Title Nine: Our Prong is Bigger Than Your Prong

[Hammersmith]

This year? Last couple years? It would be interesting to compare in the sports that both offer. Conference standings, conference rankings, etc.

I hope you were serious cause I whipped something up. Most of it should be pretty self-explanatory. NDSU and UND have 15 sports in common. I've also only listed the fully DI years. You can choose to compare the first three years of each, the last three years, or all of them together.

Example:

5/10 - fifth place out of ten teams

1T/8 - tied for first place out of eight teams

Colors:

dark green - first place finish(includes ties)

light green - finished in top third of conference

white - middle third

light red/orange - bottom third

dark red/orange - last place conference finish(includes ties for last place)

Symbols:

* - team competed in NCAA nationals

** - team competed in NCAA and won at least a game

$ - won a national championship

% - participated in a non-NCAA national postseason event

# - individual member of the team participated in NCAA nationals

AAxx - All American status; the first number indicates # of 1st team selections, second # 2nd team, HM ignored, didn't do FB

Sorry if I missed some honors from your guys.

Hope the image works out:

[homer]

I hope you were serious cause I whipped something up. Most of it should be pretty self-explanatory. NDSU and UND have 15 sports in common. I've also only listed the fully DI years. You can choose to compare the first three years of each, the last three years, or all of them together.

Example:

5/10 - fifth place out of ten teams

1T/8 - tied for first place out of eight teams

Colors:

dark green - first place finish(includes ties)

light green - finished in top third of conference

white - middle third

light red/orange - bottom third

dark red/orange - last place conference finish(includes ties for last place)

Symbols:

* - team competed in NCAA nationals

** - team competed in NCAA and won at least a game

$ - won a national championship

% - participated in a non-NCAA national postseason event

# - individual member of the team participated in NCAA nationals

AAxx - All American status; the first number indicates # of 1st team selections, second # 2nd team, HM ignored, didn't do FB

Sorry if I missed some honors from your guys.

Hope the image works out:

 

Good chart Hammer.  Color coding makes it good to the eye but is misleading if you don't attempt to dig into results.  Still tells a decent story.

 

End of the day UND really struggled in a few of the non revenue sports.  I see improvements down the road in track and field but the Big Sky is a stronger conference in track and field and in order to get any boxes shaded green would need significant improvement.  Baseball, softball and soccer should also benefit from the IPF but only time will tell how much. 

 

I still think Faison needs to look at some of the sports and determine if they are neccessary and improvement needs to continue/begin.  MBB performance last season is still inexcusable. 

[The Sicatoka]

Hammer: Why not add in the non-common sports also (MW at NDSU; MIH, WIH, MS&D, WS&D, MTen, WTen)?

[Hammersmith]

Hammer: Why not add in the non-common sports also (MW at NDSU; MIH, WIH, MS&D, WS&D, MTen, WTen)?

That's not what homer asked for. He asked for sports in common, so that's what I did. And least that's what I thought he was asking for. I could do the others if you want, but probably not 'till sometime tomorrow.

[Cratter]

When you play in the Slummit its easy to be winners.

[JohnboyND7]

When you play in the Slummit its easy to be winners.

Yeah, the big sky is incredible eh?

[Herd]

When you play in the Slummit its easy to be winners.

 

Getting into the top 3rd of the Big Sty seems pretty elusive for GFU.   Maybe it's the jet lag?

[jdub27]

I hope you were serious cause I whipped something up. Most of it should be pretty self-explanatory. NDSU and UND have 15 sports in common. I've also only listed the fully DI years. You can choose to compare the first three years of each, the last three years, or all of them together.

 

Impressive work, thanks for putting it together. Shows some interesting things, though I wouldn't call it a direct apples to apples comparison due to the relative difference in strength in the conferences (even year to year) in various sports (for example, NDSU would have nowhere near the dominance in T&F/CC in the Big Sky, though they would have still outperformed UND) and it leaves out a few of the stronger programs for both schools (Wrestling for NDSU, MH/WH and occasionally the S&D teams at UND).  I don't think anyone will argue that UND has work to do in their non-revenue, this definitely shows it, but the IPF will likely make an incredible difference for the T&F programs plus softball/baseball. 

