2006 Men's BB

[coach daddy]

I thought the men played hard last night right to the end. That rarely happened the last 3-4 years. They kept their uniforms tucked in the whole game and that was a good sight to see. Discipline has lacked in this program for a while and if that improves, I'll be happy.

Concerned that we signed only one early. This team still lacks a lot of talent when it comes to playing for a conference title and it would be nice to see coaches out finding players b/4 everyone else gets their hands on them.

Lots of depth on the perimeter, not sure how good it is, but the depth is there. Posts are a huge problem. After Koenig Tuesday night, Kruse was the next post player and he is no post player. Need guys to get healthy quick.

[The Walrus]

We have a Boat Load of promise with this group...Just hope we can take care of the ball better...

As athletic as we have had in a long time...Played hard on tuesday, no give up, great to see...

[bincitysioux]

I like what I have seen/heard of the Men's team so far. They aren't exactly setting the world on fire, but they are being competitve with some quality teams. They went to OT with Northern who is always a very good team, went down to the wire with Concordia-St. Paul who beat #16 South Dakota last week, and tonight beat Wayne St. who downed #19 Minnesota St. earlier this week. I think there is just cause to be optimistic about the future of the program.

[UND92,96]

I like what I have seen/heard of the Men's team so far. They aren't exactly setting the world on fire, but they are being competitve with some quality teams. They went to OT with Northern who is always a very good team, went down to the wire with Concordia-St. Paul who beat #16 South Dakota last week, and tonight beat Wayne St. who downed #19 Minnesota St. earlier this week. I think there is just cause to be optimistic about the future of the program.

Agreed. It can't be easy to mold this many new players into a team, especially since even the returnees had to learn a new system. Nice job so far by Jones and staff.

[SiouxMD]

69 UND

78 SW Minnesota State

FINAL

[SiouxMD]

29 UND

29 U of Mary

17:55 2nd Half

[SiouxMD]

49 UND

41 U of Mary

~8:00 2nd

[GeauxSioux]

Sioux by 14 with about 4 minutes left

[SiouxMD]

59 UND

45 U of Mary

~4:00 2nd

[UND Fan]

We are playing quite well!

[SiouxMD]

A minute to go...up by nine but playing sloppy.

Jones calls timeout.

[SiouxMD]

0:45 to go...up by six.

Another TO by Jones.

Too many turnovers late in the game...

[SiouxMD]

68 UND

57 U of Mary

Final

[aff]

U of mary isn't a bad team to beat, I think they beat a ranked team last weekend at a tournament at Northern, Northwest Missouri State.

[UND92,96]

U of mary isn't a bad team to beat, I think they beat a ranked team last weekend at a tournament at Northern, Northwest Missouri State.

They did beat NW Mo. St., and lost by 1 to number 15 Nebraska-Kearney. They also won at St. Cloud State. It's kind of surprising to me that Mary's doing as well as they are since most of their players are ex-North Dakota high schoolers who presumably weren't recruited very hard, if at all, by NCC schools.

[coach daddy]

Why is everyone always so suprised when ND kids have success at college basketball? If you will all remember Rich's best teams, they were almost all ND boys. Granted, there seems to be fewer and fewer but make sure you appreciate school like U of Mary because w/DI coming down the road, there will be more and more kids from state going there instead of UND and NDSU.

[wcbsas]

They did beat NW Mo. St., and lost by 1 to number 15 Nebraska-Kearney. They also won at St. Cloud State. It's kind of surprising to me that Mary's doing as well as they are since most of their players are ex-North Dakota high schoolers who presumably weren't recruited very hard, if at all, by NCC schools.

The assumption you are making is that NCC basketball the be-all-to end-all.

Northern, Mary, Wayne State ... are all very good teams in the ND/SD region.

Wisconsin-Parkside 86 South Dakota 75

Mary 86 St. Cloud State 77

Wayne State 90 South Dakota 86

Minnesota State 65 Concordia-St. Paul 71

Missouri Western State 95 Nebraska-Omaha 88

Northern State 88 North Dakota 84

Quincy 89 South Dakota 79

North Dakota 69 SW Minnesota State 78

NCC's non-conference record to date is an unimpressive 29-14

Head-to-head the NCC is 14-8 against the NSIC, with 8 of the wins coming against Bemidji, Crookston and Mary!

[UND92,96]

The assumption you are making is that NCC basketball the be-all-to end-all.

Northern, Mary, Wayne State ... are all very good teams in the ND/SD region.

