rochsioux

This has been my feeling all along: http://forum.siouxsports.com/index.php?sho...mp;#entry395398 When UND took the NC$$ to court the only real reason was to get them to retract the hostile and abusive label. The rest was just a sham, they had no intention of really trying to keep the nickname. What UND and the state board didn't count on was that the tribal membership would take the lead in trying to save the name. Pretty much a reversal of what most would have thought when the lawsuit was filed against the NC$$. Most would have said that UND and the state board would be fighting to keep the name...when in reality UND and the state board are doing everything they can to eliminate the name without having to take the blame. UND is insulating themselves by saying it is not their decision, while the state board is a group of unelected individuals, unlikely too many will place the blame on elected officials. If they really want to keep the nickname they would let this play out with Standing Rock. Wait till the elections and see what the makeup of the tribal council is and see what can be done. The road blocks that the state board and UND keeps putting up just validates my feelings on this. This does not have to be resolved by 10/1 so we can get into the Summit. I firmly beleive the Summit League wants UND and is just throwing the nickname issue out to help UND move the timetable up so the nickname can go before both tribes can agree. They also don't need a 30 year agreement. I understand they don't want to be held hostage on this issue every time the tribal council changes. What they need to do is get an agreement from SR which along with the recent resolution from Spirit Lake would satisfy the conditions of the NC$$ surrender agreement and should also satisfy the great Summit League. Then UND has to work with both tribal councils to put in place something of tangible benefit to the tribes (some will see this as a bribe, I don't have a problem with this) that is tied into UND keeping the name and logo. That way future tribal councils will know exactly what it will cost the tribe if they revoke their support...the councils may be very wary of approaching this issue in the future if they know that 1) the membership is in favor and 2) they will lose something tangible ($$$, scholarships, etc). Imagine if SR would come out with a resolution tomorrow supporting the nickname but said nothing about a 30 year agreement. We would then have both tribes agreeing to the nickname and yet the state board, based on what they have said, would still retire the name. I think that tells you all you need to know on the where the state board and UND really stand on this issue and how commited they are to retaining the Fighting Sioux legacy.

Huh ? Please explain. Last year UNO averaged around 6200 fans/game at home. Not bad but they could have had significantly more, the Quest Center capacity is 16,680. Why would the WCHA want to move the premier event to Omaha ? The XCEL capacity is 18,064. The Final Five is close to a sellout every year there. Why would they risk moving it to a smaller venue that has not shown they would be able to support it ? It is also a further drive for fans of almost every team. Additionally, UNO has not shown they can be a top club, so what is the likelyhood they would even make the final 5(6) ? If they don't make it do you really believe they could sell out the arena ? That's what would need to happen for the WCHA to even consider it. What are the advantages to the league in holding it in Omaha. I don't see any, only a loss of revenue.

Where did you see Feb 23-24 for CC ? The schedule shows them on Feb 26-27 - http://www.fightingsioux.com/SportSelect.d...p;Q_SEASON=2009

The fact that REA would keep the Sioux logos or not has no effect on UND. The only possible impact is that REA could not host an NCAA regional. Given the fact that the NCAA wants to move away from campus hosting and the fact that we have only hosted one regional ever, I highly doubt we will ever see another regional at REA anyway. Spirit Lake voted overwhelmingly for the nickname/logo. From all indications there is an effort ongoing to put this to a vote on Standing Rock in July or Sept. Also, the Standing Rock council is up for election in Sept where it might be possible there would be new leaders that would be more open to an agreement on keeping the name. However, they wouldn't take office until Oct.1 which is too late because the SBOE set an Oct 1 deadline. The SBOE might as well have dropped the name immediately for all the good an Oct 1 date will do. Again I ask, why are we rushing this ? We have abother year and a lot can change in that time. A year ago, who would have thought we would have had a vote from Spirit Lake ? I can only come up with two reasons for rushing this decision: 1. The UND admin wants to get the name changed. They see some progress being made on the reservations and they want to put a stop to it. They are tired of dealing with the nickname/logo controversy and would like to end it once and for all. 2. We are worried about getting into the Summit conference. This makes little sense to me and I agree with what DamStrait has previously said. The league knows this will be resolved long before UND will become an active member, therefore there has to be something else there...it would be nice to ask Douple a few questions under oath about an NCAA involvement in this...something just doesn't smell right. I wouldn't mind also asking a few questions of Faison/Kelly under oath and explore what kind of discussions they have had with Douple...it wouldn't surprise me if they were somehow working with Douple to help put pressure on getting rid of the nickname. Otherwise, there is just no reason for Douple to care about this issue in considering UNDs membership in the Summit...at most he could ask UND to provide a letter certifying that the issue will be resolved prior to UND becoming an active member. Bottom line, if the league wants UND then the nickname issue is not going to stop us from getting in.

