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UND and the Big Sky could go FBS


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I'm not sure how picking your site, some well below 5000 seats, a week in advance competes with selling tickets a year in advance for a 12,00 seat arena (in 2015), and a beatiful one at that. There might be an advantage for SDSU/USD, but don't have an issue with that. They will get the seed they earn during the regular season. Having an annual tournament site provides $ and stability. The B1G and MVC use thier championship sites to market the championship and make money, and Sioux Falls can do the same for the Summit.

Fullerton said that the Big Sky my being looking at other options for hosting the conference tournament in the near future. But, this year it will be at the Dee Events Center 12,000 plus for seating and it is a great facility. Of the top four teams, UND, Montana and Weber St. all have more than adequate facilities to host the tournament. Seriously you are comparing MVC (St. Louis) and BIG (Chicago) to the Summit (Sioux Falls).. O' boy..

Looking at the history of the Summit and Big Sky has nothing to do with 2014 and the future. The Summit has trimmed its fat and have more under 150s and fewer >250s rpi that ever before. I think the core of Denver, Omaha, ORU, SDSU, NDSU, USD will keep the Summit in the top 1/2 of conferences strength wise.

I think that you forgot about the Eastern Division of the Summit - WIU, Indy and Ft Wayne or have they left already. As for the RPI ranking, Fullerton is a member of the NCAA tournament selection committee. Last year he has said that he is taking the lessons learned from this experience to the schools to help build the conference's RPI. The RPI has been manipulated by conferences for years to give a conference a false front of success. The real test for a conference is when they 1) win a tournament game and 2) get mult bids.

NOTE: The Big Sky just started receiving the minimum payout for the first time since 1998. So, they have not had recent success that they had in the 70's and early 80's. But, it is not like the Big Sky has not been a successful basketball conference (Idaho, Weber St, Idaho St. and Montana have all had Sweet 16 teams). Of course all of this could have changed if Lillard had not been injured and left early for Weber St. They would have been a very dangerous mid major team last year with Lillard (FYI to Bison fans he was NBA rookie of the year last year). Fullerton has stated that he is placing more of an emphasis on Basketball. So, we shall see how successful he is in the near future. In addition, I believe that PSU and Sac St both have new facilities in the planning stages. So that would leave UNC as the last team with subpar basketball facilities in the Big Sky.

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I don't know about all this Big Sky to FBS talk.

What I do know is that I love the fact that North Dakota is in the Big Sky.

Another thing I know is that of 6 former NCC schools that are now DI, 5 of them tried to get into the Big Sky at one point or another, UNO being the exception. A couple institutions tried multiple times to no avail. That tells me that the Big Sky apparently has a level of attractiveness that fans of a certain school don't like to acknowledge.

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Fullerton said that the Big Sky my being looking at other options for hosting the conference tournament in the near future. But, this year it will be at the Dee Events Center 12,000 plus for seating and it is a great facility. Of the top four teams, UND, Montana and Weber St. all have more than adequate facilities to host the tournament. Seriously you are comparing MVC (St. Louis) and BIG (Chicago) to the Summit (Sioux Falls).. O' boy..

Regarding the Big Sky tourney, I'm not sure how well a neutral site would work given the expansive geography of the league. I think it works well with the current format. Additionally, basketball is, at best, the #2 sport at every single Big Sky school except for Weber. By comparison, basketball is the #1 sport at every single Summit school except for NDSU and now Denver. So a comparison between the emphasis placed on the conference tournament in each league is really apples to oranges.

The Summit has a good thing going with its set up in Sioux Falls. In the case of Big Sky basketball, the best attendance numbers are going to come when the tournament is held at the site of the regular season champion, even if that means short notice. I think it is more likely to draw 6,000+ in Ogden or Missoula, perhaps even Grand Forks one day, on a week's notice than it is to expect fans to buy tix in advance in good faith if it were held at a neutral site like Las Vegas, Denver, or Phoenix.

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Another thing I know is that of 6 former NCC schools that are now DI, 5 of them tried to get into the Big Sky at one point or another, UNO being the exception. A couple institutions tried multiple times to no avail. That tells me that the Big Sky apparently has a level of attractiveness that fans of a certain school don't like to acknowledge.

Well that is a really inconvenient truth for some people's arguments.

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Especially come tournament time. Imgaine NDSU with that brand new basketball arena, and no chance at host a playoff game in it. Nope they need to travel 225 miles to Sioux Falls where they are overwhelmed with Jack fans, its no Frisco during the basketball tournament.

2013 #3 NDSU loses to #1 SDSU

2012 #5 NDSU loses to #4 WIU

2011 #7 NDSU loses to #2 ORU

2010 #6 NDSU loses to #3 ORU

2009 #1 NDSU beat #3 Oakland

Tough to win a tournament when its NOT on your home court, over 200 miles away and close to 2 other schools in your conference.