 

The other thing that this doesn't show is that UND spreads out its resources more due to supporting more student athletes (449 vs. 411) and a lot of it comes on the women's side (205 vs. 129).  That leads to a combination of thoughts, including that UND at some point may have to look at cutting a program or two and that while NDSU remains in compliance with Title IX through the "interest and abilities" method, the FCOA thing is going to start bringing that disparity more and more into the public's view and very well could bring in some unwanted scrutiny. 

[The Sicatoka]

The other thing that this doesn't show is that UND spreads out its resources more due to supporting more student athletes (449 vs. 411) and a lot of it comes on the women's side (205 vs. 129).  

 

UND supports 21 DI programs; NDSU supports 16 DI programs.

 

Pull the hockey budgets (M/W) out of UND, and UND is running 19 programs on a smaller budget than NDSU runs 16 programs on. 

 

Based on that, I'd have no problem at looking at UND's programs and making tough decisions. 

[Hammersmith]

Impressive work, thanks for putting it together. Shows some interesting things, though I wouldn't call it a direct apples to apples comparison due to the relative difference in strength in the conferences (even year to year) in various sports (for example, NDSU would have nowhere near the dominance in T&F/CC in the Big Sky, though they would have still outperformed UND) and it leaves out a few of the stronger programs for both schools (Wrestling for NDSU, MH/WH and occasionally the S&D teams at UND). I don't think anyone will argue that UND has work to do in their non-revenue, this definitely shows it, but the IPF will likely make an incredible difference for the T&F programs plus softball/baseball.

The other thing that this doesn't show is that UND spreads out its resources more due to supporting more student athletes (449 vs. 411) and a lot of it comes on the women's side (205 vs. 129). That leads to a combination of thoughts, including that UND at some point may have to look at cutting a program or two and that while NDSU remains in compliance with Title IX through the "interest and abilities" method, the FCOA thing is going to start bringing that disparity more and more into the public's view and very well could bring in some unwanted scrutiny.

You know, I'm not completely sure about that. I also thought the Big Sky was significantly stronger than the Summit in T&F, but I looked at some numbers last night and now have my doubts. I'm no expert at T&F, but I do know that comparing times between two meets alone(say two conference championships) is not a great indicator. There are just too many variables to normalize out. But I think it might be fair to compare the number of NCAA prelim qualifiers from each school/conference, and those just came out for 2015.

On the surface, the Big Sky still looks stronger, at least in men's. MOT&F: BSC 34 qualifiers, SL 20; WOT&F: BSC 35, SL 30. But the Big Sky has far more schools competing in T&F than the Summit. What if you look at the average? MOT&F: BSC 2.83/school, SL 3.33/school; WOT&F: BSC 2.92/school, SL 3.75/school.

What about the actual numbers of qualifiers per school? Three Big Sky schools placed 10 or more M+W. NAU and Sac St at 12, and EWU at 10. The top two Summit schools are even higher. USD has 14 qualifiers and NDSU has a whopping 23.

Granted this is a snapshot, but it roughly appears that the Big Sky and Summit in T&F is not totally unlike the MVFC and Big Sky in football, only reversed. The Summit has a couple dominant programs and a bunch of weak ones, while the Big Sky is much more balanced with many strong teams. Again, this is just a quick and dirty look at a snapshot of data, but it was enough to make me start questioning my previous assumptions.

[UND-FB-FAN]

UND supports 21 DI programs; NDSU supports 16 DI programs.

Pull the hockey budgets (M/W) out of UND, and UND is running 19 programs on a smaller budget than NDSU runs 16 programs on.

Based on that, I'd have no problem at looking at UND's programs and making tough decisions.

Two ways to realistically look at raising UND football's budget:

1) Lower the budget/expenses of UND hockey and allocate the savings to UND football

and/or

2) Shutdown some programs (women's hockey, softball, etc.) and then allocate the savings to UND football.

One of these things should happen. UND football needs more financial support.

[Hammersmith]

Hammer: Why not add in the non-common sports also (MW at NDSU; MIH, WIH, MS&D, WS&D, MTen, WTen)?

Also, it wouldn't change the overall look all that much. NDSU would get another green column. UND would get a nice swath of green in hockey, but that would be counterbalanced with two new red stripes in tennis and S&D. Without looking at the data to confirm, I'm pretty sure I remember UND finishing at or near the bottom in those two sports; both men's and women's.

