More March Madness Previews: Are You Sick of this Yet?

March is a time of basketball related rejoicing. The NCAA Tournament starts midway through the month, but in the early weeks we get a flurry of fantastic college basketball with the various conference tournaments which will help decide the field for the Big Dance. I’m going to take a look at each conference, try (almost certainly unsuccessfully) to pick the winner, and determine whether anyone from that conference can make some noise, come Tourney Time. So with that, onward and upwards amigos! 

Next on our seemingly never-ending list of conference tournaments is the Southern Conference!! Now, in large part this conference is a trainwreck which will make things go faster BUT there are 2 teams in this conference that might actually matter come March, so let’s take a look at the standings.

 

First team of note are the Fightin’ Yellow C’s of Chattanooga (really they’re the Mocs… but I don’t know what a Moc is… so we’re calling them the Fightin’ C’s). Now, the first thing you’re gonna wanna know about Chattanooga is that their name is hilarious. But after that we have some real analaysis for you. Now, I don’t expect Chattanooga to do anything if they make it to the NCAA tournament, but I do think they could get there. They had an abysmal non-conference performance, and honestly weren’t stellar in conference either BUT they are 7th in the nation in blocked shots, which is pretty darn impressive in my books. This primarily came from 6’10” Sophomore center Justin Tuoyo.

(Photo Credit: Angela Lewis Foster, Times Free Press)

Justin transferred to Chattanooga from VCU where he was recruited by Shaka Smart. Smart is known for recruiting guys with top flight athletic ability who he can then unleash in his HAVOC defense. Tuoyo is just this kind of athlete and while things obviously didn’t work out for him at VCU, they certainly are working out at Chattanooga. He averages 3.3 blocks per game (making him the 3rd best shot blocker in the nation) and has all the athleticism of any star player in a major conference. Moreover, add in the 1.1 blocks per game (and 14.3 points and 7.1 rebounds) of Casey Jones, and you have a pretty potent pair leading the way for Will Wade’s bunch. However, 2 guys, no matter how good they are, might not be enough to get by the true top contender in the Southern, Wofford.

Wofford, on the other hand has put up very respectable, and indeed impressive results all season long. They beat Iona and Sam Houston State in the non-conference (2 Mid-Majors I’m very high on). They also beat Charleston Southern (a good team, if not tournament quality) and even NC State (a bubble team from a major basketball conference). Not too shabby for a non-conference slate. Also, they’re somewhat more battle tested than other small schools of their ilk because in addition to taking on some of the best Mid-Majors out there, they’ve played several schools from High Major conferences (Duke, West Virginia, NC State, Stanford). This is a team whose players understand the kind of competition they’re going to be up against come tourney time, and aren’t as likely to be wowed by the moment and bowled over before they get their wits about them.

Moreover, they’re a senior and upperclassmen laden team so they have plenty of experience playing together and playing at this level. I do worry about their size as they essentially only have guy taller than 6’6″ who gets regular minutes for them (6’7″ Jr. C.J. Neumann) but we’ve seen guard heavy teams win before, why can’t they do it again? All in all I think Wofford will come out of the Southern, and they have as good a shot as anyone to win their opening game, but in the end I just don’t see enough here to pick them to make it to the Sweet 16 or beyond. But that being said they’ve already had a great season and I’d love to watch them continue it.

Next on our list is the Colonial Athletic Association, and let me tell you… this one is a comlete crap shoot.

 

Drexel is normally the team I default to in this league because they play tough, hard nosed defense, and can normally compete with anyone. This season, however, they’re in full rebuild mode.

Outside of them William and Mary looked very good for stretches this year, but they never seemed to put the whole picture together. They beat Wofford in the non-conference which was an impressive win, but outside of that they’ve done nothing of note all season long. They have a reasonable offense and are in the top 50 in the nation in both points and assists, and are even top 10 in field goal percentage, but they give up points like they didn’t realize college basketball wasn’t just half court. Its possible that they could win their conference tourney, but if they do I fully expect them to get stomped in the opening round.

The real favorite, however, is probably Northeastern, but they really leave me unimpressed. 4 of their 5 starters score in double figures, and all their starter rebound very well which I like, but there’s no star player to catch the eye, no eye popping statistic that shows an edge they have over anyone else in the country, and all in all they’re just boring. Now, boring can win a lot of games, so I could easily see them coming out of the Colonial, but again… this is a team just waiting to get smashed in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.

The Summit,on the other hand, might fair a little better in the big dance. Now, I’m admittedly biased because my beloved North Dakota State Bison play in the Summit, but here’s the league as I see it.

First on the agenda are the 2 pseudo contenders. Both IPFW and Oral Roberts could easily get hot and win this tournament starting this weekend. Both have spectacular star players in Steve Forbes (Forward IPFW), Obi Emegano and Korey Billbury (Oral Roberts backcourt tandem). If any one of those 3 players gets hot and stays hot they could carry their team all the way into the NCAA Tournament regardless of their regular season ups and downs. However, neither of them are the real class of this league.

And neither is NDSU for that matter. They won a share of the regular season title with South Dakota State, but lost out on the #1 seed on tiebreakers. Because of this they have to play Denver in the first round of the Summit Tourney (a horrible matchup for them) and could easily get upset right from the start. The main reason for this is that while senior guard Lawrence Alexander is easily the best player in the league, NDSU has practically 0 depth behind him. First year coach Dave Richman essentially runs a 7 man rotation which is woefully thin, and likely won’t cut it if they manage to force their way into the NCAA Tournament.

The real team to look at in the Summit, then, is South Dakota State. The Jackrabbits are led by senior forward Cody Larson, a South Dakota native and Florida transfer who has all the athletic ability you would expect from a Billy Donovan forward. Larson will easily be able to match up with players from bigger, more prominent schools, and will definitely allow SDSU to stay in games they otherwise would have no chance of winner. However, I don’t have much faith that SDSU can win a game in the NCAA Tournament. They weren’t nearly as dominant as they should have been once they got to Summit League play, and if they can’t overpower the bottom tier teams in the Summit League, I simply can’t trust them to make a major statement against superior competition in the NCAA Tournament.

But whatever flaws SDSU may have… they certainly aren’t nearly as bad as the cream of the crop in these next two leagues.

The Southwestern Athletic Conference is truly atrocious this year.

In all honesty Alabama State might be the best team in this conference, but they’re academically ineligible to participate in postseason play this year. Soooo Texas Southern becomes your likely representative. Yaaaay?

It’s not really as bad as I made it out to be though. Senior Guard Madarious Gibbs is capable of going off and having a big night, and has done so frequently in conference games. Moreover, Texas Southern has two SPECTACULAR non-conference wins on their resume. They knocked off Kansas State in Manhattan, Kansas, AND beat then #25 Michigan State in Lansing. If they can somehow conjure up either of those performances come NCAA Tourney time, then they could be this year’s Mercer, Lehigh, or Florida Gulf Coast. Only problem is that all three of those teams pulled their upsets from a 15 seed, so Texas Southern clearly has their work cut out of them.

I’m not certain the MEAC has any such champion to put forth though…

When the season began I *thought* Hampton was going to be pretty good this year. That clearly didn’t materialize. However, even though my preseason pick turned out to be a flop there are still 2 teams in the MEAC that I feel fairly confident about.

Its good to see Norfolk State near the top of the MEAC standings yet again since they gave us a spectacular upset in 2012 when, as a 15 seed, they knocked off a 2 seeded Missouri team that most people though should have been a 1 seed, and maybe even the #2 overall seed that year. This years team, however, doesn’t inspire much confidence for me. Their one and only marquee win on the season was a home victory over Texas Southern, and after reading my rousing endorsement of Texas Southern I’m sure you can tell how swayed I am by that victory. Jeffrey Short is an absolute stud when it comes to making balls go through hoops, and scores like a mad man, and RaShid Gaston is a great post presence for Norfolk both offensively and cleaning the glass, but however talented Norfolk’s roster may look at the top end, there is absolutely no depth on this team. Outside of Short and Gaston there are only really 2 more significant contributors on this team ( D’Shon Taylor and Malik Thomas). If you can’t even get 5 starters, I shudder to think of what your bench looks like. Maybe those 4 guys are good enough to win this MEAC title, and maybe they’re even good enough to pull an upset in the NCAA Tourney, but I am very skeptical.

North Carolina Central has quite a bit of promise to tell the truth. Their starting 5 consists of 3 seniors and 2 juniors which I love. They’re a veteran laden team, they play well together, and the play some great defense. In fact they’re #4 in the country in points allowed. However, the advanced metrics aren’t as kind to them as they are just outside the top 50 (#53) in Kenpom’s adjusted defensive rating which is still very good for a team from such a small conference, but it puts a bit of a damper on their potential to upset one of the big boys. Still, however, as long as they can find some offense when they’re going up against bigger, stronger, more athletically gifted opponents in the NCAA Tournament, I like their ability to come up with stops when they need, then and think NCCU could be a really fun Cinderella to watch this March. Plus their starting Center is from Norway which is just delightful.

In the end I don’t expect much from the MEAC but NCCU has certainly put together an impressive record here by season’s end, and I certainly hope those seniors leading this team get rewarded with an NCAA Tournament berth. Those are the kind of stories that always get me on opening weekend. I love to see guys living out their dreams at the last possible moment in college basketball, and will definitely be rooting for the Eagles to pull this one off.

One True Champion and No True Winners: The Big 12 and a Return to Realignment

Ahem… there seems to be an incongruity with your little cardboard signs sirs…

Its bowl season again. Time to watch Whatstatearetheyin University square off against Ididn’tknowtheyhadafootballteam State. But this year there’s a little twist added to the shenanigans. This is the first year of the College Football Playoff, which, in its current composition, only contains 4 teams: Alabama, Oregon, Florida State, and Ohio State. Now, if you’ve been following college football all year you already knew that, but what you also knew is that this list was conspicuously missing two major, yearlong contenders for playoff spots: TCU and Baylor.

Even though TCU had leapt up to #3 in the Playoff Committee’s rankings before the final week of the season, and even though Baylor had a win over TCU, and the same 11-1 record as them, both Big 12 Schools were left wanting. This appears to have been a result of the Playoff Committee’s decision to place a major emphasis on “Conference Champions” when picking their Chosen Four. Moreover, even though the Big 12 attempted to declare TCU and Baylor “Co-Champions” the Committee wasn’t buying it.

[One True Champion! Unless of course we think we can sneak 2 teams into the Playoff… wait, we’re getting 0 in?!]

The Committee want their playoff teams to play in, and win, a Conference Title Game. And with only 10 teams in the Big 12 (a result of the 2012 Great Conference Reshuffle) the Big 12 is not allowed to have a Conference Title Game (per ridiculous NCAA rule #92183475).

So its too late for either of the Big 12’s power teams this year, but if the conference doesn’t want to be competing at a disadvantage into perpetuity (or at least until someone gets their act together and realizes that a 16 team (or at LEAST 8) playoff is the ideal anyway, the Big 12 is going to have to seriously consider expanding back to 12 teams (hurray for sensible names!).

So because I love conference realignment (because it gives me hope that NDSU will have an opportunity to hop up into an FBS conference) let’s take a look where the fake Big 12 could turn to become that actual Big 12.

