UND vs. SDSU

[UND Fan]

Impressive win - they sucked it up well after the embarrassment in Brookings. Hopefully, they may have learned something that will assist greatly in the maturity of this team.

[sioux2013]

Honestly, yes we will improve but don't think we will win. SDSU is a much better TEAM than us but in the world of basketball anything can happen on a given night. We can be red hot like they were the last game and they can be ice cold. However, it comes down to defense and right now our defense is very bad. I'm sure the boys are working their butts off in practice at the scrutiny of the coaches this week. Just hope the fans come out for this one. SDSU had over 4000 fans for the last game. It should be interesting to see how the players respond and how patient the coaches are with the way some of the players are playing defense and their shot selection. Go Sioux

What the hell was I thinking when I made this comment several days ago. I am so glad I was wrong. Everyone played well tonight and looked like a Team tonight. Way to go Sioux. Mitchell incredible and Allard, Schuler played great off the bench. Webb iced it down the stretch with layups and Huff had a great stretch of dunks and great passes. Anderson solid like normal. Everyone just played so well. Cant say enough good things about this game. I am excited. Now lets get a road win Sunday. Go Sioux

[Cratter]

Good job Mitchell! Keep it up!

[petey23]

great game tonight! 57 point swing...is that a record?

[sioux24/7]

Wow great game! Really liked the play of well everybody. I thought Jordan Allard and Doug Archer had some strong performances.

[Cratter]

Well looks what's possible when you play as a team.

Watch out Kansas and NDSU you're next!

[sioux24/7]

Has anyone been to one of the Sioux road games this year? Are we sure we are actually bringing this SAME team?

[Teeder11]

Rumor has it that Jones kept the score from the UND-Jacks game at Brookings up on the Betty scoreboard all week as a subtle reminder so the boys wouldn't forget.

[JackJD]

Congrats to UND -- payback can be fun. It sounded like your team came out firing and didn't look back. I suppose UND and SDSU can compare and contrast the two games and learn something from both. Both squads have a lot of youth so there will be some ups and downs.

A while back on another forum, you agreed with a Bisonville fan that both of you would never step foot again in Grand Forks because of how horrible our fan base is. Guess you forgot about that oath?

Really, though, I think you'd have been welcomed with open arms. The people that run into issues are the ones spouting "Sioux Suck Sh**t" as their main conversation pieces, but then wonder why they get treated differently.

An oath? (And, I still haven't been to a game in Grand Forks in a long, long time.) If I recall the nature of the comment you may be referring to, you're taking things out of context but, heck, it's your board so have at it (you usually do!).

Back to basketball and going forward: I think it's important that our respective schools have some bus-trip games to play. I have some interest in UND v SDSU basketball going back to my college days when UND had some good years and won about 2/3rds of the contests it had with SDSU. And, I will travel to some of the SDSU away games in the region and Grand Forks isn't a bad drive.

[Smoggy]

I'm so bummed I wasn't able to go. I even had free tickets offered.

How was the crowd?

[Teeder11]

I'm so bummed I wasn't able to go. I even had free tickets offered.

How was the crowd?

I was there.... crowd was disappointing as usual. The usual sea of empty seats were abound in the upper reaches and there were lots of empty seats scattered throughout. Behind the goals (supposed student sections) were especially embarrassing. Two male students, most of the the women's bb team and some players' girlfriends were about the extent of our rousing student sections. I know there's not much control over these things, but it seems that these big games are scheduled at inopportune times, i.e. most students are done with their final exams and are long gone. Oh well.... success will breed bigger attendance in the future, right?

[Teeder11]

I'm so bummed I wasn't able to go. I even had free tickets offered.

How was the crowd?

Official box score says attendance was 1,495. Capacity is between 2,400-2,500, I think. SDSU had more than 4,000 in Brookings last week.

[Feff]

Crowd was anemic but that's about expected. When people are even offered free tickets and don't take them, can you expect much more?

It was an absolutely amazing game and I wasn't even sure I was seeing straight after the beating in Brookings. Really shows the capability of this UND team. Anderson was solid all game, Webb gave an early spark and finished strong, Mitchell was definitely player of the game and I didn't think he was ever going to miss at one point, Schuler, Archer, and Allard were solid off the bench, Huff I thought played well within the offense for the most part (aside from a few forces which got him taken out of the game) and he was definitely a great finisher on the fast break, and I thought that Wilmer was rock solid getting the start. He didn't provide much offense but he was strong on the boards and played pretty good defense. Overall I liked the defensive effort, the number of forced turnovers was nice, but we would have those occasional lapses and leave wide-open shooters. I never could figure out why we would ever rotate away from Wolters.

Hopefully we can see more performances like this the rest of the year.

