Lacrosse at a "DI" UND?

[MplsBison]

Maryland vs. Virginia would bring a lot of people to a stadium in Washington.

[The Sicatoka]

Maryland vs. Virginia would bring a lot of people to a stadium in Washington.

All games are in "The Linc" in Philly and, based on recent history, they'll have plenty no matter who's playing.

[The Sicatoka]

They missed getting 50,000 people at The Linc for the semis on Saturday by under 1000 people. Yowzah!

Congrats to UMass for making their first ever championship game.

Congrats to Virginia for National Championship #4.

You folks remember Virginia, the team with the coach named Don Starsia:

Scan a list of Division I lacrosse All-Americas, men or women, and you'll find that virtually all played several sports in high school. Virginia men's coach Dom Starsia never saw his best defensive midfielder, J.J. Morrissey, play lacrosse before offering him a scholarship; he signed Morrissey based on how he hit the hole as a tailback. Starsia has recruited other athletes who never even played lacrosse before arriving in Charlottesville. "In the U.S. we play enough hand-eye sports that a kid is going to pick up the stickwork," he says. "Basically, I've got a team full of I-AA football guys."

http://siouxsports.com/forums/index.php?s=...ndpost&p=129220

[The Sicatoka]

In the attachments to UND's DI Report it lists:

Baseball

Current stadium: Needs significant investment to upgrade.

To be top DII or competitive DII: Needs major efforts to replace or construct.

Issues:

Stadium needs to be moved on campus!

Lighted stadium with seating for 500 with covered press box, scoreboard and sound system.

Would completely investigate use of synthetic turf.

Cost: $2.5M

Softball

All areas same as baseball.

Cost: $1.5M

It'd be $2,500,000.00 to put baseball into appropriate facilities on campus.

The Al is built and ready and has open spring dates.

[andtheHomeoftheSIOUX!!]

I think lacrosse would be a nice sport to have at UND. And it looks like if we added it now we could get a jump on the rest of the schools in this part of the country. Travel costs are higher but you have better recruitment. From the attendance numbers at the National Tournament it looks like there is some interest too. Maybe lacrosse is the next revenue generating sport.

[The Sicatoka]

Maybe lacrosse is the next revenue generating sport.

UND doesn't have a spring revenue sport, and I doubt baseball, even with a stadium ever will be, is part of my thinking for starting the conversation.

[The Sicatoka]

Congratulations to this year's DI mens lacrosse average attendance leader: Navy.

http://www.laxpower.com/laxnews/news.php?story=4070

In that same link you can see that Navy's first round NCAA game got TV, radio, and 'net broadcasts:

The game will be televised live by CSTV with Jason Chandler and Paul Carcaterra calling the action. In addition to live television coverage, the game will be carried live on 1430 WNAV with the Voice of Navy Lacrosse, Pete Medhurst, calling the action. Fans can also listen and watch the game for free on Navy All Access located on the Mids' web site at www.Navysports.com.

[The Sicatoka]

Maybe lacrosse is the next revenue generating sport.

This article points to that conclusion. Television isn't going to jump aboard a money-loser.

[andtheHomeoftheSIOUX!!]

I am with ya "The Sicatoka." UND should take a serious look at Lacrosse. Lacrosse is ripe for college expansion. The public is supportive, not only based on attendance but this too

"We think lacrosse is the next major college sport," said Brian Bedol, the president and co-founder of College Sports TV. "We're probably not a long way from having 100 games on in season. Now that's not all on the linear network, it's on broadband and OnDemand, too. But within two years I think that's what you'll see."

Lacrosse has a nice schedule length, too; Navy had seven home games in this year's regular season. That is more games than football but not as many as hockey and b-ball. Man, I can't hardly find anything on conference locations, footprints, and etc. But I imagine if UND picked it up there would be considerable travel costs. But on the other hand they could be at the fore-front of mid-western lacrosse, which could translate into national championships down the road.

[Shawn-O]

Agreed. Dump baseball and golf too. I'm serious.

Edit: If you can avoid the cap-ex by doing it.

[star2city]

I am with ya "The Sicatoka." UND should take a serious look at Lacrosse. Lacrosse is ripe for college expansion. The public is supportive, not only based on attendance but this too Lacrosse has a nice schedule length, too; Navy had seven home games in this year's regular season. That is more games than football but not as many as hockey and b-ball. Man, I can't hardly find anything on conference locations, footprints, and etc. But I imagine if UND picked it up there would be considerable travel costs. But on the other hand they could be at the fore-front of mid-western lacrosse, which could translate into national championships down the road.