The first and most logical place for the Big 12 to look in its poaching is the Mountain West Conference. The Mountain West is far and away the best “Non-Power Five” Conference for football. Their members consistently out perform members of Power Five Conferences, and have been known to win many big games against even the best of the Power Five.

You’ll also notice that two of those former MWC champions in the above videos (TCU and Utah) are no longer in the MWC, but have been poached by bigger conferences (The Big 12 and PAC 12 respectively). So it seems to make the most sense that the Big 12 would first look to the Mountain West (it is both a geographic match and competitive match) to expand its conference.

As far as I see it there are 4 Mountain West teams that may be competitive enough to succeed in the Big 12 (Air Force is very competitive, but with their unique recruiting restrictions [anyone who wants to go to Air Force to play football also has to want to… y’know… join the Air Force for 7 years] I don’t think they’d be a fit for the Big 12).

Image Via http://lockerroompicks.com/fresno-state-boise-state/

The first is Boise State. Competitively speaking they are obviously the first choice. They have made a habit of beating Big 12 schools in recent years (including the infamous Fiesta Bowl win over Oklahoma) and have been relevant on a national stage for a decade now. However, they never seem to be a target by any large conferences, which I have to imagine stems in large part from their isolated geography. Now, I won’t put any kind of geographic inanity past the Big 12 after they moronically allowed West Virginia into their conference, but I can’t imagine they want to make that mistake twice.

Photo Credit: Hunter Thompson, For the Coloradoan via http://archive.coloradoan.com/article/20140220/SPORTS0201/302200081/Colorado-State-s-football-team-begins-Mountain-West-play-early-Boise-State

The next best Flavor of the Day would be Colorado State. They’re a better geographic fit than Boise. They have the student population and endowments to fit in with the Big 12. They are consistently competitive in both the big money college sports (Men’s Basketball and College Football). And this year they made a good deal of noise on the national scene… however, that noise was primarily because they were losing their head coach to Florida. So if the Big 12 pulled the trigger on Colorado State, they’d likely be buying high and may regret it as CSU is perhaps set to regress slightly for the next couple seasons.

Utah State would also be a great option. They fit geographically. Have the endowments and students to match Big 12 programs. They’re consistently competitive in both Football and Basketball. The same could be said about Nevada (although they’re a far inferior geographic fit). Neither of these schools has major clout in the public consciousness though which could scare off the Big 12 if they don’t want to be perceived as diluting their conference.

However, its entirely possible that the MWC teams hold together. The MWC commissioner made impassioned pleas to strip the collapsing Big East of their automatic qualifier status and grant it to the Mountain West when the big conference shakeups were going on. And even though the BCS is now gone, and that battle was therefore removed from the equation, it could rear up again. If Conference Titles matter as much as they seem to to the Committee, we could eventually move toward an 8 team playoff where the Power 5 each get an Automatic Qualification for their Champion, and there is no reason to believe the MWC won’t fight for (and perhaps receiver) the same status. So anyway, let’s take a look at a couple other options if noone from the MWC wants to make the leap.

I think BYU is very serious about remaining independent (Notre Dame of the West I guess…), but I can’t imagine they wouldn’t at least consider a move to the Big 12 if asked. Moreover, this move would allow the Big 12 and their potential target to skip a lot of red tape, as they don’t need to remove a team from its current conference, but rather simply need to add an independent. Add in the fact that BYU has major football pedigree, and they’d seem like a great match.

BYU wouldn’t get bowled over in the Big 12 because they don’t let anyone stand in their way… not even the refs… image via http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865590303/BYUs-Hoffman-scores-2-touchdowns-breaks-another-record.html?pg=all

After that the contenders start to look a lot worse. SMU has football history (not all of it good), and they’re located in the Big 12’s backyard, but they’ve been atrocious of late. Tulsa could possibly grow to compete in the Big 12 but I imagine if they joined tomorrow they’d spend the better part of a decade getting beaten down (perhaps a bottom dwellers rivalry with Kansas is in the works!).

At the end of the day, all these schools have arguments for and against their joining the Big 12. Moreover, the Big 12 may not even decide to expand at all. But if they want to erase the risk of having two playoff caliber teams left out of competition like this year, they may be better safe than sorry, and may get to play kingmaker for one of these well deserving schools.

(Photo Credit North Dakota State Athletics)

But now, because I am an enormous homer, I have a quick aside which of course involves NDSU. Conference shakeups always get me excited that maybe the guys running NDSU will decide to be proactive and push to join an FBS conference. Now I’m not saying NDSU will be targeted by the Big 12 (they wont… even though it may be a pipe dream of mine…) or even that they’ll be able to join the Mountain West to replace a hypothetically poached team (another dream of mine), but when one conference makes a move (in this case the Big 12) the repercussions always flow downhill, which means that eventually, at the end of the road there could be an FBS conference looking for a new team, and NDSU could fit the bill perfectly.

I’ve talked about this time and again so I’ll keep this short but heres the issue. The conferences lower down in FBS (and therefore closer to NDSU’s current status) aren’t good geographic fits for the Bison at all (Sun Belt, Conference USA) OR if they are a good geographic fit, they are not likely to lose teams in this Big 12 shakeup (MAC) which means NDSU likely won’t benefit from this change.

The larger shame is that the two conferences which form the bulk of this discussion (The Big 12 and the Mountain West) both would form excellent geographic homes for NDSU. While competing in the Big 12 would be difficult it would be nowhere near impossible as NDSU has beaten both Kansas State and Iowa State in back to back years, and Kansas a couple years before that. Moreover, NDSU could come in and compete immediately in the Mountain West. They would absolutely feast on the bottom tier of the Mountain West (Wyoming, Hawaii, San Jose State, UNLV, New Mexico) and at least compete with the best (although it would take several years of growth before NDSU could consistently beat the Boise’s or the Utah State’s of the world. And other than Hawaii the geographic concerns wouldn’t be the end of the world (NDSU already travels to southern California on multiple occasions for small sports such as track etc).

In any event both these conferences would make great homes for the Bison. But that will likely not be coming any time in the near future (MWC) or any time at all (Big 12). These conferences would need new teams that could begin playing right now, and if NDSU moved to the FBS there would be an initial ban on postseason play (just as there was when the Bison went from DII to DI FCS in the first place). These two conferences are not “starter” conferences. These are finished products. They’re not in the business of doing a favor for a school which is just now moving out of the FCS ranks, regardless of how successful that school may be.

I don’t know what needs to happen to pull NDSU up to the FBS ranks, but I’m getting pretty sick of waiting, and I hope this new shakeup happens, and opens some doors for the Bison.

Klieman Mountains Isn’t Easy

Photo Credit http://www.valleynewslive.com/story/24224713/chris-klieman-named-new-bison-head-coach

So we’ve come to the end of Chris Klieman’s first regular season as head coach of the North Dakota State Bison. And if I do say so myself, things don’t look too shabby. The Bison finished 11-1 (with yet another win over an FBS school, this time Iowa State). Moreover, this isn’t exactly a case of a championship roster remaining intact while only the Head Coach changes. In truth while the players can all be accredited to Bohl in large part, this team is largely devoid of myriad key starters from the 3-peat teams Bohl put together. The star, starting quarterback, Brock Jensen, is gone along with Marcus Williams and Billy Turner (now with the Jets and Dolphins respectively) starting running back Sam Ojuri, star linebacker Grant Olson, go to receiver Ryan Smith, and a veritable cornucopia of other guys. So while Bohl certainly didn’t leave the cupboards bare, it was up to Klieman to build a new title contender out of these parts. The “team” of Bohl was certainly not left intact.

(Photo Credit – Tony Guitierrez, AP)

So all in all I’m quite pleased with Klieman’s 11-1 record. The one loss came against UNI which, although not excusable, is at least understandable considering the circumstances. UNI plays NDSU tough every single year. Although they aren’t always sitting at the top of the division they always play NDSU tough. Indeed, they might have, historically, the best football program in the Missouri Valley Football Conference (the best FCS conference by far). Since 1985 (the year the MVFC began playing football again) UNI has won 16!!! conference titles. The next highest total by any school? 5. And while NDSU has won 4 titles running, they’re still newcomers to the league by UNIs standards, and UNI just wants to remind us of that on occasion.

Photo Credit MATTHEW PUTNEY / Courier Photo Editor

So anyway, its incredibly hard to play AT UNI and this year we couldn’t pull off the win unfortunately. O’well. As much as I wanted Klieman to get an undefeated season during his first year as coach, he’s still 11-1 and split the conference title with Illinois State (also a 1 loss team with, guess who… UNI as their only loss). Now, while this kindof freaks me out as an aside (Klieman’s alma mater is UNI, and if we’re gonna lost to them it makes me worry that, if the job ever came open, Klieman would leave the Bison to return to his hometown of Waterloo Iowa) even though it probably shouldn’t (Mark Farley is only 51, and also a UNI guy so unless an FBS job comes calling he’ll probably be there another 10 years) none of this changes the fact that Klieman appears to have been the right choice for this job.

UNI has an elite program and not only are they Klieman’s alma mater, they’re his hometown team. He was born and raised in Waterloo Iowa going to Panthers games. So there must have been some mixed emotions walking off the field in the UNI Dome with the first L of his NDSU Career. (Photo Credit MATTHEW PUTNEY / Courier Photo Editor)

However, all isn’t quite perfect in paradise. First and foremost, regular season wins and conference titles are fantastic, but what I think all Bison Football fans want is that fourth straight title. No school in FCS history has every won 4 straight, and as a protest to our backwards thinking boosters at NDSU who wouldn’t allow the school to go to the FBS when we had the chance in 2004, I’d love to be the first school to achieve this. So while I don’t mean to downplay what Klieman has done so far, really he hasn’t done anything yet. I realize thats an incredibly unfair way to judge a new headcoach (win a national title in your first year or you suck) its just kindof the way I think about it.

More importantly, however, is the fact that the team hasn’t always looked right this season. Under Bohl the team was the absolute picture of discipline and execution. NDSU never made stupid mistakes. Rarely committed penalties and helped the other team, and simply put their nose to the ground, ran the ball, and ground their opponents into flour (yay! Farm Jokes!!).

This is what discipline and hard work get you. (Image via Bison Illustrated)

This year, however, the Bison just look off. On offense they can still grind opponents down with 6 yard rush followed by 5 yard rush, followed by 15 yard rush. Its the same formula. However, it feels like every third play they O line will hold, or false start, or something that erases the play and sets the team back. This was the formula that got us the L at Northern Iowa. Now, it didn’t result in repeated losses this year (obviously) and it didn’t even seem to slow the team down (of their 11 wins, 7 of them were by 20 points or more, INCLUDING the Iowa State win). NDSU still seems to dominate people, much the way Mississippi State was playing earlier this season. They were both just so much more talented and better than their opponents that they were constantly able to make stupid plays and mistakes and not just get the win in spite of this, but DOMINATE their opponents in spite of this.

NDSU has absolutely dominated in almost every game they played this year, even with mountains of mistakes. However, UNI proved we’re not perfect, and wins against FBS schools don’t matter come playoff time. (Photo Credit: Steven Branscombe, USA TODAY Sports)

However, when you run into a disciplined team, as was the case when NDSU squared off against UNI, things don’t look so peachy. As far as talent is concerned the Bison are clearly still the best team in FCS, and honestly a veeeery good team by FBS standards (Sagarin has them ranked #37 right now ahead of neighboring powers like Minnesota and Iowa) but the execution terrifies me.