[SIOUXFAN97]

great game, horrible crowd again, and jones showed how to win with class

any idea how long brekke is out now!!! wilmer better stay healthy

[darell1976]

UND needs to play like this every game not once every 5 games. Great win!!!

[Nidaros]

Congrats to UND on a win. I think my Jacks were not ready to play this one. Unbelieveable shooting for UND. 60% in round numbers.

[the green team]

Wow, I was going to post last night but wanted to enjoy this one, and take some time to formulate some thoughts. First off this was a great response to an absolute embarrasment- it showed character and pride in the program. I know some on here wonder about our defense, but I thought it was very good. Remember the other team has college athletes too, and they sometimes will get themselves open. But let's look at it, SDSU was averaging about 78 points a game- we held them to 70. And yes they may have helped themselves too by missing some shots but there were far fewer easy baskets conceded in this game then there was even in the Montana game by our defense. My hope is that they build off this defensive performance and continue to get better on that side of the ball. Defense will win us a lot of ball games.

Individually, positives all around- especially nice to see Mitchell unleash what we know he's capable of, Allard, I was about ready to come out of the stands and smack you after passing up a wide open layup in the first half, but you were tremendous in the 2nd- in all phases. Wilmer, you gave us solid minutes when you were on the floor. Archer, that was great back to the basket turnaround over the defender in the 2nd half. Webb, Anderson, Schuler, Huff- goes without saying they were all there to make a play when we needed them-the backbone of our team.

Lastly, I was glad I got to see Wolters. He indeed is the real deal. How many did he hit over a defender, with a hand in his face? He is so smooth with his game, and last night may not have even been his best game. But wow the guy can play. Wasn't sorry to see Callahan have mediocre to poor game. Don't get me wrong, I hope he has a great rest of the season and harbor no ill will long term for him. But he was on this campus and chose to leave UND, probably ended up being the right decision for him as he's had a very good career, but I can't help but think what could have been. So maybe there was a little sweet justice for 1 night anyway.

Finally the crowd, ok not great numbers attendance wise but goodness, don't just sit back and take it all in. My biggest complaint is- I wonder if our fans are even into the game. Get out of your seat once in a while. Don't be afraid to make some noise- it's ok to be a little crazy every once in awhile. I'm guessing their crowd was all over us when we were down there. Get after that opposing team, bring down the roof when we go on runs. It's almost like our fans have to learn how to be college basketball fans.

My message to this team would be...Don't be satisfied with this- you should be confident that you can perform at this level but don't get satisfied and content- attempt to bring this to the floor every game. Home and Away.

[sioux2013]

Wow, I was going to post last night but wanted to enjoy this one, and take some time to formulate some thoughts. First off this was a great response to an absolute embarrasment- it showed character and pride in the program. I know some on here wonder about our defense, but I thought it was very good. Remember the other team has college athletes too, and they sometimes will get themselves open. But let's look at it, SDSU was averaging about 78 points a game- we held them to 70. And yes they may have helped themselves too by missing some shots but there were far fewer easy baskets conceded in this game then there was even in the Montana game by our defense. My hope is that they build off this defensive performance and continue to get better on that side of the ball. Defense will win us a lot of ball games.

Individually, positives all around- especially nice to see Mitchell unleash what we know he's capable of, Allard, I was about ready to come out of the stands and smack you after passing up a wide open layup in the first half, but you were tremendous in the 2nd- in all phases. Wilmer, you gave us solid minutes when you were on the floor. Archer, that was great back to the basket turnaround over the defender in the 2nd half. Webb, Anderson, Schuler, Huff- goes without saying they were all there to make a play when we needed them-the backbone of our team.

Lastly, I was glad I got to see Wolters. He indeed is the real deal. How many did he hit over a defender, with a hand in his face? He is so smooth with his game, and last night may not have even been his best game. But wow the guy can play. Wasn't sorry to see Callahan have mediocre to poor game. Don't get me wrong, I hope he has a great rest of the season and harbor no ill will long term for him. But he was on this campus and chose to leave UND, probably ended up being the right decision for him as he's had a very good career, but I can't help but think what could have been. So maybe there was a little sweet justice for 1 night anyway.

Finally the crowd, ok not great numbers attendance wise but goodness, don't just sit back and take it all in. My biggest complaint is- I wonder if our fans are even into the game. Get out of your seat once in a while. Don't be afraid to make some noise- it's ok to be a little crazy every once in awhile. I'm guessing their crowd was all over us when we were down there. Get after that opposing team, bring down the roof when we go on runs. It's almost like our fans have to learn how to be college basketball fans.

My message to this team would be...Don't be satisfied with this- you should be confident that you can perform at this level but don't get satisfied and content- attempt to bring this to the floor every game. Home and Away.

