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2016-2017 Season


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12 minutes ago, hoops44 said:

times change UND is a hockey school period!...never said awful...every big sky school has fans who think they have potential to be great...   UND fans should count their blessings they have a nice Big Sky Hoops program and this year is UND best chance ever for a NCAA bid  ...To compete with Weber and Montana year in and year out they need to bring in more stud recruits to Grand Forks ...easier said than done

Or find the style they want to play and recruit to it.  Seems like The last few years Jones has got the athletes and adjusted his offense instead of finding the athletes to fit an offense.   There are some pretty good players in this area that can compete in the Big Sky.  

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  • 3 weeks later...
17 minutes ago, siouxfan512 said:

Does anyone know when the Men's basketball schedule usually comes out? Just curious to see who we get this year.

The men's bb schedule is available (it's in the all sports fold-up schedule, although that may not be complete??), not sure why it isn't on-line yet. No calendars yet either, since Valley Dairy is no longer the sponsor. Told wherever I've asked it will be available soon, just don't know where (several different sponsors apparently).

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5 minutes ago, UND-1 said:

So the only D1 home game they could schedule is NDSU.... and that was because they just recently decided to do a home-home/same season deal?  

Jones had scheduled ZERO D1 home games until that NDSU unique deal.  WTF.  :(

We can talk about UND being a hockey school and talk about the lack of funding to the MBB program but the bottom line IMO is as long as Jones is at the helm this program is doomed. This year's home schedule isn't anything more than a reflection of Jones being Jones. 

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26 minutes ago, Oxbow6 said:

We can talk about UND being a hockey school and talk about the lack of funding to the MBB program but the bottom line IMO is as long as Jones is at the helm this program is doomed. This year's home schedule isn't anything more than a reflection of Jones being Jones. 

Serious question: How exactly is Jones supposed to get teams to come up here with the admitted lack of funding? Teams don't come up to Grand Forks for free and they aren't banging down the door to sign home/home's because most teams can find closer options that cost them less when they have to travel for their half of the deal. UND already has to travel and play money games to help supplement their budget (like most low to mid-majors). They did manage to get UNI to come up last season by doing a 3-1 and even that was basically a favor from Jacobson. With how disappointing that crowd was for a very good opponent, I don't think it is real hard to see where it becomes pretty tough to justify shelling out a bunch of money to bring teams in.

Looks like he used his connection to Nagy to get into the Wright State Thanksgiving tournament, so that should be some decent opponents.

There are plenty of valid criticisms for Jones but until the program gets more funding, it is tough to use this as one of them.

Assuming the Dec 2 game gets signed with the team they were originally talking with, it will be a  D-1 school that is familiar to the fan base.

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29 minutes ago, jdub27 said:

Serious question: How exactly is Jones supposed to get teams to come up here with the admitted lack of funding? Teams don't come up to Grand Forks for free and they aren't banging down the door to sign home/home's because most teams can find closer options that cost them less when they have to travel for their half of the deal. UND already has to travel and play money games to help supplement their budget (like most low to mid-majors). They did manage to get UNI to come up last season by doing a 3-1 and even that was basically a favor from Jacobson. With how disappointing that crowd was for a very good opponent, I don't think it is real hard to see where it becomes pretty tough to justify shelling out a bunch of money to bring teams in.

Looks like he used his connection to Nagy to get into the Wright State Thanksgiving tournament, so that should be some decent opponents.

There are plenty of valid criticisms for Jones but until the program gets more funding, it is tough to use this as one of them.

Assuming the Dec 2 game gets signed with the team they were originally talking with, it will be a  D-1 school that is familiar to the fan base.

USD? Omaha?

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37 minutes ago, jdub27 said:

Serious question: How exactly is Jones supposed to get teams to come up here with the admitted lack of funding? Teams don't come up to Grand Forks for free and they aren't banging down the door to sign home/home's because most teams can find closer options that cost them less when they have to travel for their half of the deal. UND already has to travel and play money games to help supplement their budget (like most low to mid-majors). They did manage to get UNI to come up last season by doing a 3-1 and even that was basically a favor from Jacobson. With how disappointing that crowd was for a very good opponent, I don't think it is real hard to see where it becomes pretty tough to justify shelling out a bunch of money to bring teams in.

Looks like he used his connection to Nagy to get into the Wright State Thanksgiving tournament, so that should be some decent opponents.

There are plenty of valid criticisms for Jones but until the program gets more funding, it is tough to use this as one of them.

Assuming the Dec 2 game gets signed with the team they were originally talking with, it will be a  D-1 school that is familiar to the fan base.

The program only has enough money for one D1 home game per year?

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7 minutes ago, UND-1 said:

The program only has enough money for one D1 home game per year?

I don't know what they have enough money nor do I know what teams are requiring for guarantees. While you have to take a loss somewhere, it has to be a tough sell to pay out a large guarantee when an opponent like UNI only drew 2,300 last year. Even at $15/ticket (which doesn't take into account students and is well below the season ticket cost per game), you're bringing in less than $35,000 gate revenue. Same argument that has been had many times, team needs to win more to get attendance up. Once that happens, you can look at a bump in ticket prices.

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15 minutes ago, jdub27 said:

I don't know what they have enough money nor do I know what teams are requiring for guarantees. While you have to take a loss somewhere, it has to be a tough sell to pay out a large guarantee when an opponent like UNI only drew 2,300 last year. Even at $15/ticket (which doesn't take into account students and is well below the season ticket cost per game), you're bringing in less than $35,000 gate revenue. Same argument that has been had many times, team needs to win more to get attendance up. Once that happens, you can look at a bump in ticket prices.