Wisconsin-Parkside 86 South Dakota 75

Mary 86 St. Cloud State 77

Wayne State 90 South Dakota 86

Minnesota State 65 Concordia-St. Paul 71

Missouri Western State 95 Nebraska-Omaha 88

Northern State 88 North Dakota 84

Quincy 89 South Dakota 79

North Dakota 69 SW Minnesota State 78

NCC's non-conference record to date is an unimpressive 29-14

Head-to-head the NCC is 14-8 against the NSIC, with 8 of the wins coming against Bemidji, Crookston and Mary!

No, the assumption I'm making is that if you're a kid growing up in North Dakota, you dream of playing for UND or NDSU well before schools like Northern State, Mary or a DAC school. I'll bet there's not a single North Dakota kid on the Mary roster who wouldn't have gone to UND had an offer been made. The fact that UND has been down for awhile hasn't changed that. In terms of the NCC-NSIC matchups of the past two years, it's obvious that the NCC is not doing as well as it used to. I don't know what the problem is. UND has passed on some pretty good kids who almost certainly would have come here had they been recruited, such as Craig Nelson and Blake Strouth (brother of UND football player Brandon Strouth), but who went to NSIC schools and flourished. Perhaps not coincidentally, UND lost to both Northern and Moorhead this year.

[SirHinn]

No, the assumption I'm making is that if you're a kid growing up in North Dakota, you dream of playing for UND or NDSU well before schools like Northern State, Mary or a DAC school. I'll bet there's not a single North Dakota kid on the Mary roster who wouldn't have gone to UND had an offer been made. The fact that UND has been down for awhile hasn't changed that. In terms of the NCC-NSIC matchups of the past two years, it's obvious that the NCC is not doing as well as it used to. I don't know what the problem is. UND has passed on some pretty good kids who almost certainly would have come here had they been recruited, such as Craig Nelson and Blake Strouth (brother of UND football player Brandon Strouth), but who went to NSIC schools and flourished. Perhaps not coincidentally, UND lost to both Northern and Moorhead this year.

Everyone will admit that UND lost out on Craig Nelson to an extent. He was a good solid player in HS, I'll give you that much. But Blake Strouth wasn't recruited by UND because he wasn't very good in high school. That's coming from the mouth of one of the assistants from MSUM. He worked his ass off though and improved his game to the point where he's a good scorer and a good ball handler. These guys were solid in HS, but not necessarily good enough for bigger schools. So they go in there with a chip on their shoulder bust their butt and get their game to the point where it looks like other teams missed the boat. The biggest factor with these guys though are level of competition. If they aren't putting up good numbers and playing solid in AAU ball with the high level of competition, they aren't going to get recruited by the likes of even UND or NDSU.

[knowledge]

Everyone will admit that UND lost out on Craig Nelson to an extent. He was a good solid player in HS, I'll give you that much. But Blake Strouth wasn't recruited by UND because he wasn't very good in high school. That's coming from the mouth of one of the assistants from MSUM. He worked his ass off though and improved his game to the point where he's a good scorer and a good ball handler. These guys were solid in HS, but not necessarily good enough for bigger schools. So they go in there with a chip on their shoulder bust their butt and get their game to the point where it looks like other teams missed the boat. The biggest factor with these guys though are level of competition. If they aren't putting up good numbers and playing solid in AAU ball with the high level of competition, they aren't going to get recruited by the likes of even UND or NDSU.

I'll give you the fact that Strouth has improved himself a ton to be the player he is but........Craig Neson was the best basketball player in ND his senior year. He proved it throughout the season and in the Lion's game. Some of the bigger players such as Koenig got the press and the DI looks but to any coach if they had to pick a player to start a team from ND he'd been the guy. The deal with Nelson was that UND wasn't his first choice. He was given the opportunity to play at Northern State for a legend of a coach. Don Meyer's name comes up in coaching circles with the likes of Dean Smith and Coach K. UND might have been in the mix but at the time they had only facilities to compete with NSU. As far as becoming a better ball player and learning how to play the game. NSU had them beat by a long shot. I'm not sure how Jones is going to change that. As a Sioux fan I hope he does because players from the state can't get away as Nelson did. I for one am not a fan of the JuCo/transfer players making up the roster. I understand that in order to compete this year these moves had to be made. Hopefully this is the starting method and the goal is to get four year players to grow and learn in the system and the JuCos are only a band-aid when needed.

[UND92,96]

It was a pretty wild game tonight against Mayville. In the first half, UND's defense and rebounding were outstanding. In the second half...not so much. The Sioux blew a 17-point second half lead due to committing a ridiculous number of turnovers once Mayville starting pressing. UND ended up winning, but it certainly wasn't pretty. It seems as though UND has three 6'0" shooting guards, and no real points guards. That presents a problem when teams press.

