly how do we know they will have degrees this year, if you talk to coaches, it happens quite frequently that players at the juco level are projected to get their degrees' (projected-being the operative word) and it comes to the end of the year and they don't. Really, it's not much different that major college basketball many are projected to get their degrees, but the reality is not all of them do. I'm sure they've got another talented team down there in Wahpeton again, they've done a great job with that program- I really like how you qualify your statement by saying "if we played them- they'd beat us." Well, thank you for that confident nugget of wisdom. If there is talented players there, I'm sure our staff is aware of it, but from what I understand signing a juco with the talent to compete is far more difficult for a transitioning d1 school than for others. The player(s) that can really be difference makers 9 times out of 10 will unfortunately head elsewhere. Our reality-we have a large freshman class that is redshirting. This is a gutsy play by the staff, but I like it. Hopefully, we'll pick up a few more pieces for next year and if one happens to be a juco who has size then I'm all for it, but I don't expect it.

Being division 1, we now go to the bottom of the heap as far as juco's are concerned. Why? Because now in order to get a juco player-that player must have attained a certain amount of credits, where as with DII rules, you don't need as many credits if your are a juco transfer. Now, think of it this way---- your pool now shrinks-- some players who are like Little for example, may not qualify (thus they will go to a d2 school) and the ones that do, who are at all- skilled, will be sucked up first by the big time programs that need help at those postions...leaving what I would consider a fairly weak pool of remainders. Unfortunately in my view- we are stuck.

From what I've heard, Lehnertz is still working his way back from the injury. It's been a little slower than expected from some the info I've gleaned. I was impressed with how hard Lehnertz worked last year, and it was beginning to show in his play- until he was injured. Let's hope eventually he will be fully recovered. I find him easy to root for.

Does anyone know what time this game starts? My calendar says 7, my pocket schedule says 7, the sked on FightingSioux dot com said 7 until today- now it's says 805- is anyone sure?

I thought Seay looked impressive, then again she did at times last year, but seemed to fade at the end of the season. Lof in the second half hit some perimeter shots and ran the floor well. Good to see her hit from the perimeter, as that was not where she scored from in high school. Kimbrough was outstanding (we kind of need her to be)-enough said- Ledger was sharp early and played hard every minute she was on the floor. Youngblut had early foul trouble, but was steady at creating ways to score in the 2nd half. I feel this team really needs to get better defensively. They don't cut off players on the dribble very well...granted as I was listening to the radio while watching the game the announcers did say they thought Mayville dribbled aimlessly alot- that I feel that was a pefect description of what Mayville was doing-over-dribbling, but good defenders will make a person who likes to dribble (whether with a purpose or in this case-not) and make them pick it up and I just don't see that in our defense right now- its early however. If I was going to my first basketball game- and didn't know what to expect, I would never come back-because the second half was completely unwatchable... I think someone mentioned 58 fouls for the game on a post. It almost seemed as if there were 58 fouls alone called in the second half.

Informal Survey- How many ticket packages do you think will be sold this year? I've seen them ( UND marketing) beginning to push that season tickets for both the men and women for $100 pkg. Does anyone think it will be good, bad or other? I just feel that with the home schedule being what it is this year, I may just buy, game to game.

I wasn't aware of any payment regarding the Seminole tribe and FSU, I am however aware that a resolution was drawn up by the tribe and given to the state legislature, many-many years ago- stating that the namesake Seminoles shall never be removed from FSU..that then was ratified by the state legislature. That's all I know- I honestly wasn't aware of any payment, I am aware that there has been less than 10 Seminole Tribe members enrolled at FSU over the past 20 years and I don't believe that they have any arrangement for educational benefits- such as the institution must enroll a certain number every year, as far as I know it doesn't exist. A Nole Fan.

Exhibition game is less than a month away- November 4th- (Why on election day, I have no idea). I anticipate were going to see alot more of the good ole Sioux offense this year with 4 out on the perimeter and 1 in the paint, just because we may not have the depth of personel to handle 2 posts picking up fouls while on the floor at the same time. On the Perimeter players- theres alot little battles for playing time I suspect, but I just hope at least a few will grab the opportunity and become game in and game out consistent go to performers. Any thoughts...

I don't think letting up on the weights is the answer...in fact I'm hoping those that are in this program continue to utilize strength and conditioning with vigor. Now that all sports that are DI, this is one program that could gain the most by continuing to improve and succeed, now with better competition- however, it also could take the greatest fall as compared to all other programs at UND. It was near the top of D2 year in and year out, the transition and D1 could just beat it into submission. I hope that doesn't happen- in fact I'm confident that we have the right people in place to do this right and succeed, (by succeed, I mean be competitive in DI, give the bigger schools a run from time to time, and routinely be considered one of the top 50 programs in the country on a year to year basis, and eventual make the tournament once we are elgible). I guess we could have a new nickname and logo...The Fighting Knee Braces The knee thing has certainly become an issue of late for us, but it really is an issue for girls and women's sports nationwide. Knee injuries occur with incredible more frequency to females than to men- why? I've heard a lot of explanations but seen very few solutions as of yet.

He could be inelgible I don't really know if he is or isn't, but I really am not overly concerned about it, as I believe he was going to be red-shirted this season any way. If he is, in comparison to the Chappel situation he still has his red-shirt to use, which will be this year, and if indeed that would be the case, I'm sure that the efforts of the staff throughout his entire first year would be to get him on track, so that he would be ready to play and contribute by next year which would be the earliest in the plans anyway--if they already intended to red shirt. He may not have the necessary grades in the core classes according to the NCAA Clearing House- which detemines the elgibility on each in-comming athlete. He may have qualified for entrance into school- but maybe had some tougher grades in some of the core classes that the Clearing House looks at. Honestly, maybe this is true, but even then- not at all unheard of, or uncommon. But first, I would consider the source... on a bison board. More importantly, there are alot of pieces in place to help all our student athletes and students at UND.

My understanding is that they hope to keep the red-shirt on all the incomming freshman... porter, bledsoe, oj, mertens, benter is just my guess- i doubt i'm even close...it would be nice to see monsebroten at least contribute in some way, always would like to see a local kid have some success, I don't know how realistic that is? Where did Denny Dumas go?

The Schedule has been officially released! 16 home games-nothing spectacular of whos coming here, this season. But @ Montana @Wisconsin Green Bay @Northern Iowa and @ Wichita State- not bad.