Great observations and post. Attendence still upsets me. I have talked to so many people in this city about basketball and they say what. Its like they dont even know UND plays basketball, its all about hockey. What a shame they are missing out on some very good young players. There loss.

[darell1976]

Great observations and post. Attendence still upsets me. I have talked to so many people in this city about basketball and they say what. Its like they dont even know UND plays basketball, its all about hockey. What a shame they are missing out on some very good young players. There loss.

Bad marketing + transition = bad attendance....look at football. If our hockey team wasn't marketed like it is plus was going through a transition (no playoffs) it would see a drop too.

[the green team]

Again with people throwing out marketing as the explanation. I'm sorry but since the transition UND has marketed Basketball & Football way more than Hockey probably 100 fold. Why? Because hockey doesn't really need to be marketed--(this is not a knock on hockey-it's a compliment). Winning markets itself. What do you mean by bad marketing? In fact in my travels comparatively, UND uses more avenues and more frequency when trying to bring attention to their non- #1 sports such as Basketball and Football in comparison to other schools. Other than sending people out to hold peoples hand and walk them up to the ticket window, I'm not sure what else they are suppose to do. They've even tried changing simple things such as game day- We never used to run into the Alerus for football with the lights out, but now we do. We never had bouncy places for the kids at tailgating...now we do. We never had a kids activity center at Basketball...now we do. They never had a thing such as Sioux Crew (which is a reward system for attending) when I attended...now we do. And yet the attendance continues to slide. I guess we look at things way differently- because I look around I see all these things that have been developed and say wow- there are alot of positives in marketing- comparatively from where we were and in comparison to other peer schools. The reality is the blame lies with all of us, because we apparently are not doing a very good job of getting our neighbors excited. Taking a collegue out to a game. We've also developed a fan base where, it's really only concerned about 1 sport and the rest be damned. Unfortunately, I know a lot of people who only like hockey- definitely their perogative & I'm ok with that-(I figured I better qualify that statement)- but we don't have enough people living in this part of the world where we can afford to have people be fans of only 1 team. If we were a metro area of 400,000 then there would be plenty of fans to go around but with families having to divide their time with youth & high school sports- you really don't have much left in this area to have a large corp of game in and game out fans.

I will agree with the transition argument. I believe many of our fans really haven't embraced this move to D1 especially since victories have been hard to come by. Winning cures a great many things. When the football team was in bad shape in D2- 80's it took a long time before fans started coming back out to Memorial, with the exception of the Bison game- we started winning- the fans started coming.

I guess having to market my business the way I do, I actually find myself sticking up for UND Marketing when it gets constantly attacked in these forums. Because I see lots of effort- far more in the last 5 years than ever before. Many of the things, I like and I can see what they are doing and who they are trying to draw. I tip my cap to them. Because marketing through this transition has not been easy.

[NODAK13]

If we had some students show up the attendence would not be that bad. Its absolutely horrible the lack of students. I talked to a student a couple of games ago and this student did not even realize they were paying for sporting events in the tuition cost (less hockey of course). They think it is just free, wrong they are paying for it and not even attending. The only times I see student attendence is when they are giving away free tuition and pizza on one given game. How can we get students to attend?

[Feff]

If we had some students show up the attendence would not be that bad. Its absolutely horrible the lack of students. I talked to a student a couple of games ago and this student did not even realize they were paying for sporting events in the tuition cost (less hockey of course). They think it is just free, wrong they are paying for it and not even attending. The only times I see student attendence is when they are giving away free tuition and pizza on one given game. How can we get students to attend?

You shouldn't have expected that many students at the game last night. There aren't a lot that show up to games during the actual semester, so to expect a large student crowd at the completion of finals week and the end of the semester is asking way too much. A lot of them were likely already home or heading home. I'm somewhat surprised at the size of the student crowd that WAS there. The scheduling has just been tough, Montana around Thanksgiving and then SDSU at the end of semester/Christmas.

[darell1976]