[gfhockey]

Shut down women hockey

[jdub27]

You know, I'm not completely sure about that. I also thought the Big Sky was significantly stronger than the Summit in T&F, but I looked at some numbers last night and now have my doubts. I'm no expert at T&F, but I do know that comparing times between two meets alone(say two conference championships) is not a great indicator. There are just too many variables to normalize out. But I think it might be fair to compare the number of NCAA prelim qualifiers from each school/conference, and those just came out for 2015.

On the surface, the Big Sky still looks stronger, at least in men's. MOT&F: BSC 34 qualifiers, SL 20; WOT&F: BSC 35, SL 30. But the Big Sky has far more schools competing in T&F than the Summit. What if you look at the average? MOT&F: BSC 2.83/school, SL 3.33/school; WOT&F: BSC 2.92/school, SL 3.75/school.

What about the actual numbers of qualifiers per school? Three Big Sky schools placed 10 or more M+W. NAU and Sac St at 12, and EWU at 10. The top two Summit schools are even higher. USD has 14 qualifiers and NDSU has a whopping 23.

Granted this is a snapshot, but it roughly appears that the Big Sky and Summit in T&F is not totally unlike the MVFC and Big Sky in football, only reversed. The Summit has a couple dominant programs and a bunch of weak ones, while the Big Sky is much more balanced with many strong teams. Again, this is just a quick and dirty look at a snapshot of data, but it was enough to make me start questioning my previous assumptions.

 

Not saying it wouldn't be close and NDSU still wouldn't be towards the top, just saying they wouldn't have a consecutive string of 1st place runs like they had.  On the men's side, I think that NAU and SUU are better in outdoor and quite a bit in CC (both are top 25 teams in the latter).  NDSU would still do very well on the women's side but it would be a lot more interesting than some of their Summit meets have been.

 

Looking at your table, what's clear is that when you are weak in T&F/CC and those sports make up 40% of the comparison, it makes a huge difference.  UND has had subpar facilities in those areas for a long time.  Everything I hear about the new IPF and the 300m track will make huge strides in helping with that across the board.

[Shawn-O]

Shut down women hockey

Yes please! 

[nosidel]

Two ways to realistically look at raising UND football's budget:

1) Lower the budget/expenses of UND hockey and allocate the savings to UND football

and/or

2) Shutdown some programs (women's hockey, softball, etc.) and then allocate the savings to UND football.

One of these things should happen. UND football needs more financial support.

 

or

 

3) Lower the budget of hockey, and/or cut some programs, and then allocate the money saved to a combination of basketball and football.

 

IMO, basketball offers the best potential bang for the buck.

[UNDBIZ]

Berry is getting paid less than hak I believe, so hopefully a slight shift in funding will occur.

[geaux_sioux]

Women's hockey is a major pair of shackles on UND. I almost don't even want to know what it costs. It was cool when the twins were playing but now it's just stupid. Schools like UM and Wisconsin can absorb their cost no problem, we on the other hand cannot. What mens program would be cut along with women's hockey though? Baseball?

[Csonked Out]

Women's hockey is a major pair of shackles on UND. I almost don't even want to know what it costs. It was cool when the twins were playing but now it's just stupid. Schools like UM and Wisconsin can absorb their cost no problem, we on the other hand cannot. What mens program would be cut along with women's hockey though? Baseball?

exactly. Baseball isn't a huge expense but it does offset title 9 if we ditched women's hockey. GF is a hockey town though so I don't see it happening. What about swimming and diving for both men and women?

[Csonked Out]

Berry is getting paid less than hak I believe, so hopefully a slight shift in funding will occur.

I have to imagine we will save on assistants too. Berry and Dane were highly paid assistants I would think

[Hammersmith]

Yes please!

It wouldn't help all that much. It's one of the hidden aspects of the proportionality prong of the Title IX test. You guys have basically sorted your sports into three tiers. In the "elite" tier, you have men's hockey and women's hockey. In the "solid" tier, you have football, men's basketball, women's basketball, volleyball and women's soccer. In the "weak" tier, you have everything else.

If you take away women's hockey, you take away the only balance to men's hockey in the elite tier. To stay in compliance with Title IX, you can't just spread the money to the other sports, you have to elevate another women's program with about the same number of participants up to elite status to counterbalance men's hockey.

You can't really do it in WBB; you don't have the resources to compete with schools like UConn or Tenn. VB or WSoc would be a stretch because of participation numbers and you don't have the resources to elevate both. WSoc is also a non-starter since you would have to look at building facilities for soccer to match the REA for hockey. You'd also have to invest in VB facilities if you went that route, but probably not as much as for soccer.