Don't see how that will matter. Even if new members are elected that are in favor of the nickname they don't take office until Oct 1 which is the deadline for getting a 30 year agreement.

UND appears to be in panic mode to get the nickname resolved, all for the hope of getting into the great Summit league, The Summit League? Ya, let's throw 80 years of tradition down the drain so we "hopefully" can gain entrance to a bottom-feeder D1 conference. We don't get a second chance to keep the name, why are we giving up just when a few things started to fall in place to keep the name. Makes absolutely no sense to me. How bout this. We drop the nickname for all sports that are just dying to join the Summit. Hockey can keep the name forever, we will just not host any playoffs, probably wouldn't get any anyway. Football can wait and decide later. They're not eligible for post-season for four more years so there is no hurry. Any way we can do this given the surrender agreement with the NC$$ ? We can start a new trend of having multiple nicknames based on the sport. Gotta be some great marketing ideas there. I know if I had paid for REA I would not go along with the agreement. Not one logo would be removed from the arena, in fact I would probably start adding more. The only way I would go along with it is if the tribal members voted against the use of the nickname. That is a decision that I could respect. I would not give in to a pathetic group like the NC$$ or a group of professional complainers that will always find something or someone to blame for their problems when maybe they need to be looking in a mirror.

I have always believed the settlement was a sham. http://forum.siouxsports.com/index.php?s=&...st&p=323587 http://forum.siouxsports.com/index.php?s=&...st&p=350388 http://forum.siouxsports.com/index.php?s=&...st&p=350419 They are now holding out the Summit as the reason to act quickly. Look, the Summit already knows that the nickname issue will be resolved based on the surrender agreement with the NC$$. If they really want UND then UND will be in the Summit regardless of rushing or waiting till 2010. It wouldn't suprise me if there was a plan between the Summit and UND to use the issue of conference membership to get the nickname retired. The urgency now is that one tribe voted and overwhelmingly supported the Sioux nickname. The other tribe is working on getting a vote and the results would in all likelyhood be the same. My take has always been that UND admins want to get rid of the name. They are just looking for some cover on the issue so they don't take the blame. The first was to blame the tribes (by way of the surrender agreement requiring both tribes to approve). Now that there is a slight chance that this could occur (thru referendums and new elections this fall) they are in a panic and have decided that we have to get into the Summit and if we don't act quickly we may never get in. Great leadership on this from UND. As I have said before, give it the entire three years. If, at the end of three years, we still don't have an agreement then begin retiring the name. We don't need to have the name retired prior to that. At worse we will be banned from hosting or using the nickname in the post-season for the next year while the nickname is retired. There would not be one sport affected by this since we are still going thru the D1 transition.

FWIW, DU / CC have played 271 times UND / MN have played 273 times according to MN records and 266 times according to UND records.

Let's see if we can make an 11-team conference schedule workable while keeping to 28 league games. Group the "natural rivalries" as follows. UND - MN - Wisc (with 11 teams one group needs to have 3 teams). DU - CC AA - Mankato SCSU - BSU UMD - MTU Note: These are the current rivalries with BSU replacing UND. Play each team twice with an additional series against your rival(s) and play a total of 28 league games (same number of league games as today). After scheduling each team twice and the rivals for another two games each, UND, MN, Wisc are at 24 games and the other eight teams are at 22 games. UND-MN-Wisc can each schedule two of the other eight teams each year so they will play a home/home series once every 4 years with the other eight teams. That gets those three teams to 28 games. The other eight teams will play three additional series. Once every four years they will get a home/home with UND, MN, Wisc. Slightly more than one out of three years they get a home/home with the other six non-rival teams. Seems workable to me and as a Sioux fan has the benefit of restoring yearly home/home series with MN and Wisc. I think it is fair to put these three in one grouping given their history with each other and the fact they lead the league in attendance by a large margin over the other eight teams. I believe UND/MN has played more games against each other than any other rivalry in college hockey. I would like to get this back to four times every year and not water it down any more.