More wins will put butts in the seats which will generate more revenue regardless of tickets prices. Jones has been in a 10 year building project mixing in underachieving teams. He is approaching Muss territory IMO if he hasn't reach it already. Can't put lipstick on pig with this one jdub.

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Non conference home schedule sucks a little but I know why.  Same reason it has every year for the reasons many posters have stated.

A few random thoughts:

  • Don't understand why the series with SDSU dried up.  That was pretty regular for quite a few years.
  • Seems sort of strange that ties continue to be completely severed with USD
  • Whatever happened to the idea that "being a prominent hockey school is going to help with scheduling for other sports in DI"?  Can't get Denver or Omaha to throw us a bone and do a home-and-home in any other sports.........
  • Given how hard it is to apparently get other DI's to come here, I wouldn't be adverse to doing some 2-for-1's with some "semi regional" schools like Green Bay, Milwaukee, Drake.  Those 3 schools in particular are close enough that they may entertain that.
  • No Montana or Montana St on the home slate this year is a bit unfortunate.
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It's very difficult to get attractive D1 opponents to come in and play in a "gym" that only seats 3,500.  The State College of Science in Wahpeton has a facility that seats more than that.  Knowing that they would be moving to D1, why UND would agree to an arena that only seats 3,500 is a definite head scratcher.  Jones likes the small gym but it's time for him to grow up.  Use the Ralph for all big games, like ndsu etc, and market the games!  A decent marketing job should get big crowds, with the bison not much hype is needed at all.

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8 hours ago, zonadub said:

Just playing devil's advocate here, because UND being in the Big Sky is the better choice imho, but what happened to the line that non-conference games would be easy to schedule against regional teams since the old NCC rivals are available?

Turned out to be almost as accurate as our hockey connections being able to get us non-conference games in other sports.

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So SDSU can build a program that has reached the point where they won't hit the road for non-conference games, in a town much smaller than Grand Forks (Brookings), but we just can't do it? ???

I say we hold Jones responsible for the on-court product and hold Faison responsible for the scheduling of our opponents.

If MBB isn't getting the resources to do the job right, then that needs to change. If we want to be serious about being a Division I mid-major institution, the MBB program must be elevated to a similar level as NDSU and SDSU. At the rate we are going, USD will make the Big Dance before UND does.

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16 minutes ago, fightingsioux4life said:

So SDSU can build a program that has reached the point where they won't hit the road for non-conference games, in a town much smaller than Grand Forks (Brookings), but we just can't do it? ???

I say we hold Jones responsible for the on-court product and hold Faison responsible for the scheduling of our opponents.

If MBB isn't getting the resources to do the job right, then that needs to change. If we want to be serious about being a Division I mid-major institution, the MBB program must be elevated to a similar level as NDSU and SDSU. At the rate we are going, USD will make the Big Dance before UND does.

Well it actually has to do more with the location and ease of getting to Brookings (Sioux Falls airport for flying) than anything else, but I'm not sure how you go about fixing that. Averaging almost 1,000 more fans/game doesn't hurt either, though you can point to quality of schedule and success on the court as part of that. Just or comparison, SDSU hosts 2 lower level teams, former Summit member UMKC, Idaho and Murray State for their non-conference schedule (along with a tournament hosted by the new Sandord Pentago). Murray State is obviously an outlier with Nagy being the coach there and without that, they would have 2 D-1 non-conference home games which is exactly how many they had last year plus 4 non D-1 games.

The MBB staff is the one who schedules the games, not the AD, though he does have an indirect hand in it through the budget process.

President Kennedy has been very straight-forward that he wants an efficient athletic department that is right-sized to be successful at what UND does. MBB should be a beneficiary of that.

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UND hoops is a way far away distant 2nd place for sports dollars and interest in GF...South Dakota St puts their winter sports mula into hoops... 6500 seat arena....way more capacity for revenue, they pay their coaches way more.  SDSU hoops is the big show there  like Hockey is in GF.  and they got the MOJO going with Nate Wolters and have kept it up.

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We can discuss semantics all we want and go around and around and around the same arguments.

Here is the bottom line:

A 17 win team that finished in the top half of the conference and was a possession away from the Big Sky tournament finals that returns not only their entire starting 5 but 2 key reserves, a (if you were setting betting lines) co-preseason favorite to win Big Sky POY in Hooker, a decent frontcourt with Drick, Shanks, and Avants, and a decent 2nd option in Geno. 

Not to mention a very favorable conference schedule.  EWU/Idaho/MSU/Montana only once and PSU/SAC/NAU/SUU twice.  In an expected tight conference race, that could be the difference between a top seed and finishing 5th*.  

A coach that is without a contract that has been on the job for a while, now going into his 5th Big Sky season, understands that this year needs to be very successful in order to keep his job. Has there been bad luck, yes.  Could a few seasons had gone better? oh, yeah. 2014-15 jumps immediately into my mind.

2014 should have been the year, but bad luck, inconsistent play, and injuries got in the way.  2016 has the same expectations as the 2014 core, it cannot end the same way. This needs to be the year UND breaks through and get to the Dance.

Hooker needs to become our version of Nate Wolters.

*Unless UNC decided on a postseason ban this year then finishing 5th won't matter when it comes to playing 3 games to get to the dance instead of 4.

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