If you can screw it up during the regular season against a UNI team that finished 8-4, what happens when you start playing the best teams in the FCS during the playoffs. Like I already said, we all want this 4th title, but stupid mistakes me keep it out of our hands, and may rob us of an opportunity that I doubt will ever come again (a chance to win 4 straight).

Moreover, this whole issue of discipline really confuses me because I don’t see Klieman as an undisciplined coach. He knows how to run a program and has been a part of a winning one for a long time now. He learned under Bohl and is somewhat of a hand picked successor to him (although Bohl wanted Klieman to head to Wyoming with him rather than become head coach at NDSU, which only speaks to how important and skilled Klieman really is).Maybe its just youth. Like we already discussed NDSU lost more seniors off last years team than the number of pairs of glasses Velma lost on Scooby Doo’s 50 year run on television.

 

Young teams make mistakes and that’s fine. If this is what a young Klieman team looks like, where they make tons of mistakes but are physically dominant most of the time, then I can’t wait for us to figure it out and get back to our disciplined ways. It scares me that this team didn’t seem to learn its lesson after the Northern Iowa loss though. You would think losing their 33 game win streak would have been enough to snap some sense into them, but even last Saturday in the Youngstown State game, a game they dominated and their last chance at a tune up before the playoffs start, they were STILL making all kinds of mental mistakes and stupid decisions throughout the game. This really terrifies me heading into the playoffs where all the teams are good.

(Photo Credit North Dakota State Athletics)

With all that said, however, I just worry that this year’s playoff run represents a once in a lifetime opportunity. If we aren’t going to be allowed to compete in the FBS, then this is really what I have going for me. I hope the players all understand that this is the kind of opportunity that never comes again and they get their act together for the playoff run. They already cost themselves homefield advantage throughout the playoffs with that one loss, dropping themselves from the #1 overall seed to #2. They’ve given themselves an uphill battle in every game this year, and now its carried over to their path to a title. It didn’t have to be this hard, but they made it this way. I just hope with the added pressure of playoff season and the chance to make history, they don’t crack under the weight. I hope we prove that NDSU football is a program, not just a coach. I think it IS a program of dominance and Klieman and this crop of guys ARE every bit as good as their predecessors. Now I just hope they prove that to the rest of the world and go make history.

Photo Credit Bison Illustrated

Rebuilding the Hard Way: First Impressions on the Dave Richman Era

(Photo Credit http://www.valleynewslive.com/story/25197019/bison-name-dave-richman-as-head-basketball-coach)

My Alma Mater is the University of Kentucky. As such I couldn’t help but become a big Kentucky Basketball fan. Now, I bring this up because this has given me a wealth of knowledge of what rebuilding a basketball program year after year, both in terms of replacing the coach and replacing the players, looks like. However, my view of these areas is CERTAINLY tainted by my school of choice, as in no way to they represent your average college basketball school.

The coaching transition I watched was that of the Billy Gillispie Dumpster Fire to the Calipari Renaissance.

I TELL YOU MAH BROTHERS AND SISTAHS I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT AND IT IS BLUUUUUUUUUUUEEE!!!!

 

This isn’t exactly how all coaching changes go. You don’t often go from “bottom of a bottomless barrel” to the Peak of Mount Olympus the very next year. Sometimes you go from Dumpster Fire to Just Crap or Good Team to Contender with a coaching change, but usually you don’t get to skip all 47 steps in between. So obviously the transition from Saul Phillips to Richman wasn’t going to look like that. The rebuild was also not going to look the same as Calipari’s roster overhauls. Y’see… when Cal rebuilds his roster, which he does every single year, he does it with Freshmen. But Cal’s Freshmen generally have about as much in common with your standard incoming Freshman basketball player as they do with Jennifer Aniston or this Taco Bell Chalupa I’m eating right now.

Cal is bringing in Freshmen who could be in the NBA rather than college which means that although he still has to deal with growing pains, he can (hopefully) nullify this effect through sheer weight of talent. Most college basketball programs aren’t this lucky. Which brings me to first year head coach for the Bison Men’s basketball team, Dave Richman.

The 2013-14 team was the best team in the history of Bison Basketball. Unfortunately for members of the loyal Herd, however, the team lost its Head Coach, Saul Phillips, and 6 seniors (including their two best players) after last season. Oh, and just for good measure our AD left to become the vice AD at Iowa… y’know… just to round things out. By all accounts this hinted at a rocky road forthcoming.

Unfortunately I have a sneaking suspicion that our rocky road will be infinitely less refreshing and delicious than this…

So, I prepared myself for a step or two backwards from the program with the full knowledge that eventually the program would be back on the right track. I had faith because for one thing I loved the coaching hire. Dave Richman is Green and Gold through and through. He graduated from NDSU and has spent all but 2 years of his coaching career, and has the endorsement of NDSU last two coaches Saul Phillips and Tim Miles. Perhaps the thing I liked the most then was the idea that he might stay put with NDSU for a couple decades or even his entire career. Now, I would never begrudge a guy for moving on and bettering his career, and in truth if it ever so happened that Richman became the coach at a big time college basketball program, I would love to root for him there the same way I root for Miles at Nebraska BUT whereas those guys came from out of state, Richman is home grown. I totally get why North Dakota is a place someone from outside wouldn’t want to spend the rest of their life. I mean… seriously… this isn’t exactly a friendly commute to work Mother Nature…

But it would certainly help the program if we could find our Jim Boeheim, Coach K, Tom Izzo, Mark Few, or hell, even our own Scott Nagy. A lifer who will be a constant for the program for years to come. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s just start on the fun part where I talk about all the ways Richman has already surprised me.

First off, I was incredibly pleased with the recruiting class he brought in to rebuild a depleted roster. Recruiting is always my biggest fear for NDSU Athletics. For one thing the state of North Dakota doesn’t produce a lot of Division 1 athletes simply because the population of the state is so low (less than a million in the entire state, making us the 4th smallest state in the Union… even behind South Dakota… those bastards…). So this obviously means you need to go outside of the State to bring in talent and compete at the Division 1 level. Then comes the problem of weather again. You have to be able to convince kids to commit to live in Fargo for 4 years which is definitely easier said than done. Its one thing to get them to come in, and another to keep them from transferring or leaving the program somewhere through the process. We won’t know anything about the latter until later in Richman’s career but as far as the former, so far he’s impressed me mightily.

Now a lot of these guys are shared recruits with Saul Phillips, but Richman is the guy who got them to stick with NDSU even after Phillips left, and he added to the class himself as well. So far he appears to have stuck to Phillips’ strategy of hitting Wisconsin hard for the bulk of his team (something Saul did because of his many connections to the state as well as the University of Wisconsin). The two Germantown guys (Jake Showalter and Evan Wesenberg) come from an elite high school program, and even though we failed to lock in their star teammate Lamonte Bearden, I think by the time they’re Juniors both those guys are going to be solid players for us. The only problem with that is because we lost so much of our size off of last years teams, and because we’re redshirting every other big guy we locked up this year (more on that later) we really need Wesenberg to start contributing now. In fact it would be ideal if he could start at Power Forward so we could play Jacobson at the 3, but that simply isn’t going to happen. And Showalter looks like a project player at the moment. Richman hasn’t given him many minutes yet so I supposed I don’t really know how good he is, but the very fact that Richman doesn’t think he can get on the floor yet says enough for me. That doesn’t mean they’re not valuable players however. Like I said both these guys come from a winning program in Germantown High School which went a combined 82-2 and won three consecutive Wisconsin Division 1 state championships from 2012-14. Both guys are winners and were key cogs to those winning teams, even if Bearden was the star.

Photo Credit Joe Koshollek

The last Wisconsin kid, Paul Miller, is making a serious case for being an impact player right now. He’s played his way into NDSU’s 6th man role at least at this early part of the season. Right now his offense is heavy on the 3 ball which I don’t necessarily like because thats prone to hot and cold streaks, but the guy is averaging 10 points per game and shooting 48% from the field so he’s definitely some great offense off the bench. This is critical for this NDSU team which lost so many guys from its 8 man rotation, and thats a great eye from Richman to identify that this young guy can come in and play right away (even more so when you consider that 2 of those 3 games were against Texas and Iowa).

Photo via https://twitter.com/ndsumbb

So off the bat Richman has done a good job of keeping the Wisconsin pipeline open to NDSU. This is critical cuz these guys are used to the ND kind of winters and won’t be scared off by it. He also brought in a walk-on from Minnesota in Brian Ishola who also shouldn’t have any transfer fears for the program. I don’t know much about him as a player since he recently had knee surgery and hasn’t gotten on the court, but at 6’5″ 210lbs and judging by some grainy high school mixtapes he should be able to be a long, physical defender for NDSU, and hopefully Richman can develop his offense enough to get him on the floor.

However, Richman has also spread out the borders of NDSU recruiting a little bit. He brought in two skilled big men (much needed for NDSU) to redshirt this year. The first is Spencer Eliason, a 6’9″ PF from Nebraska whose brother currently plays at the University of Minnesota. The second his Trey Miller, a 6’7″ forward from Washington state. Both guys are redshirting which I like for several reasons. Whereas a program like Kentucky can only bring in these elite freshmen for 1 year before they turn pro, a school like NDSU is in for the long haul.

FYI if you’re an NDSU recruit it helps if you’re at least… like… 7% Sasquatch… on either your maternal or paternal side… doesn’t really matter, we just need you to have a hair for warmth

First and foremost, these guys are not from ND or anywhere near Fargo. There is going to be a period of adjustment for them as they get used to living somewhere else for the first time in their lives. This is a problem lots of normal college kids have to adjust to, and if you add the pressure of playing Division 1 basketball to the mix, you’re bound to have some issues. Redshirting them allows them to still practice, grow, and improve with their teammates, while removing some of the pressure and allowing them to adjust to their new college lives. Trey also just had knee surgery back in Washington, so not worrying about rushing him back from injury is yet another huge plus. All things considered, slowing things down seems like it will be incredibly helpful to both players, which is first and foremost in my mind, and the minds of the coaches and staff at NDSU.

In addition to helping the players, however, redshirting them also helps the program. While at first it seems detrimental to have 2 big men sit out the season on a team starved for size, that’s not quite the whole story. This would likely be a wasted year for these two. Certainly for Trey with that surgery, and probably for Spencer as well. It is much better for the team to have them both develop their skills without wasting a year of eligibility, and come back that much better for next season. Moreover, redshirting these two will help fix a balance problem which has been a problem for NDSU’s basketball program at multiple points during its D1 history. When you have a large freshmen class, eventually you’re going to have a large senior class (as was the case for NDSU with the class of 2009 and the class of 2014). Now, while in NDSU’s case these periods of large senior classes have resulted in the schools only 2 NCAA Tournament berths, it also leaves the program feeling rather shattered and broken once so many key players leave all at once.

To look only at this years team, we have only 3 upper classmen on the entire roster; Sr. Lawrence Alexander and Jrs. Kory Brown and Chris Kading. Moreover, because NDSU is regretfully not Kentucky, having a youthful team like this means you will make a lot of mistakes, which this NDSU team has done thus far this season. Its just a lot to ask for a program like NDSU to be competitive with so much youth.