In the same spirit that brought everyone together to fight the flooding, now would be a good time to call a truce to the hostilities between the two schools and get this game scheduled for this year. Play the game in Fargo, raise the ticket prices with the money going to the flood victims. Have a return game at Grand Forks at the next available opening on the teams schedules. What has happened in the past is the past, you will never get everyone to see it the same way.

This is what I had (air force played last week): MIAMI v. Denver -- week off teams 1-0 air force v. Michigan Princeton v. Duluth VERMONT v. Yale -- 2-0 OHIO STATE v. Boston -- 2-1 air force v. VERMONT -- 3-1 Cornell v. Northeastern NEW HAMPSHIRE v. North Dakota -- 4-1 MIAMI v. Duluth -- 5-1 BSU v. Notre Dame -- 6-1 BSU v. Cornell -- 7-1 NEW HAMPSHIRE v. Boston -- 7-2

Congrats to BSU ! Interesting stat this year if I did this right. Of the 12 regional games, 9 of them involved one team that had the prior week off and one team that didn't. The teams with the prior week off went 7-2, the only team to win a game against a "week-off" team was BU.

If this passes by a convincing margin it will certainly increase the pressure on Standing Rock to put it to a vote. Should they continue to resist putting it to a vote and the nickname goes, there will be one person that is solely responsible. Ron His Horse is Thunder can take all the credit for the name going away...he should be fine with this as that is what he has wanted for a long time.

Great minds think alike

My keys to winning the regional: 1. Powerplay - special teams The PP has to be much better than it has been the past few weeks. I would like to see an occasional variation on the PP, something that is not on tape...maybe putting Finley in front of the net, no way anyone will move him out and it would be difficult for the goalie to see with himthere. I would also like to see Kozek on one of the wings once in a while. The few times he is used on the PP they put hime in front of the net which doesn't give him the chance to use his best asset which is his laser wrist shot. Whatever we do I don't believe we can just stand pat and continue what we are doing. It is not working and right now looks like it is easy to defend. If we win the special teams battle we greatly increase our chance of winning the game. 2. Aggressive play IMO, we seem to play our best when we are aggressive and hitting everything in sight. I don't feel like we are hitting as much lately, maybe it is due to injuries but if we don't hit we won't win. 3. Adapt to the game If a few players are below par don't hesitate to change things up. With all the tv timeouts there is no need to roll four lines all game. If some players aren't getting it done then let them sit. Can't be quite so patient now that it is one-and-done. Play and coach the entire game with a sense of urgency. This team can win the regional but to do so we need to play our best two games of the season. 4. No more brain farts Cannot see anything that comes close to the screwup that cost us the first goal against UMD. Can't happen or we lose. No defensive breakdowns or turnovers, no cheating on the offensive end that leads to odd-man rushes. We need Finley and Genoway to play at the top of their games. 5. Passing Quick tape-to-tape passing with speed. Helps in all facets of the game. Seems like too many passes are just off or bouncing which destroys any flow to the game. It is really noticeable on the powerplay. 6. Goaltending Obviously we need Eids to be on top of his game. He is no longer a freshman. I am guessing he has played in as many or more games as a freshman than Lammy did in his first two seasons combined so he has had considerable experience. 7. No excuses After the games, win or lose, we need to be able to say we played and competed to the best of our ability at this time. I don't want to hear about heavy legs, etc. At this time of the year there can be no excuses. If someone is battling an injury and that limits what they can do then maybe they should be sitting. Play Toews or Davidson, shorten the bench, whatever it takes. This senior class is special to me. It may be a long, long time till we get another freshman class with as much talent as that group of 13. They have gone to three frozen fours and a fourth is not out of the question. I have had the pleasure of meeting most of them and getting to know many of the parents. Without exception they are some of the nicest people I have ever met in my 40 years of following Sioux hockey. It doesn't seem possible that these four years are coming to an end. The only proper ending for their college careers is to win their final game of the season. Finally, if I could say one thing to the team it would be this: "Play smart, play aggressive, and leave it all on the ice". I am heading out to Manchester on friday and I am not ready for the season to end. Go Sioux !!