On the bright side, I really like the frontcourt versatility this team has. Against smaller teams like Mayville, UND can go with Kruse, Little and Boyce. When they need to go bigger, you have Koenig and Gutter in place of one of those three.

The bottom line is that if the Sioux can figure out a way to take better care of the ball, I suspect they'll be very difficult to beat at home. I think a .500 NCC record is achievable, and if everybody actually sticks around, this team has a chance to be quite good next season. Finding a pure point guard would be advisable, however.

[Corella]

It was a pretty wild game tonight against Mayville. In the first half, UND's defense and rebounding were outstanding. In the second half...not so much. The Sioux blew a 17-point second half lead due to committing a ridiculous number of turnovers once Mayville starting pressing. UND ended up winning, but it certainly wasn't pretty. It seems as though UND has three 6'0" shooting guards, and no real points guards. That presents a problem when teams press.

On the bright side, I really like the frontcourt versatility this team has. Against smaller teams like Mayville, UND can go with Kruse, Little and Boyce. When they need to go bigger, you have Koenig and Gutter in place of one of those three.

The bottom line is that if the Sioux can figure out a way to take better care of the ball, I suspect they'll be very difficult to beat at home. I think a .500 NCC record is achievable, and if everybody actually sticks around, this team has a chance to be quite good next season. Finding a pure point guard would be advisable, however.

Another thing that I see as extremly bright, it is refreshing watching Harry Boyce play defensively and watching Emmanuel Little go to the boards. After the past few years when it seemed like things were more lax out there, those 2 go all out, and that is very good to see. Harry Boyce guarded Mayville's best player, Monty Rogers, who would be very good in D2, he is just undersized. He has shown in games that he can guard the point guard, a wing, and now an inside player. Granted, Rogers got 20ish tonight, but a lot of those were from the line and a few were on putbacks. He is an excellent defender who has shown that he contributes to every column on the stat sheet. Little has a warrior's mentality out there, and goes after every rebound hard. The frontcourt that they can rotate in there, with Gutter, Koenig, Kruse, Little, and eventually Dryburgh, looks like it will be very productive. And Gutter has shown marked improvement as well.

[coach daddy]

I'll give you the fact that Strouth has improved himself a ton to be the player he is but........Craig Neson was the best basketball player in ND his senior year. He proved it throughout the season and in the Lion's game. Some of the bigger players such as Koenig got the press and the DI looks but to any coach if they had to pick a player to start a team from ND he'd been the guy. The deal with Nelson was that UND wasn't his first choice. He was given the opportunity to play at Northern State for a legend of a coach. Don Meyer's name comes up in coaching circles with the likes of Dean Smith and Coach K. UND might have been in the mix but at the time they had only facilities to compete with NSU. As far as becoming a better ball player and learning how to play the game. NSU had them beat by a long shot. I'm not sure how Jones is going to change that. As a Sioux fan I hope he does because players from the state can't get away as Nelson did. I for one am not a fan of the JuCo/transfer players making up the roster. I understand that in order to compete this year these moves had to be made. Hopefully this is the starting method and the goal is to get four year players to grow and learn in the system and the JuCos are only a band-aid when needed.

A band aid? Harry is the best defensive player they have and he can guard 3 different positions. Jerome was a far cry from a band aid and I think if we go back in the history of Sioux bball, we'll find alot of JUCO's and transfers that helped us win conference, regional titles. I believe you'll see more juco kids and transfers once the DI process happens.

Oh, by the way, UND didn't recruit Craig Nelson because they recruited Josh Doyle instead. How has that worked out?

[SirHinn]

A band aid? Harry is the best defensive player they have and he can guard 3 different positions. Jerome was a far cry from a band aid and I think if we go back in the history of Sioux bball, we'll find alot of JUCO's and transfers that helped us win conference, regional titles. I believe you'll see more juco kids and transfers once the DI process happens.

Oh, by the way, UND didn't recruit Craig Nelson because they recruited Josh Doyle instead. How has that worked out?

Craig Nelson and Josh Doyle are two completely different players. Would you rather have a true point guard or a point guard who is more of a scorer and more of a pure shooter?

[coach daddy]

Josh was recruited as a point guard. It wasn't until he got here they found out he was a 2 guard in a point guard body. Here's another juco name that didn't play like a "band-aid", Hunter Berg. There's a band-aid we could use every year.