Instead, it is much better to evenly disperse scholarships across the various classes. In Division 1 college basketball every team is allowed to have 13 scholarship players. This means the ideal situation would be to have 3 players in 3 classes, and 4 in one. This would give a team an even mix of upper and under classmen, and ensure that a team isn’t completely devastated by graduations.

This is something Richman is already addressing. Rather than leaving this class of 2018 as 7 players (including redshirt freshman A.J. Jacobson) Richman has redshirted Miller and Eliason, as we mentioned, shrinking the class size to 5, but with only 4 true freshmen, and only 3 of those true freshmen on scholarship. So anyway, our current breakdown of scholarship players/classes looks like this.

Seniors – 1

Juniors – 2

Sophomores – 2

Freshmen – 6

11 total scholarships. 2 short of the total allowed. Another no no most of the time, but it will allow Richman to fix this class size problem NDSU has. The way Richman has structured his team next  year the scholarship breakdown will look like this.

Seniors – 2

Juniors – 2

Sophomores – 4

Freshmen – 4

Not the ideal but getting closer. This is a rather boring point and one that I shouldn’t spend any more time on, but its one that I place a lot of importance on personally, because I want NDSU to be consistently competitive without any major rebuilding years. I think Coach Richman is approaching this issue with the same mentality, so hopefully in the future we’ll never have a team with only 3 upper classmen again.

(Brendan Maloney/USA TODAY Sports)

As far as coaching, then, its too early to really say anything but I like how Coach Richman runs his program. He’s built a solid staff around himself and he runs things by the book. He establishes his 8 man rotation and generally sticks to it which is often critical in basketball, to ensure that players get into rhythm and to make sure your players maintain consistency of play as they are familiar with the various lineups they will play with. I’ve also heard that he’s more of a hard nosed guy rather than a players coach like Saul Phillips reportedly was. This worried me at first because I thought it would hurt recruiting, but after looking at how he finished the 2014 class, and the great start he has had to the 2015 class (two commits during the early commitment period last week) I’m a lot less worried about that and more worried about how the team performs on the court.

So anyway, there are going to be a ton of growing pains this year. That Kennesaw State game felt like a nightmare as NDSU blew a 23 point lead (HOW?!?!?!) only to then win by 13 (again… HOW?!?!!). Carlin Dupree is definitely the point guard of the future  for us and the guy is insanely talented, but when opposing teams really go at him (like Iowa did) he is prone to melting down. Thats just youth and its something he’ll get over, but it won’t help us this year.

 

A.J. Jacobson has had a horrible start to the season, which I personally believe comes from the fact that we’re playing him at Power Forward. The guy is a natural wing who should ideally be playing the 3 for us, but right now that just can’t happen. You need to have your best 5 players on the floor as much as possible and Jacobson is one of our five best guys. The only problem is that 3 of our other best guys are guards (Dupree at the 1, LA at 2 and Kory at 3) which slides him over to the power forward slot playing next to Kading (at center). This means this problem will automatically fix itself next year when LA graduates and one of the younger guys slides into the PF role, but for now we have to play Jacobson there (since the only other 4 available is Wesenberg and he’s just not ready yet for starters minutes). SO ANYWAY Jacobson is struggling but thats not surprising when he’s wayyyyy undersized for the position he’s playing and the guys defending him are way bigger and more physical than he would normally have to go against. He seems to be figuring things out, albeit slowly, and made some strides against Kennesaw State, leading the team in boards with 8, so perhaps when he’s not playing the veritable skyscrapers Texas trots out there, it won’t look like such a mismatch.

Other rotation guys like Dexter Werner still have a lot to learn, but have given us stretches of solid play (Werner had a great block against Iowa around the 10 minute mark of the 2nd half, but then came back on the very next play and fouled the guy so he’s still very up and down). Long story short, theres going to be a ton of growing pains on this team and even though they’re talented, I don’t see a tournament run in our future. But hey, we could easily get hot in the Summit League Tourney and make a run so you never know. Either way, I feel like Richman has removed every single doubt I had coming into this rebuild process. The team is going to bounce back strong next season, which is a full year ahead of when I first anticipated they’d be back to NCAA Tourney potential form. I feel like the rebuild is even already done, its just a matter of coaching these guys up and developing them some more, which could be done as early as March of this year! All things considered I’m already completely sold on Coach Richman and the New-look Bison. Which is pretty impressive when you think the team is only 1-2 right now. Unfortunately not everyone gets to rebuild the John Calipari way, where you lose 6 starters, and sign up 8 more fresh out of the gates. Schools like NDSU have to take the slower route, and every now and then have an ’empty-cupboards’ kind of year. But hopefully with Richman at the helm, NDSU won’t have to worry so much about these things anymore, and can develop into a consistent Mid Major staple in March. And hopefully he’ll be doing it for a long long time.

A Short Aside to a Long-winded Topic

(Photo Credit – Tony Guitierrez, AP)

So the SEC Meetings went down in Destin, Florida last week. This is one of those non-stories that has become a story in recent times because of how obsessed Americans are with football. However, in spite of that pithy remark, I do believe that nowadays these meetings of the major conferences have become incredibly important. With the slow but steady push over the last 4 years of the power conferences to become super conferences, these meetings have become exceedingly crucial to the fate and future of college sports. The reason of course being the ever present rumors that the power conferences are slowly building themselves up to the point where they can become independent entities from the NCAA or form some sort of federation where they compete with one another and leave the old NCAA schools behind. SO with that in mind these meetings are always something to pay attention to.

Moreover, this years meetings did not disappoint in this regard as rumors are flying that the SEC will consider a mid range plan to demote themselves to Division 4 competition which would essentially give them jurisdiction over their own scholarship situation and remove the cornucopia of fetters which the NCAA lashes on them. Furthermore, with the conference already sitting at 14 teams (and all big schools capable of competing in the conference) and the possibility always open for further expansion in the future, the competition within conference would still be enough to keep the SEC as the premier football conference in the country. It also makes perfect sense that these conversations are happening at this particular moment in time because the SEC Network is launching this season.

Plausibly, the SEC will want to jump through the NCAA hoops for maybe a couple more as they cement the financial stability of the Network. However, with an ESPN – SEC alliance and American football mania at an all time high and growing, I see absolutely no scenario wherein the SEC Network fails. This thing is going to be a colossal financial success. Once this truth becomes evident, the SEC would be completely free to break with the NCAA and move to Division 4 as rumored. There are enough teams in conference to maintain a high level of competition. Recruits would still come to the conference (and even be more likely to do so because the SEC could offer more scholarships and scholarship money in D4 than the NCAA allows them to offer in D1. Moreover, its important to note that the best recruits in the country largely choose their colleges based on a desire to get to the NFL. And the NFL, for their part, could not care less where an athlete played college ball as long as they think he can play. There would be absolutely no stigma in this regard when it came to NFL scouting. This move which seems farcical at first, would allow the SEC to keep all their prestige intact while leaving them open to move more freely than they are currently. In short then… this could totally happen. Plus it would be a near mortal blow to the NCAA which would make countless sports fans happy.

The NFL couldn’t care less which conference or division a kid plays in when it comes to draft day as Eric Fisher (#1 overall last year) and Khalil Mach (#4 overall this year) both from the Mid-American Conference, taught us. (Photo Credit – Al Bello, Getty Images)

(Photo Credit – Elsa, Getty Images)

However, not everyone would be happy. These kind of power moves are fantastic for the large schools, but they would crush mid major sports. Obviously this is a larger issue in basketball than football, but the fact remains the same, that the smaller schools (such as NDSU) would be badly hurt in the long run if they could no longer get those big pay days from playing an SEC or a Big 10 or PAC 12 school at the beginning of the year. Those paydays often keep a lot of athletic departments afloat, and without them I can’t even imagine the damage that would be done.

(Photo Credit – Reese Strickland, USA Today Sports)

However, this kind of damage may happen anyway even if the SEC doesn’t break with the NCAA, and it may happen sooner than we think. Another topic on the agenda for the SEC was a desire from the power football schools in the conference (Alabama, LSU, Florida, Georgia, etc) to force SEC school to cut FCS opponents (and potential upsets) from their schedules entirely and focus on shifting their schedules to play only power conference schools. Now, as a Kentucky fan this somewhat of a scary prospect as those gimme wins against FCS schools are often much needed wins which can push the team to bowl eligibility. However, this problem becomes neutralized when you remember that schools like Kansas, Wake Forest, and Indiana are in power conferences. Meaning that even though all three of them have historically atrocious football programs, we would be allowed to play (and beat) all of them, perhaps by even wider margins than we could beat an FCS team (I would much rather play Indiana every year than play NDSU. NDSU could have beaten Indiana by 20 this past season).

(Photo Credit – David Stephenson, Lexington Herald Leader)

Now, this isn’t collusion by the SEC teams to hurt the little guys and undercut the NCAA. It actually has a lot more to do with the 4 team playoff system. SEC powers wont to ensure the entire conference has no chinks in the armor so all of Alabama, Florida, and LSU’s in conference wins continue to count for more than a PAC 12 win does. Beating up on FCS teams hurts SEC Strength of Schedule arguments, because opposing teams can say the mid and lower teams of the SEC on beat terrible teams and that its just a top heavy conference. This new system would change that and make the SEC Schedules much more unassailable.

(Photo Credit – Gerald Herbert, AP)

For the smaller schools like NDSU, however, the fact remains that this would still be a devastating outcome. Think back to last season for a second. What was the most exciting game of the regular season? The win at Kansas State, right? Hell, I think that was the most exciting game of the season PERIOD, even including the playoffs and the national championship game.

(Photo Credit USA Today Sports, Image via CBS Sports via http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/writer/dennis-dodd/23450521/power-poll-ohio-state-on-top-but-ndsu-fcs-are-gaining-ground )

Obviously I’m glad we won the title and completed the three-peat, but that game wasn’t in question the entire time. We dismantled Towson. K State was a battle. We had a great core of fans travel down to the game. Hell, it even felt regional and local in a way the National Title game never does. I had a lot more fun watching our little David slay the Goliath in our own back yard (Kansas, also in the upper Midwest like us) than watch us as Goliath destroy a team from the East Coast in Texas. That just feels like an artificial construct, and there was no excitement anyway because everyone knew we were going to blow them out.

(Image via http://bigstory.ap.org/article/n-dakota-st-3rd-fcs-title-row-35-7-over-towson )

My point in bringing all this up is just to reiterate the fact that for quite a while now that early season BCS opponent game has been the most exciting part of NDSU’s season. We have so far and away outgrown our surroundings in FCS that I’m not even entertained by watching the Bison crack the skulls of wildly inferior FCS foes. Now, however, the Power Schools are all going to begin shifting away from FCS opponents. Once the SEC completes this transition to all Power Conference opponents the other Power Conferences will follow suit to make sure the SEC doesn’t retain another competitive advantage. That means no more Iowa State game for NDSU. No more Kansas State. No more Minnesota (even though they’re afraid to play NDSU anymore because they can’t beat the Bison). Frankly put, no more fun for me in the regular season.