The only chance I see for UND in msp: Northeast - Manchester 1 - BU 15 - OSU 7 - UMD 10 - UNH Midwest - Grand Rapids 2 - Notre Dame 16 - BSU 6 - NE 12 - Princeton West - Minneapolis 3 - Denver 13 - Miami 8 - UND 11 - Cornell East - Bridgeport 4 - Michigan 14 - AF 5 - Yale 9 - Vermont That would fix attendance in msp if it is a concern.

I doubt they would make the #1 overall seed travel to msp when it is 60 miles to manchester.

My guess if UMD wins: Northeast - Manchester 1 - BU 15 - OSU 8 - UND 10 - UNH Midwest - Grand Rapids 2 - Notre Dame 16 - BSU 7 - UMD 12 - Princeton West - Minneapolis 3 - Denver 13 - Miami 6 - NE 11 - Cornell East - Bridgeport 4 - Michigan 14 - AF 5 - Yale 9 - Vermont

I would agree on BU. Not sold on Notre Dame, their schedule was pretty weak. Notre Dame is 29-5-3, an excellent record. A more detailed look shows some weakness. They did win the games they should win, going 19-0-3 against teams that were not TUCs. Can't do much better than that and there certainly is something to be said for winning games you should win. Their record against TUCs was 10-5, still sounds pretty good except that 6 of these wins are against teams #23 and #24. Their record against the top 16 in the pairwise is only 3-5. Most, if not all of their games in the NCAA tourny will be against these types of teams. I think Notre Dame is a pretty good team, just not sold that they should be given any more consideration than UND, DU, or Mich. Here is the breakdown of their record (pairwise ranking given when appropriate): UMich 1-1-0 #3 Denver 0-1-0 #4 UMD 1-0-0 #13 Miami 0-2-0 #14 OSU 1-1-0 #16 BC 1-0-0 #17 NMU 4-0-0 #23 UA 2-0-0 #24 Sacred Heart 2-0-0 Prov 1-0-0 LSSU 2-0-2 BGU 4-0-0 WMU 1-0-1 FSU 2-0-0 Union 1-0-0 UNO 4-0-0 MSU 2-0-0

I don't understand these types of claims. The selection process is an open book and is easy to understand. Prior to the actual announcement the teams are already known based on the pairwise. There is no conspiracy, no hidden agendas. The pairwise formulas are well known, they are not modified once the season starts to try and favor any one team. Now, I don't agree with the pairwise method as there are serious flaws as I have gone into in other posts but there is nothing sneaky about it. If the gophers make it, it will be because they were high enough in the pairwise rankings after the autobids to get selected. The 6 conference tourny winners get autobids, the remaining 10 teams are the highest ranking teams in the pairwise. Now, if the NCAA selection committee were to diverge from this then you might have a valid claim. But they haven't in the past and I don't believe they will this year.

In a best of seven series I might agree. In a one game elimination, especially in hockey, the best team does not always win. In fact, more often than not it probably doesn't. Therefore I would prefer playing a team where we might win 70-80% of the time versus 60%. I want the path of least resistance. To win #8 we need to string together 4 wins. If each game we played we had a 70% chance of winning, then we would have approx a 25% chance of winning the title. If we had a 60% chance in each game then we only have a 13% chance of winning the title. In as one game elimination it takes skill and some puck luck to win a title. It also greatly increases your chances if you get a favorable draw.