Again with people throwing out marketing as the explanation. I'm sorry but since the transition UND has marketed Basketball & Football way more than Hockey probably 100 fold. Why? Because hockey doesn't really need to be marketed--(this is not a knock on hockey-it's a compliment). Winning markets itself. What do you mean by bad marketing? In fact in my travels comparatively, UND uses more avenues and more frequency when trying to bring attention to their non- #1 sports such as Basketball and Football in comparison to other schools. Other than sending people out to hold peoples hand and walk them up to the ticket window, I'm not sure what else they are suppose to do. They've even tried changing simple things such as game day- We never used to run into the Alerus for football with the lights out, but now we do. We never had bouncy places for the kids at tailgating...now we do. We never had a kids activity center at Basketball...now we do. They never had a thing such as Sioux Crew (which is a reward system for attending) when I attended...now we do. And yet the attendance continues to slide. I guess we look at things way differently- because I look around I see all these things that have been developed and say wow- there are alot of positives in marketing- comparatively from where we were and in comparison to other peer schools. The reality is the blame lies with all of us, because we apparently are not doing a very good job of getting our neighbors excited. Taking a collegue out to a game. We've also developed a fan base where, it's really only concerned about 1 sport and the rest be damned. Unfortunately, I know a lot of people who only like hockey- definitely their perogative & I'm ok with that-(I figured I better qualify that statement)- but we don't have enough people living in this part of the world where we can afford to have people be fans of only 1 team. If we were a metro area of 400,000 then there would be plenty of fans to go around but with families having to divide their time with youth & high school sports- you really don't have much left in this area to have a large corp of game in and game out fans.

I will agree with the transition argument. I believe many of our fans really haven't embraced this move to D1 especially since victories have been hard to come by. Winning cures a great many things. When the football team was in bad shape in D2- 80's it took a long time before fans started coming back out to Memorial, with the exception of the Bison game- we started winning- the fans started coming.

I guess having to market my business the way I do, I actually find myself sticking up for UND Marketing when it gets constantly attacked in these forums. Because I see lots of effort- far more in the last 5 years than ever before. Many of the things, I like and I can see what they are doing and who they are trying to draw. I tip my cap to them. Because marketing through this transition has not been easy.

Here is an example of bad marketing for basketball: No one outside of the GF metro can listen to the game on radio unless you have a computer. How about striking a deal with WDAY and other radio stations to bring Sioux basketball to the air state-wide. Also television..need more bball game on tv. FSSN televises all home hockey games, why not ALL the basketball and football games too. Around Fargo you have BIson fever here, a lot of yard signs around town does UND have any of those? I don't see Sioux fever in Grand Forks. UND needs to get the word out to the state that NDSU is NOT the only DI school in the state. That my friend is marketing.

[NODAK13]

You shouldn't have expected that many students at the game last night. There aren't a lot that show up to games during the actual semester, so to expect a large student crowd at the completion of finals week and the end of the semester is asking way too much. A lot of them were likely already home or heading home. I'm somewhat surprised at the size of the student crowd that WAS there. The scheduling has just been tough, Montana around Thanksgiving and then SDSU at the end of semester/Christmas.

I wasn't expecting a large student crowd last night because of the holidays but in general there are very few students that attend. There must be a way to get more interest. Maybe they dont realize we have a basketball team and they are already paying for it.

[the green team]

Here is an example of bad marketing for basketball: No one outside of the GF metro can listen to the game on radio unless you have a computer. How about striking a deal with WDAY and other radio stations to bring Sioux basketball to the air state-wide. Also television..need more bball game on tv. FSSN televises all home hockey games, why not ALL the basketball and football games too. Around Fargo you have BIson fever here, a lot of yard signs around town does UND have any of those? I don't see Sioux fever in Grand Forks. UND needs to get the word out to the state that NDSU is NOT the only DI school in the state. That my friend is marketing.

Actually, you can listen to the games if you have a smart phone-anywhere- It's called Iheartradio. Secondly, as mentioned the fact that we are getting any games on the radio in Fargo at all is a huge step up from having 0 broadcast over the past 30 plus years. Even if it is only 4 or 5 games a year. How many Bison games are on actually Grand Forks stations, ever? I believe the answer is 0. The second answer to your thoughts is money. Let's put it this way- my business has X amount of sponsorhip dollars right now. In regards to spending it on UND sports the smart play is on hockey...it has the biggest draw. Until basketball has a bigger draw-it doesn't have to be hockey sized, but average at least 2500 to 3000 a game, you won't get more sponsorship dollars. And if you want more games on WDAY in Fargo you'll have to buy the time- it's not like its free airtime. They carry every Hockey and Football game already-- along with select women's and men's basketball games and women's hockey games. They have been a good partner. But if I'm UND's Athletic department- am I worried having to make ends meet to send teams around this awful Great West Conference for travel or am I worried on spending it on more games broadcast in Fargo when we already have more than we've ever had? Also, "why can't we air every game?" what do you do when there is hockey on at the same time as basketball with WDAY. UND is no dummies in that hockey is a major draw and has been for a long time they at this time- need the network.

As far as yard signs. I guess I can't argue with you there. I guess UND is perhaps not passing out signs to stick in peoples yards...really? Can't people make there own signs. Personally, I want no signs in my yard period. Political, Sports or otherwise. But yes you are right UND Marketing is certainly guilty in not providing me a sign for my yard. Shame on you UND Marketing