Because of Title IX issues, about 80 schools sponsor women's lacrosse but only 52 sponsor men's. For men's lacrosse, the only midwestern/western conference is the Great Western Lacrosse League, which includes the following schools:

Ohio State

Notre Dame

Denver

Air Force

Butler

Quinnipiac (will probably leave)

Bellarmine (Louisville DII school adding DI lacrosse)

It would probably be much harder for UND to get into a women's lax league, as the only "midwest" league is a power conference and the western league has a number of other prospective west coast schools that will probably add women's lax. Neither would likely be interested in traveling to GF.

American Lacrosse Conference (women

[star2city]

Agreed. Dump baseball and golf too. I'm serious.

Edit: If you can avoid the cap-ex by doing it.

Interesting that a northern school like Notre Dame is complaining about the anti-northern bias in the baseball world. A smaller northern school like UND would just be cannon fodder in the NCAA baseball world.

Irish baseball coach says NCAA biased

Notre Dame coach Paul Mainieri is angry about the NCAA tournament seedings.

Notre Dame's 45 victories are the fourth most in college baseball. The Fighting Irish won the Big East regular-season and tournament titles and had the longest winning streak in Division I baseball with 23 straight victories.

Mainieri said he believes the Irish and other schools from the North are perennially underrated by the NCAA and hurt by low RPIs. The problem, Mainieri said, is it's difficult to get midweek games with schools from the South or the West and many weekends are tied up with conference games.

"It's a self-perpetuating problem. The teams from the North aren't rated high, and when we play them it keeps us from being rated high," the coach said. "It's just a flawed system and it's very protective of the power conferences -- the SEC, the ACC, the Pac-10 and the Big 12. And nobody can break into that cocoon."

[RD17]

After reading some of the posts in this thread and noticing the TV coverage and attendance of the NCAA lacrosse championships last week, I am now also convinced that it would be a wise choice to add the sport at UND.

I think the most important thing with any emerging sport is to get in on the ground floor regionally. UND's experience with being a few years late on adding women's hockey and the struggles since should be evidence that if we're going to add lacrosse, let's do it sooner rather than later.

[andtheHomeoftheSIOUX!!]

Thanks for all the info on conferences and such, star2city.

[star2city]

Cal St- Bakersfield announced last week that they were moving to DI. Found it rather interesting, that instead of cutting sports with their move up (they meet DI requirements), they are adding one sport, baseball, that the school and community believes can be successful at the DI level. Roadrunner DI announcement With an existing venue available (for the minor league Class A California league), baseball makes strategic sense for Bakersfield. UND needs to be sponsoring DI programs which make strategic sense for our situation.

The university is in the process of raising $6 million to help fund the added costs of Division I affiliation. To that end a team of athletics and university advancement officials and community leaders has been working to raise a portion of that money from community sources. CSUB students voted in spring 2005 to increase their campus fees to help fund the move at about $1 million per year.

Of the $6 million being raised, $2.5 million is to launch a baseball program.

This past week CSUB received two more major gifts bringing the campaign total to more than $3.5 million. More than $700,000 is earmarked for the baseball program, which the university will launch as soon as the fundraising goal is reached. The ideal scenario would be to hire a head coach during the next academic year (2006-07) and field a team in 2007-08.

[star2city]

After reading some of the posts in this thread and noticing the TV coverage and attendance of the NCAA lacrosse championships last week, I am now also convinced that it would be a wise choice to add the sport at UND.

I think the most important thing with any emerging sport is to get in on the ground floor regionally. UND's experience with being a few years late on adding women's hockey and the struggles since should be evidence that if we're going to add lacrosse, let's do it sooner rather than later.

Agreed. The next few years offer a window of opportunity. It's time to be proactive instead of reactive. The demographics of the lacrosse crowd are much younger than football, basketball, baseball, or possibly even hockey. Adding lacrosse would be viewed by younger people as a highly progressive move. With North Dakota's college age population, UND must be viewed as progressive school in order to attract out-of-state students. Adding lacrosse would do just that, attract students from the Twin Cities, Denver, the West Coast, and Canada.