(Photo Credit – Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sports)

I understand that NDSU is about to enter a maaaaaaajor rebuild with Coach Bohl leaving for Wyoming, but imagine how much harder the rebuild will or would be without the influx of cash from those big opponent games, and the influx of fan excitement and energy that comes with playing those games (win OR lose). NDSU in its current for cannot remain a major power playing only FCS opponents. It is going to stymie growth and likely prevent us from ever reaching the enormous potential that I know this athletic department has.

But there’s nothing we can do about what the SEC or the Big 10 or the PAC 12 and Big 12 want to do. Their schedules are their business (literally… there’s tons of money at stake here) and I have no qualms with them doing whats right by themselves. However, that doesn’t mean that I want NDSU to roll over and throw in the towel. This problem can be quickly remedied (and yes… I can hear your groaning through the computer screen as I bring up my pet project yet again BUT IT IS VALID AND IMPORTANT AND I CAN SHOUT REAL LOUD AND HAVE A BLOG SO LISTEN UP!!!!) if NDSU would make the jump up to D1-A. The only way to ensure this quality of opponent (and frankly quality of game and product) are maintained is to move into a conference where this level of competition is the norm, rather than a once a year treat like it is now for Bison fans.

The winds of college sports are shifting. Nobody likes the NCAA. They’re corrupt and incompetent and the major schools are fed up with it. The preliminary moves are already in place for the Power Schools to jump ship and send the NCAA sinking to the bottom of the ocean. The only problem is that there are no life rafts left over for the Mid-Majors. They’re gonna be left hanging out like the orchestra on the freaking titanic. Its going to be hard enough for the D1-A schools in minor conferences like the MAAC and the AAC to survive. Its going to be nearly impossible for the FCS schools to do so. NDSU has begun to build some amazing sports momentum. They’ve created a beautiful sports community in the last 7 or 8 years and College Gameday felt like a beautiful crowning achievement this year. But if we want this fun to continue in any capacity we need to move fast before it all goes away… otherwise… well… play me off boys…

The Price of Success

(Kirby Lee – USA Today)

First Coach Bohl, now Coach Phillips. Over the weekend Saul Phillips accepted an offer to become the next Head Coach of the Ohio Bobcats. This one definitely took my by surprise. Not Phillips leaving. He had to make this move. As much as I hate to admit it NDSU is not just a stepping stone job… it is the stepping stone TO the stepping stone job. Coach Phillips was making $175,000 a year as the Men’s Basketball Coach at NDSU. Now I’m not saying we should pity him for making six figures, but he’ll make $550,000/year to coach at Ohio, a program which is quite obviously a stepping stone itself as they have provided the coaches for Illinois and Boston College.

It sucks to lose our coach. Especially the same year we lost our legendary football coach. This is definitely the end of a golden year for NDSU sports, which really stinks. Both teams are going to bounce back and be right back to their winning ways sooner rather than later, but there’s going to be a drop off. This is especially painful for me, because as you know and as I write about ad naseum, I’m the biggest proponent of NDSU jumping up to a larger conference. Now with our 2 major sports in flux and as we’re about to take a definite stepback it pretty much ends any chance of us jumping conferences for the time being. I’m taking this about as well as you’d expect.

I promise I’ll stop beating this dead horse (that’s a lie… just letting you know up front) BUT we could at least stem some of this problem if we were in a larger conference. A bigger conference means bigger and more frequent payouts for sports teams. Money is a huge reason why we can’t keep our coaches around so if we could pay them more and (whats probably a bigger problem) their assistants we would stand a lot better chance of keeping them at least from schools like Ohio. We would still lose coaches to the Nebraska’s of the world, but we could probably fight off Wyoming, Colorado State, and Ohio. Moreover being in a bigger conference like the MAC (where Ohio plays by the way) would also mean that the calibur of job needed to pull one of our coaches away would need to be higher as well.

Gene Taylor, to his credit, knew that by making the jump up from D2 we would be setting ourselves up for coaching turnover, which is why he tried to move us all the way up to D1-A rather than AA and put us in the WAC (a bigger, more stable [at the time] conference).  But before you say that proves we never should have gone and that we shouldn’t make another mini up up, we never would have had the increased success and excitement we’ve had without that move. We will probably be fine sitting still in the Summit and Missouri Valley (although its risky in the volatile world of realignment we currently live in) but I can’t help believing it would help to be in a bigger conference.

(Bison Illustrated)

As far as the future as things currently stand, I feel alright about it. Same as with the football program. If Gene really does decide to turn the keys over to Dave Richman we will have some major growing pains. Recruiting will take a huge step back. But the coaching will be fine. Moreover, he’s young with DEEP North Dakota roots so we stand a chance of keeping this guy even through the first couple poaching attempts. This guy is an NDSU alum and owes his entire coaching career to NDSU. Plus he’s a real North Dakotan born ‘n’ raised, not like Teddy Roosevelt who we irrationally try to claim at any given opportunity.

The biggest and only real fear I have with coach Richman is that we lose that Wisconsin (particularly Milwaukee) recruiting territory. He’ll give us an ironclad Dakota recruiting effort and I think things will improve drastically in Minnesota (especially with Richard Pitino at UofM) but the Wisconsin recruiting was largely Saul’s efforts. Our real future will lie in Minnesota now, as that Pitino thing can’t be undersold. This guy is an awful coach, an awful recruiter, and an awful person. Most importantly for NDSU though is that in his first year on the job he’s tried mainly to keep his Florida pipeline (created when he was a coach at Florida International) open and redirect it to MN. He doesn’t seem to have faith in MN basketball players which is both hilarious and fortuitous for NDSU. Firing Tubby Smith was moronic by Minnesota and it bummed me out because I like to follow them as a secondary team and I love Tubby (and I loathe all Pitinos) but it was especially stupid because Tubby did a great job of sealing the boarders and keeping Minnesota players in Minnesota. (They also fired him at exactly the wrong time with one of the best recruits in the country being a Minnesota native this upcoming season. Firing Tubby ended any chance they had at landing Tyus Jones). But I digress. Just know that there is a ton of talent to be had in Minnesota and Pitino being at Minnesota helps us immensely.

I’m happy for Saul. I can’t wait for him to pull a Tim Miles and parlay his upper mid major job (Ohio for Saul, Colorado State for Tim) into a big job in a big conference (Nebraska for Tim, and who knows for Saul. Heck if he succeeds enough at Ohio and is patient, maybe he can replace Bo Ryan at Wisconsin once he retires in 6 seasons or so. He got his start there and is obviously close to the man [he had Bo’s son on his staff at NDSU]). BUT ANYWAY things are GREAT for Saul which I love. Things are fine with NDSU. Everyone will be happy and everyone will survive. Even as pessimistic as I am, this is a great time to be a Bison fan, and we’re just starting to build an amazing sports culture for the program. I can’t wait to watch it continue to grow. The support is there so I’m confident both our new coaches will be able to succeed as long as fans keep the faith and support them.

image via NDSU Athletics twitter https://twitter.com/NDSUAthletics/status/380480547748732928/photo/1

Revisiting Realignment

(http://www.nmnathletics.com and Bob Nelson)

A few months ago I spent entirely too much time begging NDSU to revisit the realignment question after Gene Taylor’s initial plans in the early 2000s to double jump from D2 into a D1 BCS school and push NDSU into the WAC were dashed by closed minded administrative officials. Just as an aside here I’ve probably been too hard on AD Taylor in this issue, but I’m really curious as to why we haven’t been able to push this question back to the surface ever since that initial failing. It becomes even more frustrating that we COMPLETELY missed a window to take advantage of the utter chaos of the 2011/12 realignment frenzy. Scores of teams switched conferences and NDSU brand was as ascendant as it has EVER been. And I doubt any conference is going to reach out to NDSU but I can’t believe they wouldn’t kick the tires on the issue if NDSU came to them first. As I mentioned in those other articles, Bison Athletics are now truly at their all time high. Three consecutive FCS Football championships, Summit conference regular season and tournament champions and the school’s first win in the NCAA tournament.  Moreover, the school is on a precipice with a coaching change and loss of key seniors in football and even though it looks like we dodged the Marquette bullet with Saul Phillips, we’re still replacing 6 seniors on the basketball team as well. This obviously makes NDSU less attractive to new conferences in terms of what can immediately happen, but NDSU not only has a burgeoning support network in Fargo and the state of North Dakota, but they now have a major national brand! Now, I’m obviously not trying to say they’re Alabama or Duke, but people are really aware of NDSU and national fans would be more than happy to jump on the bandwagon of any North Dakota time on the national stage if only for the comedy of rooter for a team from Nōrth Dakōta. We hosted College Game Day this year! This is definitely an opportunity for us to operate from a position of strength!

image via NDSU Athletics twitter https://twitter.com/NDSUAthletics/status/380480547748732928/photo/1

In any event, our stock is as high as its ever been and its going to dip once next year starts. So right now seems to me like the time Gene Taylor should sell hard on his program, hop into a new conference, then take the next couple years to rebuild to even bigger and better heights since we’ll have elevated the program even further. All we need is an opportunity. And last week it looks like a chance (albeit probably a longshot) may have fallen down to us. On Wednesday the 26th it was announced that the MAC has kicked UMass out as a football only member, effective 2015. UMass rejected an offer to become a full member because their basketball team currently plays in a much better basketball conference, the Atlantic 10, and to be honest this is probably the right move for UMass considering the stature of their basketball program and relative irrelevance of their football program. From NDSU’s perspective I think the MAC is the most realistic conference for NDSU to join and most beneficial for both parties.

Geographically NDSU would only  need to travel to many of the same regions that they currently travel in the Summit, and culturally both conferences are located in the upper Midwest. Moreover, the MAC is a relatively stable conference and would be a great longterm home for NDSU. NDSU would likely not be able to join until 2015 when UMass officially left, but that would simply give the school a chance to stabilize, even begin recruiting and fundraising under the higher profile banner. I don’t think the Bison could come in and win the conference in any of the major sports immediately, but they would easily be middle of the pack with a chance to upset some teams and rise to the top in relatively short order. The one hitch, however, is that NDSU likely cannot and in my opinion should not make this move alone.

If we arbitrarily set Bowling Green University in Ohio as the geographic center of this conference, it takes about 15 hours by car to reach this center-point. From Boston its actually only 12 hours. So even though UMass never really fit with the Midwestern feel of the conference, they were actually a tighter geographic fit. Moreover, they had Buffalo in upstate New York has a backyard neighbor to allow other teams to make one road trip into 2 and ease the travel burden the same way NDSU has done with the 2 South Dakota Schools ever since going D-1. Moreover, the South Dakota schools have been loyal and integral partners in all the success NDSU has been able to achieve. In my opinion SDSU has honestly matched almost everything NDSU has done. Obviously we have the titles and the NCAA tourney win, but SDSU has made themselves into a D1-AA football stalwart and until this year noone could deny that their basketball program had the superior pedigree (they had their 2 berths before us, and clearly have had the best player during this stretch, Nate Wolters, of either school). USD has admittedly struggled, but to be honest that makes me want to stay loyal to them even more.

