Ole in MSP

UND WBB outscored 21-0 right out of the chute. Too bad it was not NDSU. Like the men's team, UND women are short on maturity too. Closer perhaps to the mid major teams in talent than the men, but equally immature. Is it a thing that comes from living and playing in a small town environment or what? Seems to be a chronic issue with some UND teams.

Not only Bigs, but athletic Bigs. UND will go nowhere recruiting skinny ND and Upper midwest white kids unless you can find 5 Phil Jackson's. They need to get into the heart of HS BB in the bigger cities, inner cities, places where the kids play BB all day long like the kids in Minnesota and ND do with hockey. They need to find tough kids who would be Big 10 partials or walkons that would only play a role at a Big 10 school and tell them they will either start or get lots of minutes as the first player off the bench. Personally I do not think there is one kid on the UND team that is good enough to make it in the Big 10 even as a bench ridereven Huff, who would have been eaten alive by now by any Big 10 coach worth his pay. In addition they need to start coaching these kids that they are a team. The victory over Montana should have been easier than it was and if you cannot shoot 75% from the foul line your scholarship is in jeopardy. C'mon, we have been building for almost 5 years to play big time BB. It is time to look like it. Where is Bill Fitch when you really need him? Lots of season left. Let's see some improvement.

You surely cannot be serious! SD Mines won one game this year. They lost to Sioux Falls 71-7, a team UND beat solidly while playing poorly. They lost to Missouri Mines 60-6, a team that USD hammered. This game should not happen. It will be another Crookston debacle and anyone with any sense will find something else to do.

The Bison play the Gophers, UND is playing the Vikings!

I am sure they did. He was pretty candid during the post game interview. Said these kids are on scholarship and need to work harder to continue to earn them. One question I have always had about his teams. He is always advocating fast play. In circumstances when you have the lead late, is it not wise to slow down a bit and run the clock? The limited games I have seen are always up tempo and this seems to lead to a lot of turnovers especially late. Is the shot clock different in WBB? They had the lead late and still seemed to want to force the ball. Comments?

With my best Jim Mora impersonation "Coaching, did you say coaching?! The best indicator of a good coach is consistency and control/molding the players to work best for the team. I do not see that on a regular basis. Lack of a couple of athletic big men hurts, but we are one year away from being in a legitimate big time BB environment. We better improve and mature fast.

ND should get smart like Wisconsin, Iowa etc. and build a regional airport midway betweend GF, Fargo, Devils Lake and whatever city is the closest to the NS line west of Fargo (Jamestown?). Central Wisconsin Airport and Eastern Iowa airport have proven to be big benefits to each region. The population of Eastern ND is not large enough to support 3 airports that will handle major airlines and likely will not be in the foreseeable future. Those in Fargo may think they deserve their own, but realistically they are still a small player in the airline world with cost considerations being far more important than providing connections service. I am sure this will never happen as the climate for working together is zero, but long term, this is a better option than fighting to maintain local services.

Sorry if I offended. I am a GF native BTW, but rarely get there. When my younger daughter (a national merit scholar) was looking at colleges about 10 years ago now, we visited Drake and stayed in Des Moines. I think everything in town was closed downtown except one Italian restaurant. There was only one hotel near downtown that was acceptable and the department chair in the school of journalism offered nothing except bad mouthing other J schools. To put it bluntly, DM was a cowtown in those days and in recent years driving around it I still find no reason to get off the Interstate. Ironically, same daughter married a Drake grad while she was at UW Madison and he was in law school there and my neighbor's daughter is a Pharm D grad from Drake. Go figure!

Scores vs UND and NDSU were similar, but keep in mind the Bison played at WIU while WIU played at UND. Not sure how many points that swings, but it is worth noting. I think UND should be very competitive against the Bison, but again, it will almost be a "neutral" court if played at the REA. Would be a nice win if UND does it.