Here is the final standings in the Summit and their RPI rank: North Dakota St. #87 Oral Roberts #143 Oakland #122 IUPUI #247 IPFW #228 Southern Utah #266 South Dakota St. #283 Western Ill. #328 Centenary #291 Mo. Kansas City #309 To get the Summit autobid, a team has to finish in the top 8 then win 3 games in the conference tourny. Everyone can make their own judgement on how difficult this is. I don't mean this as a putdown of the Summit. I would be happy if UND joined the Summit and am realistic about their future in BB. They will never win a national championship, the best you can hope for is to make the tourny then win a few games and make the sweet sixteen. That will never give me the same satisfaction that winning a national championship in hockey does. And I am a big BB fan, there was a period of 10-12 years where I rarely missed any home UND hockey, BB, or football game. I have also been a big fan of UNC, mainly because I loved the way Dean Smith coached. I hope NDSU can give Kansas a good game, maybe even pull off the upset. I don't need NDSU to fail to make me feel good about UND, we already have more hockey championships since 1980 than any other D1 school. My problem is the hype surrounding just making the "dance", I just don't get that, it is not THAT difficult to just make the tourny...it is much more difficult to win a few games.

To win #8 we need to step up our play in all areas. Our PP has been poor lately and at times downright horrible. Same with the penalty kill. Our passing looks like we are playing on choppy ice, we need much sharper tape to tape passing. I knoiw we can do this because I have seen us do it this year. Based on recent play you could make the argument that the team has already peaked. I hope not. In too many of the recent games the team has come out with "heavy legs" (even Hak has mentioned this a few times). Not sure why when every game we have played recently has had significant meaning. How many guys are playing with injuries that are affecting their play? IMO, Trupp and Gregoire have been off a bit and both have missed some games recently with injuries. Last year we seemed to slip some after the Duluth series when we lost Trupp and Genoway to injuries. Although Genoway made it back for the playoffs he definitely wasn't the same, I believe he was playing with a cast on his hand. We won the regional in Madison but we really didn't play that well, and in hindsight it shouldn't have been a big surprise that we got beat handily in the FF. I wonder if there is a mental/physical toll that happens to the players/coaches in the second half of the season when we have to battle so hard to make up for the slow starts? Sometimes when you have to battle back to make up a large deficit, the natural reaction once you "catch up" is to relax for a minute. Once you do that it is hard to recapture the momentum you had. Having said all this, I am hopeful the team will pick up their play and we can get #8. A lot will depend on the tourny draw and how healthy we are. Also, a little good luck wouldn't hurt.

Please explain how these stats represent more parity in BB than hockey ?? 19 different teams in BB represents 6-7% of the eligible teams. 14 hockey teams represents 20-25% of eligible teams. Seems to me there is more parity in hockey than in BB. Has there ever beeen a #1 seed that lost in the first round of the BB tourny ? Not yet. I think we all know that a #1 seed has lost in hockey. I think it is great that NDSU is in the NCAA BB tourny. IMO, it is not a great accomplishment, not yet. If they get to the sweet 16 then it is. But winning the Summit conference tourny to gain an auto-bid is not a great accomplishment. In fact, if they lost in the conf tourny but got an at-large bid I would consider that to be a bigger feat. I would feel the same if it was the UND basketball team and I would be happy they made it. When it is all over and they go home after the first w/e it would be pretty hard to be excited about the appearance. In reality, the ultimate goal for both UND/NDSU in D1 BB is to someday make a sweet sixteen, I would consider that feat to be on the same scale as winning a D1 hockey championship.

Personally I would take a game against any ECAC team over having to play BU, NE, Notre Dame, Mich, Denver, NH, BC, Vermont, MN, UMN, Wisc, or Miami. Not that it would be a sure win, cause they could definitely could lose a game. But the teams in the WCHA and HE and to a lessor extent the CCHA play a much more difficult regular season schedule which makes them tougher in the post season. Yale is the highest ranked ECAC team. They are #7 pairwise, #14 KRACH, #8 RPI. I'm sure they have a good team. Their strength of schedule is #44 in KRACH and #44 in RPI. I would be fine with Yale a #1 seed and UND a #2 seed in the same bracket. Does that guarantee another Frozen Four ? Nope. But I would much rather play Yale in a regional championship than BU, ND, Mich, or Denver.