(Getty Images http://espn991.com/is-nate-wolters-nba-ready/ )

 

(Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinal http://www.jsonline.com/sports/bucks/nate-wolters-playing-major-role-for-bucks-due-to-injuries-b99135667z1-230770481.html )

 

I can’t really imagine abandoning these two schools, especially the struggling one, when they have been every bit as important in NDSU’s rise as our own Athletic Department, players, or fans have been. No conference would want NDSU without a traveling partner. North Dakota is just too distant and too complicated to travel to in isolation. That sounds like a ridiculous statement with the way modern travel works, but most athletic departments don’t fly their teams everywhere, and simply don’t want to add the extra burden of heading to the American hinterland. Leaving these loyal partners behind not only makes us jerks, it would destabilize our program and make us a less attractive partner for potential suitors. The make will not, and probably should not accept NDSU alone as an expansion partner.

And there in lies the biggest obstacle to this potentially (green and) golden opportunity. The MAC currently sits at 13 members including UMass. The other 12 members are already full members. UMass is only even in this conference for the name recognition they bring in from their basketball pedigree which is why the conference is cutting ties now that the Minutemen have refused to bring that basketball program under their umbrella. It is incredibly sensible, and plausible, to believe that the MAC will simply stand pat at 12 members once UMass leaves. They can simply chalk it up to a failed PR ploy and make their conference a more logical 12 member institution with 6 members in each division.

Personally I preferred the old 10-12 team conference models of the pre-expansion and realignment days, and the new 14-16 member monsters which are rearing their heads seem bloated and detrimental to me (you will simply force 4-6 schools to be perpetual bottom feeders to pad the wins of your middle and top tier). So to me it would make sense for the MAC to just hold pat at 12 rather than expand to another awkward 13 (with NDSU) a bloated 14 (NDSU and SDSU) or a bloated AND awkward 15 (if USD got to join the mix). The 15 option is absurd and they would never do that. The 14 would actually set the MAC up with some nice cushion in case a bigger conference came sniffing for any of their members in another round of expansion in the future, but they would probably need to lose another member before we could get all 3 Dakota schools in. I think there is a future here somewhere between these 3 schools and this conference. But maybe I’m just wishfully thinking. I just hope that Gene Taylor, who is honestly more proactive then I probably give him credit for, is already out there making inqueries and trying to sell his program now, when its at its height, so that even if a perfect opportunity isn’t available NOW, then NDSU can be on the minds of these Conference Commissioners’ minds when an even better opportunity pops up. And Commissioner Steinbrecher, if you’re listening, I just wanted to let you know that you have fabulous hair.

(Original Photo Seth Austin http://woub.org/2013/07/24/mac-commissioner-sets-eyes-future-media-day)

The State of BisoNation Basketball

Welp… that was an exciting ride, but painful nevertheless.

(Picture from USA Today)

Not to reopen old wounds (I waited to write this article for a solid week because I’ve been so bummed) but I had really convinced myself the Bison were sweet 16 bound. That Aztecs offense was and is flawed beyond belief. I was certain NDSU could tape together a solid defensive performance against that team and force San Diego to beat themselves. The one wildcard would be Xavier Thames who is definitely an elite scorer, but I assumed we could double team him and trap him and figure ways to slow him down. Whoops. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to score on that San Diego defense but clearly I massively underestimated them. I think I knew how good that defense was, but it never registered with me that NDSU hadn’t played against a unit that tough all year. Nothing was even close. Ohio State was probably the closest thing but what Aaron Craft does isn’t so much “defense” as it is “fouling-on-every-single-play-and-inexplicably-not-getting-called-for-it-while-the-announcer-act-like-you’re-the-best-defensive-stopper-since-Scottie-Pippen.” Not quite the same thing. So anyway I knew how good San Diego’s D was, but thought that if we could play as well offensively as we did against Oklahoma AND have Taylor Braun come out of that awful slump we’d be more than fine. Double and Triple whoops.

I might have just had the fan goggles on. However, in spite of my disappointment I don’t think this was a disappointing year. This was undeniabley a success. NDSU met every one of my expectations for them even though they weren’t able to exceed them like I’d hoped. But now that its over let’s take a look at what the near future has in store of NDSU.

The Coach

We’ve seen this story line time and time again. Cinderella mid-majors make a run (even if its just one game) and some bottom feeder school in a power conference will snap them up. Now, this is more often than not a bad career move for these Cinderella coaches (although financially its a must). Like I said they end up at tough jobs with high turnover rates. Schools like Wake Forest, Virginia Tech, Boston College… all ACC schools. A power conference and arguable the best basketball conference in America. However, there’s a reason all those jobs open up. Those conferences are top heavy and its usually nearly impossible to crack into the top four, meaning your team will be perpetually on the bubble come tournament time which more often than not will get a coach fired. Seth Greenberg was by all accounts the right coach at Virginia Tech. He was the most successful coach there in recent member and would still have been good there today (he actually Louisville star forward and sure-fire lottery pick Montrez Harrell commited there before he got fired and Montrez reopened his recruitment). BUT 3 trips to the bubble in the old ACC (it will be even harder to come out of that conference these days now that they expanded) and 3 denials to the big dance, and the 2 time ACC coach of the year was out.

The Virginia Tech aspect of this actually relates back to NDSU, which we’ll get to in a second. I promise. Anyway Greenberg’s replacement at VaTech, James Johnson, only last 2 seasons before that ACC meat-grinder Coach K talks about chewed him up and spit him out. Just proof that winning at these mid to bottom tier schools in power conferences is a real nightmare. However, Tech made an absolute home run swing with their new coach. They somehow stole Buzz Williams from Marquette. Marquette is a legitimate basketball school. They pour tons of support into that program and will be playing in a brand new stadium within a couple seasons here, and Buzz has proven he can compete in a power conference (2013 Big East Champions) from his days in the Old Big East before it got cannibalized. But for whatever reason he’s decided its time to go do the exact same thing at Virginia Tech now. And I think he will succeed wildly there. Thats not the issue. The issue is that the Marquette job, a school where they have proven they’ll pay what it costs to get a great coach and to succeed in collegiate basketball, is open. Moreover, this is the perfect job for Saul Phillips, whether the Marquette administration realizes it or not.

(virginiatech.sportswar.com)

In truth, and by my estimation lucky for NDSU fans (though not Coach Phillips) Marquette does NOT realize the perfect fit. Or perhaps more accurately Saul is their safety net. As I said before this school has pretensions of being an elite basketball program (I said they’re good but they think they’re Kentucky or Kansas). As such they’ve been swinging for the fences right out of the gate with this coaching search. They’ve already struck out on Shaka Smart (who in all likelihood will remain at VCU until a truly elite job like Duke, Kentucky, or North Carolina comes open within the next 5 years or so) and now it looks like they’re moving on to Tennessee’s Cuonzo Martin.*sidenote* I could actually very easily see Cuonzo taking this job in spite of the fact that he SHOULD stay at Tennessee. With Bruce Pearl primed to reenter the coaching ranks, and making it known his preference was to return to the SEC this off-season and with Tennessee disappointing most fans (before the tournament) Volunteer fans were very outspoken about wanting Cuonzo fired and Bruce rehired, and the national media seemed to go along with this (mainly because it would have been a fantastic idea at the time). If Coach Martin really doesn’t feel secure in the UT job anymore (which he probably shouldn’t after that) maybe it makes sense for him to pick up the much safer and comparably supported job in Marquette. [Also, there would probably be a big raise in it for him] *end sidenote*

(rushthecourt.net)

(earlaustinjr.com)

Marquette probably won’t land Cuonzo though after that Sweet 16 run. If they’re sick of rejection at that point they’ll move on to 2 equally viable but less star studded options. NDSU’s Saul Phillips and Green Bay’s Brian Wardle. To be honest Wardle seems like the better of the two hires to me on the surface because he has more direct ties to Marquette (he played there and got his assistant coaching start there) whereas Phillips merely has ties to the state of Wisconsin rather than the school itself. As far as Wardle, he’s incredibly young at only 34 meaning Marquette could hope to set themselves up for 20 years with one coach, the kind of stability all basketball programs dream of with how mercenary the game has become in the last 2 decades. Obviously this level of success is a little ridiculous to say, but he could be their Boeheim or Mike Krzyzewski. Now, I have no idea if he could copy their success at a bigger program, but he has been undeniably successful in the Horizon League (a solid league to be sure, and quite a bit better than the Summit) and was coach of the year at Green Bay this year. Moreover, even though they missed the NCAA Tourney by failing to grab their conferences automatic bid, he had them playing as the best team in the conference this year. Plus, the way that team can score, they could easily have mirrored NDSU’s run in the Tournement, pulling an 11-6 or 12-5 upset in the first round before flaming out. However, Wardle comes with some warts.

Wardle back in his playing days at Marquette (which really wasn’t that long ago) (examiner.com)

Coach Phillips is definitely the safer, more conservative pick in this regard. In large part his recruiting pipeline comes from the state of Wisconsin so they would have no worries about him locking down some (if not all) of the state’s elite talent. He has ties to the University of Wisconsin as mentioned. And they guy can just flat out coach. So be wary NDSU fans, because there is a strong possibility we lose coach Phillips for Marquette which would be absolutely devastating. I can’t imagine the setback the school would suffer if they lost both Coach Bohl and Coach Phillips in the same year. Its not a death sentence, but its certainly a way to end this Renaissance era of NDSU sports…

That being said, if Coach Phillips moves on I’ll be happy for him. He’ll succeed at Marquette and we all know the guy will always love NDSU. And as previously mentioned I’d rather see him at a solid program like Marquette then end up coaching some bottom feeder program like Washington State or South Carolina and getting run out in 3 years. Moreover, I just wanna add to any fearful or angry NDSU fans that in the arena of college sports you WANT big programs to be sniffing around your coaches. Yes you may lose them but it means your school is doing something right and as long as NDSU can be proactive and jump to a bigger conference sometime soon it will all be worth it. And hey, if he draws that kind of interest AND stays it just means we have a great coach and a great guy and we’re set up for success in the future.

The Seniors

(thedickinsonpress.com)

Losing this senior class is undeniable devastating. No offense to Fred Newell but he really wasn’t a factor on the court this year. And while Mike Felt and Jordan Aaberg were INCREDIBLY useful rotation player we can find guys to replace their minutes and production. Taylor Braun, Marshall Bjorklund, and TrayVonn Wright are the 3 irreplaceable guys. TrayVonn can score the basketball and provided much needed offensive depth on a team which may have been more offensively challenged than we though after seeing that San Diego game. Bjorklund is one of the best athletes I’ve ever seen play for NDSU. How he was able to rebound and block shots at the rate he was able to with his limited size is absolutely baffling to me. I really don’t know that we’ll ever find another player with his unique skill set who is also just such a love-able character and great guy. Losing Braun is devastating for obviously reasons. Not only does he represent valuable length at a mid major, but the guy was also our point guard. Losing your point guard is never good. AND he was our leading scorer. I think we’ll replace those numbers, but its going to be really tough not to have a player like him he was the full package. We’ll piece together his numbers with 2 or 3 other guys (Kory Brown can replace his scoring and maybe even the assists), but having one guy do EVERYTHING for you is just so valuable (though it can be deadly if he’s having an off night like we saw in the tournament).