[star2city]

Interesting that NDSU is planning on a $4.5 million upgrade to its softball field, while UND is only looking at spending $1.5 million on an on-campus softball field: [url="http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm?id=129313

[MplsBison]

Upgrading the softball stadium is not going to happen soon.

They're merely submitting the plan to the state for approval should the funds happen to open up sometime in the future.

They may never open up.

The NDSU softball team played nine games this season in Fargo. 6 against DII teams (Saint Cloud, Duluth, and Mary) and three against SDSU.

I don't see the point in spending 5 million dollars on something that will be used 10 times per season.

If there was a professional softball team with 25+ games per year in Fargo, fine. But there isn't.

[star2city]

Upgrading the softball stadium is not going to happen soon. They're merely submitting the plan to the state for approval should the funds happen to open up sometime in the future. They may never open up.

Not funded? ND$U athletics is loaded according to most bison posters. The article also stated that soccer upgrades, although planned, would not seek approval. Seems to me softball is the next upgrade after the BSA. Why there is not a bigger push for an indoor track/football practice facility is beyond me.

The NDSU softball team played nine games this season in Fargo. 6 against DII teams (Saint Cloud, Duluth, and Mary) and three against SDSU. I don't see the point in spending 5 million dollars on something that will be used 10 times per season. If there was a professional softball team with 25+ games per year in Fargo, fine. But there isn't.

So why are they seeking approval for a $5 million improvement if they're not serious about it? With the California recruits (and more coming) and a softball upgrade, seems like NDSU is looking at making a name for itself in DI softball.

Calif. players flock together at NDSU

At first glance, the fact that NDSU has three players from the Los Angeles area and zero players from North Dakota is hard to fathom. However, for the California players, NDSU is a place where they can play. With the abundance of quality softball players in California, that is exactly what they are looking for.

[star2city]

Dude,

obviously UND Lacrosse is your pet project at the moment and you're going to defending it like a mother defends her cub.

I hope you realize that I wasn't putting down the possibility forever.

Just in the short run UND's goal needs to be to get in a DI conference for bball and the rest of the sports. Cutting baseball/softball and adding Lacrosse is not going to do that at the moment.

Understand that UND officials actually think the idea of adding lacrosse is worthy of consideration and isn't something that should be scoffed at.

Lacking baseball and/or softball would not hurt UND's chances of getting into any conference. In fact, not having baseball would probably help, as we would hurt the baseball RPI of almost any DI conference.

Also, in a strange way, adding lacrosse might help UND (or at least not hurt) gain a major ally with one particular school, Denver. Denver U is unique in that hockey and lacrosse are probably more important to it than basketball. The Big Sky badly wants DU in the league (both as a travel partner for UNC and because DU is a core DI member). DU wants all-sports rivalries and, for it to be enticed into the Big Sky, DU may lobby for UND to also get an offer (either immediately or a few years down the road). DU has the potential to influence the next round of Big Sky expansion. It would behoove UND to be an even tighter DU ally.

[biff]

Why would DU be interested in the Big Sky? The Big Sky's interest in DU is obvious, but I don't think DU think's it's in the same class as those "redneck" schools in Montana or enen UNC. That's like NDSU thinking they're going to get in to the Big Sky anytime soon with out any membership changes out west.

Baseball and Softball are tough sports to excel at this far north, since you don't have the facilities, lacrosse is potentially a good niche sport.

[MplsBison]

Lacking baseball and/or softball would not hurt UND's chances of getting into any conference. In fact, not having baseball would probably help, as we would hurt the baseball RPI of almost any DI conference.

Nope.

That's not the way it works.

The baseball schools in the Mid Con are going to look at a baseball-less UND and say "we need more teams to play in baseball".

That's how you're going to get in the conference. Once you're in, fine. You can cut baseball. But it's not going to help you and certainly will hurt you if you don't have it.

DU wants all-sports rivalries and, for it to be enticed into the Big Sky, DU may lobby for UND to also get an offer (either immediately or a few years down the road). DU has the potential to influence the next round of Big Sky expansion. It would behoove UND to be an even tighter DU ally.

Not buying it for a second.

Denver doesn't want in the Big Sky, for one. They want in the WCC. Pairing up with Seattle U will give the WCC the Denver and Seattle markets in a league of private schools without football.

Second, Denver doesn't give a hoot about UND.