Is there something in the water in GF that makes many of the UND teams go on the road and play so poorly in the early stages of games? Is it maturity, is it preparation/scouting, is it "small school" syndrom? This is a recurring theme, not just for the WBB and not all the time, but it is frequent enough to question some of the coaching staff about being ready to play. It happens in FB, MBB, even hockey too. Just wondering since I have not lived in GF in many years. Drake is a smaller school in a rather mundane community in a mundane state. UND should not be "unprepared" to play in these places.

Two things, one positive, one negative: WIU lost by 4 at Michigan, good for UND's credit, Michigan looked like %^&* against Duke in Maui, brings Michigan into question. Bottom line; UND playing as well as they can for 40 minutes can be a very good team. Not playing as well as they can, they can be beaten by mediocrity. Hopefully the guys play at the top of their game, injuries stay away, Huff gets out of his funk, and with a litttle luck, it could be a great season. Go Sioux, or whomever the hell we are now.

I did not see or listen to the game, but in the box score I noticed that Huff was 1/6 from 3 pt, and 2/11 on normal shots. Anybody got some insight on that? Tough stats for a starter with his athletic ability.

For what it is worth, UW trampled Bradley by 24.

Thanks. Looks like he has an interest in the Ivy league schools.

Flipping back and forth between the CC/UND hockey game and the 5A finals of the Minnesota FB championships. Seems to be some darn good players on both teams and probably in the smaller divisions too. Mussman was at the hockey game between periods on TV. It is a bit late maybe in the recruiting season, but I sure hope that one or more of the UND coaches is scouting these games at the metrodome. RB and DE for Eden Prairie and QB for Wayzata in particular stand out.

Peace man. Love the Sioux. Hope they have a great year. Great win. Hope all the kids develop, get more physical and make the dance next year.

Turned the ball over 3 times in the last few minutes to let Montana back in the game and take the lead late. Not trying to beat the kid up. Just pointing out what I saw.

Kid can shoot pretty well, granted, but he is not strong enough or quick enough, not strong on feeding the ball or on the dribble. You could see that Montana knew that and picked on him late in the game several times forcing turnovers at a critical time. Saw the same thing last year. Probably the reason he is not starting. Looks like a real nice kid, but needs some muscle and some toughness in my opinion.

Never could appreciate the guy. Whined for years like a little kid. If the WCHA schools did not go to Canada in those days the Gophers would have had no one to play. Again, Renfrew started it, another hallowed Big 10 first and MacInnis, Bessone, and Armstrong along with UND followed in order to have enough players to have a team. U of M should be grateful to all those schools for playing them.

Yes, and never let Schuler bring the ball up the floor.

Gotcha! Sorry about that, short of time and that issue has been a sore spot with me for over 40 years. Mariucci started the whining back in the 60's or before and it still has not gone away. Michigan under Al Renfrew actually started the Canadian immigration followed up by Murray Armstrong at DU. From there it escalated. Gophers never hesitated to bring in FB players from 2000 miles away though who were more foreign to Minnesota than any Canuck from 100 miles north of GF. Take care.

You must be that informed Gopher fan that sat a few feet from me at Mary Ucci a couple of years ago that was ragging on Joe Finley yelling "go back to Canada". The look on your face when I told you he was from Edina gave me chuckles for weeks.

Anyone have any information about what if any recruits were in over the weekend to see the most up and down FB game in recent years? It had to be exciting for any body thinking of being a future Sioux.

That is correct. Should have said "i.e. NDSU did". Beating KU, Ball State and CMU were also notable accomplishments too. You have to give them credit for those wins over D1 schools.

I cannot complain much about SDM&T, but there are better DII opponents that would draw a better crowd. My biggest concern, the many weeks of inactivity on the schedules for 2013, 14,15. That is a ways out there, but many of the bigger schools are already scheduled that far out. I really really hope that now with the nickname behind us that Faison is working to get some FBS schools and notable FCS schools on the schedule for those years. Nothing generates interest like playing up and perhaps upsetting a FBS school i.e. NDSU.