(collegesportsblog.dallasnews.com)

The Returning Players

However, all is not lost. The cupboards are not bare even though we’ve lost a couple irreplaceable guys and a treasure trove of serviceable pieces. The obvious pieces are sophomore Kory Brown and junior Lawrence Alexander. Brown can play the point if we need him too, but both of these guys can be elite scorers off the ball and will be major foundational pieces for this rebuild project. Also, it is always incredibly dangerous to get wooed by what you saw in the NCAA tournament rather than trusting what you saw all season long, but I absolutely loved what I saw from Chris Kading and Carlin Dupree. Kading will be some much needed size for this team after losing both Braun and Bjorklund and the guy look amazing in both the Oklahoma game and he was solid against San Diego. And any Bison Basketball fan is lying if they say they weren’t enchanted by Dupree’s ballsy performance in that Oklahoma game. Even though he skills obviously aren’t up to par yet, the guy is gonna have to play next year even if its only for depth purposes. While there will definitely be growing pains with him he’s going to be a solid contributor for NDSU moving forward.

You can’t tell me that a kid who can do this as a true freshman on the biggest stage available to him won’t be a contributor sooner rather than later. (thebiglead.com)

So if we have Brown at the 3 playing point-forward kindof like Braun did this year, Dupree at the 1 taking some of those point duties from Brown so he can play off the ball, Kading slides into the 5 for us to replace Bjorklund, and Alexander lighting people up at the 2, we just need a 4 to fill out the new starting rotation. If we want to run a traditional lineup with a traditional forward we probably slide in Dexter Werner who might look a little out of shape but the guy can move on a basketball court. And he can be a top 5 rebounder in the Summit League right away. Plus he’s obviously strong as an Ox. However, if we want to go a little less traditional we could always run out some small ball lineups Brett Vandenbergh who I think can play although we haven’t seen much of him. I think our best bet is the previous lineup though with guys like Brett and the incoming freshmen working their way in like rotation guys. A.J. Jacobson will be a good player eventually, but I’m not sure his body or his game are ready yet so again, the place our team is really going to suffer next year is depth. We’ll have a solid starting 5 but will struggle when we need to go to the bench.

Players in the Pipes

In looking for depth outside of guys like Vandenbergh and Jacobson then, you’ve got a pretty solid incoming class (although it sure would have been nice to land Lamonte Bearden even with his academic woes). Evan Wesenberg will give us much needed depth and length, but he definitely needs to put some weight on before he can really bang down low at the college level. Then as long as one of the 3 other guys, Jake Showalter, Paul Miller, Jon Sobaski, can outpace expectations and turn into a viable rotation guy year one we’ll be just fine. The thing with college basketball recruiting though is that your current season always pays dividends 2 seasons later, not the very next season (simply because that recruiting class is already closed). So if Saul can parlay this great season into a solid class in 2015 we’ll be sitting pretty. Moreover, Saul has proven to be a great assessor and developer of talent so if this season can provide us just the smallest uptick in raw athleticism and talent we could think about sniffing a Sweet 16 in our next tourney trip.

The real jewel, however, would be Alex Illikainen. This kid is the real deal and would easily be the most talented player to ever step onto the court for the Bison (whether he develops into the best PLAYER in Bison history would be up to him, but he’d easily have the most talent). The dude is close to home, being the best rated player in the state of Minnesota for his class. He’s 6’9″ but would probably hit 6’10” by the time he got to campus and since everyone rounds up 2 inches in college basketball that would mean NDSU had a 7 footer to build their offense around! Unheard of! However, we probably don’t have a shot at this kid.

Illikainen is the real deal, and so cose to home. I can’t believe he’s foolish enough to go play for that joke of a coach Richard Pitino at Minnesota rather than NDSU. (grandrapidsmn.com)

I thought that a sweet 16 run would have put us in the running for real with him, but even with 1 win we’re probably on the outside looking in. Our biggest competition is Indiana, but with the way their program imploded this year I have a feeling they lost the inside track on him and opened him up to more options. Creighton is another tough competitor for him, but their program will undeniable take a step back now with Player of the Year Doug McDermott leaving, and their early tourney exit they probably hurt their chances more than NDSU helped theirs with a win, meaning I think we can compete with them. If I had to guess though I’d say he ends up with Fred Hoiberg and Iowa State, even over the U of M. Hoiberg has an elite program, he’s an amazing developer of talent, that would let Alex leave home (big for most kids going off to college) while also staying close enough to home that if there are any problems he can return. But hey, a guy can dream. Not landing Illikainen would definitely not be the end of the world though. He’s a pipe dream, but after this great season and with how great Coach Phillips and his staff are at recruiting the upper Midwest, I have no fear they’re going to pull in a great class in 2015.

(Twincities.com)

So to conclude, things really are pretty bright for the Bison moving forward. The biggest fear is that Coach Phillips leaves, but even if he does there is enough of a solid infrastructure here that we’d be able to rebuild just like we rebuilt when Tim Miles left for Nebraska. The Bison had a much needed breakout year, and nobody should be sad about going 1-1 in the tourney this year no matter how much of a Debbie downer I can be at times. This was a breakout year for the Bison and an amazing year to watch in both the major national sports, and I’m just glad we got to enjoy the ride. And hey, this still put us #3 on that Capital One Cup team of the year thing. And we’ll always have this beautiful memory.

Bittersweet Victory

What you want won’t always make you happy. I guess.

 

In a vacuum, this year has been an undeniable success for NDSU Bison Football. The Bison achieved all of the goals that I thought were musts. They put together an undefeated season and won a third straight title at the FCS level, tying them with Appalachian State as the only schools to do so. They also grabbed their 24th consecutive win, tying the FCS record. However, its pretty obvious that this looks to be the top of the mountain. While they could definitely grab that 25th win to secure the consecutive wins record outright, a 4th straight title is a longshot. The losses are going to take their toll. Not just Coach Bohl (I’m getting there) but on the team itself. Eleven starters and twenty-four seniors have to be replaced next year. What’s more, a lot of the departing players are legitimate stars. Marcus Williams has a bright NFL future ahead of him and might even be a 3rd round pick. Same goes for Tackle Billy Turner and Runningback Sam Ojuri. Then theres guys like Wide Receiver Ryan Smith and Linebacker Grant Olson who respectively formed the hearts of the offense and defense. And lest we forget, no more Brock Jensen next year. Losing that kind of talent and leadership, losing it on both sides of the ball, and all at once… that won’t be easy to recover from. This would have been a tall task even if Bohl were returning… but he’s not.

Things really aren’t all bad though. On the positive side, there is some serious safetynet-ing going on in the receiving corps to help ease the transition. Zach Vraa is and will remain a beast and Tight End  Kevin Vaadeland will return for a 6th season to help ease the transition at quarterback, and NDSU continues to be deep in the backfield with a ready-made starter in Sam Crockett. Furthermore, you’ve got a legit stud returning on defense in Carlton Littlejohn to anchor that squad and help Coach Klieman drag this new unit up to snuff.

Nothing can fix losing the best coach in the nation at his level but I think NDSU’s Athletic Department is making all the correct moves here heading forward. I like the idea of promoting from within to replace Bohl. You can’t go from outside when you’re building upon this level of unprecedented success for the school. Moreover, Klieman seems to be doing everything right in filling up his staff. I love the mix of keeping the old staff around (can’t fix it if its not broken) and the coaches he’s bringing in to replace those leaving with Bohl all of solid coaching experience and will be just fine next year while the staff coalesces around its new leadership. Perhaps more importantly he’s keeping most of NDSU’s local recruiting network (Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska) in place, even if the program appears to be losing valuable inroads into new talent rich areas (Florida and Arizona).

And that is where the sadness begins to set in for me. NDSU will definitely be good next year. Maybe even have a chance to get hot in the playoffs and make a run at that elusive 4th straight title. None of that is guaranteed, but its possible. But NDSU has undoubtedly entered a holding pattern for the time being. With Bohl the sky was the limit. I wrote with the zealous energy of a 14 year old boy who just discovered kissing about NDSU making the Division 1-A jump earlier this season. Thats still possible but much less likely without Bohl. NDSU now has to prove itself once again. I think they will do this but it costs them time and as I already stated, NDSU was at a peak moment, a once in a decade chance to make a serious bid for membership in a D-1A football conference. This window is now closed. It might reopen some day, but the truth is, the leadership at NDSU has no desire to make this move and Bohl’s departure will give them the perfect excuse to stay where there are.

 

Some of those quotes in that ESPN article honestly disgust me. Not enough money to compete with Wyoming??? The only reason Wyoming can outcompete NDSU in terms of funding is because they ARE D1-A and have made it into a top flight football conference in the Mountain West. Also, if you want new boosters and new sources of revenue… am I the only one who remembers that North Dakota is currently flush with new oil money?? How do you think Oklahoma State has fueled their rise in college athletics? Obviously NDSU doesn’t have a T. Boone Pickens, but they also need a lot less than he would be able to provide. North Dakota current economic boon would easily fuel a healthy, ascendant NDSU Athletic’s Department if Gene Taylor felt the need to get out and raise funds. More than anything though this whole situation just makes me sad.

Wyoming has been my favorite example for why NDSU needed to go D1-A. They’re a smaller school than NDSU located in a MUCH less populous area with fewer alumni and potential financial resources to draw upon so if they can do it theres no reason NDSU can’t.  I stole the idea from my dad who always used to bring it up. My dad’s dad, my grandpa, has a ranch in Wyoming so my dad had always sortof followed the Cowboys. I picked up on it and started to keep an eye on them myself. They were always an interesting story to me. A little guy who stumbled into a real football conference with luck and timing. By the time the Mountain West rose up into the top flight football conference it is today, Wyoming already had years of history with those teams and was even a founding member of the conference. So I want them to be good. I always got a kick out of it whenever Scott Van Pelt and Ryen Russillo would become Wyoming fans for a week…

…the same way I got gitty when they gave NDSU the helmet treatment on national TV. These were both two of my favorite little guys.

 

(Deeefinitely took this picture on my cell phone in my parents basement… I got so excited to see NDSU up there with Ohio State, LSU, and Texas that I climaxed  took a picture of a show playing on ESPN News at 3 o’clock in the afternoon so that I could text it to people…)

Anyway, I always wanted Wyoming to be the little engine that could at the top level. I wanted both schools to win.  I just never wanted one to succeed at the other’s expense. I didn’t want NDSU to be sacrificed for Wyoming’s success. I always fantasized about NDSU joining the Mountain West and striking up a rivalry with Wyoming. And hey, Craig Bohl used to beat Wyoming for football recruits. Kids would rather step down a half level and play for Bohl than play in the Mountain West. So it just kind of breaks my heart to see my favorite shining example of why NDSU needed to move up turn into the biggest obstacle on that path. 

I was never afraid of all the “Bohl to Nebraska” rumors. Bo Pellini is a hot head and will get fired soon enough but Nebraska isn’t what it used to be and he’s a great coach… maybe better than anything they could get otherwise. He’s gonna get himself fired eventually. But Bohl was never gonna be the guy at his alma mater. He made his start there, worked his way all the way up to Defensive Coordinator, and got fired when his Head Coach was canned. Nebraska had their chance to have a younger Craig Bohl, there was no reason for them to fire Pellini and go after a 55 year old Bohl. At this point in his life I really felt like Bohl and made a niche for himself as the stalwart overachiever. The guy who found the diamonds in the rough in America’s hinterland and turned them into Champions. I just never stopped to think that he might be able to do the same thing somewhere else.