Welcome to the downsides of the proportionality prong.

Realistically, women's hockey is your only choice. You don't have to invest anything into new facilities since they're shared with men's hockey. And since the size of the women's hockey community is so much smaller than VB or WSoc, getting to elite levels of coaching pay isn't quite as hard. It would be interesting to see what the VB and WSoc coaches from the DI top-15 in each sport are paid, because that is what you'd have to plan for.

[jdub27]

Women's hockey is a major pair of shackles on UND. I almost don't even want to know what it costs. It was cool when the twins were playing but now it's just stupid. Schools like UM and Wisconsin can absorb their cost no problem, we on the other hand cannot. What mens program would be cut along with women's hockey though? Baseball?

 

Yep.  But barring something incredibly unforeseen, I can't see it being dropped. Don't agree with it, but that's unfortunately the way it is.

[UND-FB-FAN]

or

3) Lower the budget of hockey, and/or cut some programs, and then allocate the money saved to a combination of basketball and football.

IMO, basketball offers the best potential bang for the buck.

okay....

So you basically just stated that UND basketball needs more support. Yes, this is true, but there's no use doing so until the coach for the program is a capable one. Jones is not. Now, finances for Betty upgrades should be raised immediately.

[The Sicatoka]

It wouldn't help all that much. It's one of the hidden aspects of the proportionality prong of the Title IX test. You guys have basically sorted your sports into three tiers. In the "elite" tier, you have men's hockey and women's hockey. In the "solid" tier, you have football, men's basketball, women's basketball, volleyball and women's soccer. In the "weak" tier, you have everything else.

If you take away women's hockey, you take away the only balance to men's hockey in the elite tier. To stay in compliance with Title IX, you can't just spread the money to the other sports, you have to elevate another women's program with about the same number of participants up to elite status to counterbalance men's hockey.

You can't really do it in WBB; you don't have the resources to compete with schools like UConn or Tenn. VB or WSoc would be a stretch because of participation numbers and you don't have the resources to elevate both. WSoc is also a non-starter since you would have to look at building facilities for soccer to match the REA for hockey. You'd also have to invest in VB facilities if you went that route, but probably not as much as for soccer.

Welcome to the downsides of the proportionality prong.

Realistically, women's hockey is your only choice. You don't have to invest anything into new facilities since they're shared with men's hockey. And since the size of the women's hockey community is so much smaller than VB or WSoc, getting to elite levels of coaching pay isn't quite as hard. It would be interesting to see what the VB and WSoc coaches from the DI top-15 in each sport are paid, because that is what you'd have to plan for.

 

There's only one problem with your theory: WIH is not as elite as you claim. If it is elite, so is UND WBB. Their total expenses are within $150k of each other ($1.3M vs $1.17M). 

 

My plan to pare back and stay proportional? 

 

Cut WIH, WS&D, MS&D, baseball (none required by Big Sky) 

 

Expenses: $1302k, $452k, $313k, $513k, --> W: $1754k; M: $826k

Grants (rounded): 18, 12, 5, 6.5 --> W: 30; M: 11.5

Participants: 27, 25, 23, 32 --> W: 52; M: 52

 

In my idea Coach Brew and the WT&F* coaches would be giddy as they'd benefit as monies previously intended for WIH would need to come their way (proportionality). 

Same story for grants: WT&F and WSoc would benefit, but some mens teams would pick up some help

Participants? I couldn't have planned that any better. 

 

That would put UND down to 17 sports; it wouldn't affect any Big Sky required sports. It would move current budgets around to help out in areas where the help is needed (womens non-revenue sports). 

 

 

*When I say T&F here I mean IT&F, OT&F, and CC as a conglomerate

[homer]

Yeah, the big sky is incredible eh?

 

Its not incredible but if you one were to go back and compare WBB this past season for example, NDSU likely finishes in the bottom third of the Big Sky instead of middle of the pack in the Summit.  UND football would have been likely been in the same situation this past season when comparing the BSC to the MVC.  Hard to compare seperate conferences but the closest one could get is looking at the RPI ratings that NDSU fans love to look at and even those can be skewed with the ability to schedule more non conference games.

 

Either way- UND has a lot of work to do but I feel pretty confident they are/can right a few of these programs and become competitive consistently in the conference.