[star2city]

Why would DU be interested in the Big Sky? The Big Sky's interest in DU is obvious, but I don't think DU think's it's in the same class as those "redneck" schools in Montana or enen UNC. That's like NDSU thinking they're going to get in to the Big Sky anytime soon with out any membership changes out west.

Agreed, your point above is a major issue for DU. However, its current situation is probably worse. DU doesn't believe it belongs with Sunbelt "redneck" schools either. Which is a better fit for DU: association with La-Monroe, Troy, La-Lafayette, and Arkansas St vs Idaho St, Weber St., E Wash and N. Colorado?

Although DU commonality with most of the Big Sky is geography, that's more than it has with most Sun Belt schools.

[star2city]

Nope. That's not the way it works.

The baseball schools in the Mid Con are going to look at a baseball-less UND and say "we need more teams to play in baseball".

That's how you're going to get in the conference. Once you're in, fine. You can cut baseball. But it's not going to help you and certainly will hurt you if you don't have it.

It is the way it works. UMKC and IUPUI never offered baseball and they got in the MidCOn. The MidCon, even if it was interested in UND, would want a baseball affiliate like Dallas Baptist or UTPA over a UND baseball program. Many years, baseball in April in GF is questionable due to cold wet weather and playing field conditions. Why would Oral Roberts want to fly their baseball team to GF for a weekend series that may never get played? The only teams that NDSU can seem to schedule home games against are ones that are can bus into Fargo. Why risk 30 plane tickets to North Dakota when it is not even guaranteed a game can be played? Beyond that, the wet cold weather could really play havoc with a pitcher's arm. Why would more southerly teams put their pitching staffs at risk with a trip to GF in April?

Not buying it for a second.

Denver doesn't want in the Big Sky, for one. They want in the WCC. Pairing up with Seattle U will give the WCC the Denver and Seattle markets in a league of private schools without football.

When Seattle U declares its DI intent, you might have a point. The Sun Belt and DU intend to depart amicably, but the Sun Belt is losing patience with DU's indecision. DU's attempts at the WAC, WCC, Horizon, and MoValley have all fallen short. Time is running out. The only two options remaining are the MidCon and the Sky. Absolutely no way would DU ever -ever- join the MidCon. To DU, the Sky is still a poor option, but not nearly as detestable as the MidCOn.

Second, Denver doesn't give a hoot about UND.

Wrong. Money and ticket sales count. DU athletics appreciates the near sell-out conditions of Magness arena during UND-DU series, as UND "travels well". No Sun Belt school increases DU ticket sales nearly as much as UND. Some of that UND-DU ticket sales would carry over into basketball because the high number of UND alumns in the Denver metro.

[MplsBison]

UMKC and IUPUI never offered baseball and they got in the MidCOn.

Recent history will have no effect on the present and future.

The Mid Con won't add a school that doesn't have baseball.

Don't even bother worrying about it. Even if UND declared interest in cutting baseball tomorrow, the program would fight the move and survive long enough to get UND in the mid con.

The MidCon, even if it was interested in UND, would want a baseball affiliate like Dallas Baptist or UTPA over a UND baseball program.

Neither of which have approached the Mid Con for baseball affiliation and neither of which would be allowed to join only for baseball.

Many years, baseball in April in GF is questionable due to cold wet weather and playing field conditions.

Absolutely correct.

Baseball in North Dakota doesn't work until May, at the best.

Why would Oral Roberts want to fly their baseball team to GF for a weekend series that may never get played?

Won't happen. You'll be seeing a lot of NDSU and SDSU home games cramed into the time in May. Those teams won't be heading up north in the April winter.

When Seattle U declares its DI intent, you might have a point.

SU was already in the WCC in the 80's. No idea why they left.

Looking at their facilities, they'd have to add baseball and upgrade their basekball venue. But it could be done.

DU's attempts at the WAC, WCC, Horizon, and MoValley have all fallen short. Time is running out.

BS they have. That's nothing more than you speaking for a team that you don't speak for.

They's still going to be trying those conferences, there isn't anything left for them that they'd be interested in.

The only two options remaining are the MidCon and the Sky. Absolutely no way would DU ever -ever- join the MidCon. To DU, the Sky is still a poor option, but not nearly as detestable as the MidCOn.

Both of those will never happen.

Denver will not align itself with public I-AA and I-AAA schools.

Wrong. Money and ticket sales count.

And DU never has to worry about UND not being the WCHA, which is the only conference that really counts at DU.