I’m not mad at Wyoming. I’m going to cheer for Bohl and for the Cowboys. I just hate to see things coming to an end like this. NDSU now has to compete for those same recruits AGAINST Bohl rather than with him. They likely won’t take advantage of this fleeting opportunity to move up into a bigger conference at a higher level. They probably won’t even set themselves apart at their current, lower level by winning a fourth straight title. This just feels like a calamity of missed opportunities. I want bigger and better things for my hometown school. I never want to settle or stagnate, even if “stagnation” is winning national titles. Everything will be fine in the end. I don’t think Bohl will suffer the same fate as the last FCS Champion Head Coach to take over the Cowboys football program. In fact I can’t wait to watch him succeed there. And I feel better every day about the new head of NDSU’s football program. I just wish sometimes that fine wasn’t good enough for the guys at the top at NDSU. And I wish they understood that sometimes you have to move up in the world toward bigger and better things. If Coach Bohl has taught them that much by leaving, then maybe I can be happy in the end.

Coping with Success: Conference Realignment and The North Dakota State Bison, Part Three

This is Part 3 of a multipart series. For part one please click here and for part two here. Or just scroll down. I’m not a very prolific writer soooo they’re pretty easy to find.

Going it Alone?

So we’ve made the case pretty solidly that NDSU itself can succeed on the highest level. However, I think its important to note that a legitimate way to contend with the fear that NDSU can’t make it alone is to point out that they likely wouldn’t have to. As they did with the jump from D-II, NDSU would likely move up with at least one partner school. Most likely this would be the South Dakota State Jackrabbits who stepped in to fill the gap after the University of North Dakota failed abysmally at cooperating with NDSU.

An aside: There is a great deal of pettiness and bitterness inherent in the NDSU – UND rivalry. The pettiness comes entirely from the UND side. When NDSU was planning to make the DI jump in the first place, they reached out to UND as a natural companion to make the jump with, primarily for travel purposes. (the two schools are only an hour apart so visiting schools could potentially save money traveling in sports like volleyball for instance by playing them back to back in a weekend). UND unequivocally turned them down out of sheer small mindedness. The two schools had already cancelled playing each other in football years earlier on UND’s initiative, and the [name removed due to NCAA stipulations] didn’t put this mentality aside to make a positive move for their athletic department. As such NDSU partnered with South Dakota State in their initial jump up, and even though UND eventually followed suit, the “partnership” likely will not (and probably should not) be revitalized at this time. NDSU simply does not need UND at this point. UND can go ahead and keep their air of superiority because of their hockey team. If NDSU went full D1 that point would be moot anyway. Now back to your regularly scheduled article.

UND aside, NDSU has a myriad of potential partners to choose form if considering a jump from 1-AA to 1-A. First and foremost is obviously SDSU. They have been just as competitive (although not dominant) as NDSU on the current level, and there is no reason to believe they too could not survive at the top level. Even this year where SDSU is clearly having a down year in football, they were still ranked top 5 in FCS up until NDSU dominated them, and are still at top 25 team at the 1-AA level sitting at #20. And while their Sagarin rating has taken a beating recently, falling all the way to #120, they’re still a competitive program, and with the added value they bring to the table in basketball, they’re an extremely strong partner for NDSU to continue to pair with. Moreover, bringing them along for the ride would decrease any cultural or geographic qualms inherent in an NDSU move up (due to the Dakota’s isolation). Moving the 2 Dakotas as a package deal is infinitely more appealing and tenable than taking only the 1 outpost Dakota school of the North.

However, NDSU has other possible partners too. Perhaps most readily apparent are the two Montana schools. Both are top 25 1-AA programs (Montana State #5 and Montana #13) and both have strong Sagarin resumes each landing in the top 100 (Montana State #98 and Montana #91) Geographically they would definitely fit for fans from both schools to travel between sites, and culturally there is a lot of overlap between the Dakota’s and the Big Sky state, so NDSU could easily pair with either one of them or even form a 4 team super back to entice any conference which happens to have been recently poached by DI-A conference realignment poaching.

However, this prime grouping of talent at the 1-AA level and in a tight geographic package brings to light a new question. Rather than catering to a currently established conference, could NDSU simply spearhead a conference of its own, stacked with the premier talent of the 1-AA ranks?

The Hinterland Conference is Born

Admittedly I have no idea how difficult it would be to create a conference form scratch and jump multiple schools up a level simultaneously. I can only imagine it would be incredibly difficult. However, the option does seem enticing when you break it down. First, we’ll need a name and as my sub-header has probably elucidated for you I got this shit on lock. The linchpin around which the core of our conference will form is North Dakota. The most hinterland of all the frozen hinterlands. Moreover, these schools will all come form the fringes of the American sports consciousness so it only seems right to pick a name with requisite ‘David vs. Goliath’ undertones.

We’ll start with the core we’ve already established: NDSU is the lynchpin and brings SDSU with them. The two Montana schools join up and we have a solid geographic, cultural, and competitive core to work with. Now we just need to fill the rank and file to get a real conference. We’ll shoot for between 10 and 12 member schools and we’ll primarily be pilfering the Missouri Valley Conference (NDSU’s current conference) and the Big Sky Conference (NDSU’s former 1-AA conference)

First we’ll start at the top of Sagarin and the 1-AA coaches pole ranks. My first choice would be the Eastern Washington University.

They joined NDSU this year as one of the many FCS schools to upset their FBS counterparts, except they did it against a team ranked #25 in the country at the time. And currently Sagarin has them at a respectable #78 in the nation, while the coaches have them at #4 in 1-AA. They’re not as close to the Dakota schools as the Montana schools but its certainly not unreasonably to expect NDSU fans to travel to Cheney, WA. Plus they have this sweet red field that we could compare to Boise.

Next I think we should turn our attention back to NDSU’s own conference, and a team that has been the Bison’s bane since it joined DI-AA, the University of Northern Iowa.

This school plays NDSU hard every time they match up, and they are a legitimate football program that I personally think could compete at the next level. Sagarin (#85) agrees, and although they’ve fallen out of the coaches pole they were a top 5 team at one point this year so they get the nod to come on down. Moreover, we’ve already talked about how important Iowa ties could be for NDSU due to the geographical proximity and cultural similarities and they keep the core group of schools for our new conference rather compact so they seem like a must. And hey, they also bring 6 NCAA tournament appearances and one amazing upset to the table in basketball so this is clearly a school NDSU would like to partner with moving forward.

The next member pushes the geographic boundaries further to the limit, but they’re still a must for several reasons.

Heck yes! First silly mascot of the article!!! Youngstown State is a top notch football program, they open up the Ohio market for future expansion (again, we’re trying to be a new Big 10 Jr. to usurp the MAC if they rudely spurn our advances right?) Again, tying back a little bit to our Big 12 argument, Youngstown state could indirectly ensure the long term viability of the conference by lending recruiting support. Ohio is probably the 4th strongest state for football recruiting behind Texas, Florida, and California so adding a connection to such a deep talent pool could benefit every school in the conference. Ohio kids might be more willing to play football in North Dakota or Montana if they knew they could return home to Ohio for 2 games during their college career and play in front of their friends and family. Plus, Youngstown is no slouch of a football program themselves sitting at #10 in the Coaches Poll and #94 for Sagarin.

Next, in order to bridge the gap from Ohio back to the Dakota’s we’d probably need to include one of the Illinois directional schools. The best candidate is probably Eastern Illinois because they currently have the strongest program of the 4 excluding Northern Illinois who have already gone 1-A.

The panthers are currently #2 in the coaches pole only behind NDSU and #55 in Sagarin’s metrics (second highest 1-AA team behind only NDSU) making them the 2nd best football program in the state of Illinois (surprisingly behind Northern Illinois at 51 rather than the Illini all the way down at 79… way to go Big 10!) This opens up the state of Illinois to our new island of misfit toys, and in now way precludes future expansion into the state as Southern, Western, Illinois State, and Northern for that matter, would be welcome to join now or in the future.

Now our league is sitting at a healthy 8 members. You really need 10 to be a healthy and legitimate conference, and 12 allows you to split into divisions and hold a conference title game so 12 might be the number we shoot for. So while we’ve established a solid competitive and geographically united upper echelon, we have some choices for filling out the bottom of our league.

It might be best that Southern Illinois join the party right now as they’re hanging around the top 100 for Sagarin checking in at #101 and could provide rivalry fodder for the panthers and penguins. As mentioned, Illinois State (Sagarin 151) and Western Illinois (Sagarin 166) could also be options, but they might drag the reputation of the league down.

The University of South Dakota but be a nice addition for continuity’s sake but they’re struggling too at 161 for Sagarin.

Another important angle would be to strengthen the Western flank and help out Eastern Washington by expanding into Idaho. The Idaho Vandals, a WAC refugee about to drop back down to 1-AA as a result of the death fo the WAC could be an interesting target because we could throw them a life raft and keep them afloat in 1-A. They are however deeeeefinitely struggling this year hanging out at Sagarin 169. We could also look into their fellow WAC victims New Mexico State (also struggling) but they would really throw off the geography too much and be too stranded to likely thrive in our conference so they remain a second tier choice. To continue on the Idaho route we could also look to add Idaho State (Sagarin 201) just to give Idaho and E. Washington some more opportunities but that would easily be the weakest team in the conference.

However, very few conferences really remain solid top to bottom. Even the SEC juggernaut is routinely criticized for benefiting from the weakness of their basement dwellers. The conference would either need to lure away a current 1-A school or two or simply cope with adding a lesser team. My personal choice would be to go with the 2 Idaho schools (to justify the E. Washington entry) to get us to 10. Then add the admittedly unprepared University of South Dakota to shore up and justify the Dakota center, and then Southern Illinois simply because they are currently the strongest of the remaining Illinois schools (the others could be added later) and shore up the Eastern flank. That would put us at 12 schools, 8 of whom would be in the top 100. This is a conference that could easily grow together and become a viable competitor with conferences like the MAC, Conference USA, and Sun Belt, and would probably be better than them more often than not.

While this option is obviously the farthest along the pipe dream line, it remains in question whether any of NDSU’s options for moving up are fully viable (whether this is because of leadership immobility or external circumstances),The fact remains, however, that there are options and logical solutions for an NDSU program willing to make the leap and jump up to 1-A. The only matter is an infrastructure and leadership willing to capitalize on current success and take a leap of faith into greener pastures, rather than playing it safe and holding firm to the status quo. NDSU can, and should move up now. And if they don’t act now they may lose the greatest leverage they will EVERY have toward moving up. There are a million options out there and the only questions is whether the decision to do so is right.

I know what I believe, but maybe I haven’t convinced anyone else. In any event, I’d like to leave you with a short article written by an idol of mine Chuck Klosterman earlier this football season that I stumbled upon while writing my own leviathan response to this issue. He makes a lot of the points I make only more succinct and better, but he also adds a lot of other important angles, trying to counter the primary arguments against NDSU moving up. (the argument I found most intriguing was were he references the current economic boom happening in ND due to the oil boom in the western half of the state).

NDSU has a chance to do something special for the people of North Dakota in a state that constantly exists on the margins of American society. In the long term something like this could really put North Dakota on the map nationwide and make them exist in the national consciousness. (and perhaps more importantly we could finally one up the Mount Rushmore having bastards in South Dakota!) I just hope the leadership realizes that and does right by the fans and the people of North Dakota.