200 miles away....not such a bad drive. I think more folks will be there this year than in years past since this is supposed to be "the" year. Sioux Falls works great with several schools relatively nearby.

Kinda hard when the Betty holds 3,000. Sorry Dan you must not be a math major. Then your rant is football, football, volleyball (which I am sure more than NDSU fans as you guys don't care about women's athletics as they suck, and as for the MBB BSC tournament, I don't know wasn't there probably the same as NDSU.

Probably shouldn't claim our women's athletics suck. Two of the teams suck....badly. Track is pretty good I think, and the softball team is pretty good as well. Golf just sent a girl to the LPGA which is pretty neat I suppose. At most schools, including UND too I imagine, people are happy when the women's teams are doing well, but if they aren't.....not the end of the world in comparison to men's.

Just like the Fargo Force outdraws NDSU sports except football and MBB, again a sport nobody cares about.

.......so the two big revenue sports at NDSU outdraw the Force and you are trying to smack on that?

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I don't know about all this Big Sky to FBS talk.

What I do know is that I love the fact that North Dakota is in the Big Sky.

Another thing I know is that of 6 former NCC schools that are now DI, 5 of them tried to get into the Big Sky at one point or another, UNO being the exception. A couple institutions tried multiple times to no avail. That tells me that the Big Sky apparently has a level of attractiveness that fans of a certain school don't like to acknowledge.

I think that will change with the addition of Idaho to the conference. You have a critical mass of four/six of the Big Sky schools in the upper northwest. A location like Boise (central location for EWU, UI, ISU, UM, MSU and WSU), Salt Lake, Portland, Seattle or Spokane (really close for EWU, UI, UM) would be close for several schools. I think Vagas has 4 conference tournaments already. Not sure if another one would work.

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Are you sure 1 + 1 = 2, can we really assume that?

We have it in evidence that "1 + 1 = 2".

What we have in evidence (fact) is that UND did not apply for conference membership in 2005.

What we have in evidence (fact) is that NDSU did not apply for conference membership in 2010.

What we do *not* have in evidence is what would have been the outcome if either *had* applied. We don't have evidence on the outcome because (wait for it ...) neither applied. Because it never happened it is not in evidence and any assumed outcomes are merely conjecture.

Thus ends the discussion on factual evidence versus conjecture.

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In three years when the Big Sky begins its transition to FBS, the Big Sky will be a huge step up.

What's NDSU going to do: turn down a FBS UND offering an FCS team a home and home? Taylor will never agree to a UND game. With UND FBS, the bi-sons can no longer offer the excuse that they need to schedule FBS teams, not UND.

Wishing for FBS when you're not even close to completive in FCS. That's why people love to come here the arrogance is fun to watch.....
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I wish that there could be a thread where we can all talk about the topic at hand without a Bison fan coming in and start talking about how NDSU relates to the topic. It happens all the time. Then when a Bison poster says something contraversial or rips on UND, they get mad that people are attacking them!! This is a UND sports message board. We are going to talk about UND sports. I am welcome to discussion form fans from other schools coming to this site.....but it gets super annoying when NDSU gets brought up in threads on topics that don't involve them. Then it just becomes a "who is better, UND or NDSU" debate and the thread gets derailed.

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Wishing for FBS when you're not even close to completive in FCS. That's why people love to come here the arrogance is fun to watch.....

Please explain the prerequisite for joining the FBS? NC? Nope. Big city, nope. A conference invite...ding ding there it is.

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200 miles away....not such a bad drive. I think more folks will be there this year than in years past since this is supposed to be "the" year. Sioux Falls works great with several schools relatively nearby.

Probably shouldn't claim our women's athletics suck. Two of the teams suck....badly. Track is pretty good I think, and the softball team is pretty good as well. Golf just sent a girl to the LPGA which is pretty neat I suppose. At most schools, including UND too I imagine, people are happy when the women's teams are doing well, but if they aren't.....not the end of the world in comparison to men's.

.......so the two big revenue sports at NDSU outdraw the Force and you are trying to smack on that?

Yeah because nobody cares about hockey.

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I wish that there could be a thread where we can all talk about the topic at hand without a Bison fan coming in and start talking about how NDSU relates to the topic. It happens all the time. Then when a Bison poster says something contraversial or rips on UND, they get mad that people are attacking them!! This is a UND sports message board. We are going to talk about UND sports. I am welcome to discussion form fans from other schools coming to this site.....but it gets super annoying when NDSU gets brought up in threads on topics that don't involve them. Then it just becomes a "who is better, UND or NDSU" debate and the thread gets derailed.

Stopped reading other boards like anygivensaturday and championship subdivision because Bison trolls hijack every thread. It's not just here.

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Actually the logical thing would look at % capacity since NDSU has buildings that hold more people.

Actually... The logical thing to do would be looking at average number of fans... None of und's sports they share with ndsu are close to averaging 100% capacity anyway... So your building argument doesn't hold water

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