I'm just as pissed as anyone about the lost at UND but I do think it's important to remember perspective of college hoops, Duke lost to Wake Forest last night, Wake Forest is 12-15 and Duke has national championship hope. In conference losses to inferior teams happen at all levels of the sport all the time, more commonly in rivalry games. It fricken sucks, we shouldn't have lost to UND but to be honest it might be a nice reality check to our guys who were riding high on a 7 game win streak, great refocusing tool heading into the tournament. The loss to Utah Valley seemed to get this team back on track, hopefully this loss will do the same. Right now these guys can erase that loss by whooping up on the rival from down south, getting back into first place in the league and then beating Omaha Saturday to lock up the regular season conference championship and the one seed. Time to stop living in the past lost and focus on what's in front of us. Need to win 5 games in a row to go dancing.
You are correct and make good points however I will make one point and ask one question and then everyone can flame away:
Point: Teams like Duke have many opportunities to "wipe away" bad losses and not affect their seeding too much by beating other highly ranked teams. Mid major teams like NDSU can't afford many bad losses as the difference between a 12-13-14 seed is huge compared to a 15-16 seed. These bad losses sting more for mid majors when it comes to seeding and may be the reason we as fans get so frustrated at times IMO.
Question: Who has complete faith that Coach Richman can get his team focused and maybe more importantly in the best positions and make any needed adjustments to win these 2 very much needed games?
I do not, I feel like this team has won in spite of Dave's ability to make needed adjustments at times. I'm not too worried about the focus, we have 4 seniors on this team, they want to go out on top I don't think focus will be the issue. But if Dave doesn't make much needed changes in our defense to slow down some guys we will struggle to get W's. Wilson and Detlinger absolutely abused us in Brookings, they scored 41 points, 40 of which came on shots in or near the paint. We refused to double, go to zone or do anything remotely different than try to play one on one against them and we got owned. We'll know quickly tomorrow night if Dave has come up with a better plan or not to keep those bigs from beating us single handedly.
NDSU TO FBS. HAVEN'T WE WON ENOUGH?
"North Dakota State is a big part of the fabric of college football right now."
"North Dakota State is alive on the college football map."
-Lee Fitting ESPN
Play-in games don't count as tournament wins. Change my mind.
Sent from my moto z3 using Tapatalk
I will agree... but according to https://herosports.com/ncaa-tourname...nce-money-ahah
School League Wins Money made
NDSU Summit League 2 $3,363,600
We earned an extra 1,681,800 for the league by winning that game.
This compares to Bradley from the Missouri Valley that lost in "round 2"
Bradley Missouri Valley 1 $1,681,800
The old saying... Money talks and this proves that Play-in games DO count as tournament wins
"If FBS teams are looking for an FCS cupcake, might I suggest North Dakota instead of North Dakota State." - John Taylor NBC College football talk writer
Money wise it's awesome. But not the same as beating a 5 or 4 seed.