Why Northern AZ in the BSC?

[UNDfan]

Half of this is BS and the other is half truths. They are in love with themselves.

:lol: :lol: :lol: Says the nerdy 40 year old playing the internet tough guy. NDSU fans on these message boards have to be the most insecure fan base around. Half of them seem to have psychotic disorders. They constantly tell everyone else how much they suck, but then want to be kissed in the ass whenever they do anything positive.

NDSU fans used to be so convinced that the Big Sky was dieing to invite them and were going to throw the biggest party Fargo had ever seen once the invite came. But when news came that UNC was selected over NDSU, the entire NDSU fan base should have been placed on suicide watch. It was gloriously ugly. :lol:

Then when UND was invited to the Sky, NDSU fans began trashing the Big Sky like a jilted jealous lover. Get some counseling Dan.

The only one needing it is delusional UND fans. You guys get a 1000 season tickets holders yet? :lol:

1000 is the number of your troll posts.

UND sold more than 5000 season tickets prior to the transition. During the transition that is down in the 3000's.

 

[Zirg]

Seems to me it would be better in the Southland Conference. Nothing against the Jacks, but their travel & ours would be a lot less. NAU vs. PSU, et al.? Maybe I'm missing something? With UND & SUU coming into the BSC, it seems the BSC is taking on more of a northern orientation. That's why I raise the question.

NAU is as "Big-Sky" as any school in the Big Sky. They have been there from day one (haven't they?), and they as well as UM,MSU,ISU,Weber and EWU are THE 6 schools that define the traditional Big Sky anymore. UND is the school that is completely off the radar if any school is. They make no sense being in the league without another Dakota school. They are a 10 hour drive to the closest conference school and the only one in the Central time zone. Will the UND No-names EVER drive to a Big Sky event? Seriously! Or will any Big Sky team EVER drive to Grand Forks? They are a fly-in school ONLY. NAU is only a 3 hour drive from SUU (about as close as UM and MSU), so NAU never needs to rationalize their existence in the Big Sky. They need to rationalize their lack of a decent basketball facility, but not their Big Sky membership. I have been to 48 states and almost every city in this country, and "Flag" is THE most similar city to Missoula IMO, even moreso than Bozeman, but Bozeman would be a close 2nd. Same population, same sized college, similar weather-believe it or not, both have a ski area named Snowbowl, it's uncanny. Bozeman is far more hick than Missoula or Flag. Let's face it, 90% of MT high-school kids from the rural hick towns that go to college (Chester, Wibaux, Roberts, Jordan, Dillon etc) go to MSU and at least half the vehicles in Bozeman are trucks. Am I wrong? Flag and NAU belongs in the Big Sky as much as both Montana schools, period.

 

[Zirg]

I don't mean to diss North Dakota, outside of believing UND isn't a great fit for the Big Sky. I didn't say a terrible fit, just not a great fit. I fully believe that the Big Sky expected SD State or USD to follow suit when it offered UND. Again by themselves it really doesn't make sense outside of competitiveness, and I do believe UND will be competitive in most sports instantly. I don't understand the reasoning behind a bigger conference makes us better. Let's face it, the Big Sky is gonna be a one NCAA tourney basketball seed conference until I am very old, so I see no benefit by going to 12 teams or whatever there is. Now every team has a 1/12 chance instead of a 1/8 chance. It helps the BSC deal with a defection or 2 or 3 down the road,but it doesn't help UM one iota, and any Griz fan that thinks a bigger conference is better is clueless.

Also, and this really has nothing to do with UND's appropriateness in the BSC, but do you REALLY believe that 500,000 new jobs will be created in 10-15 years in ND's oil industry? Really? North Dakota is 300k behind Montana, so I figure MT will be at 1.2M in 10-15 years conservatively, so ND will need 500k to catch MT. That is a 50% increase for ND in 15 years. Williston at 100,000? LOL C'mon, let's get back to reality. Booms don't last forever. See Butte.

 

[UNDfan]

Also, and this really has nothing to do with UND's appropriateness in the BSC, but do you REALLY believe that 500,000 new jobs will be created in 10-15 years in ND's oil industry? Really? North Dakota is 300k behind Montana, so I figure MT will be at 1.2M in 10-15 years conservatively, so ND will need 500k to catch MT. That is a 50% increase for ND in 15 years. Williston at 100,000? LOL C'mon, let's get back to reality. Booms don't last forever. See Butte.

Never said 500,00 new jobs, but 3-400,000 new people, many of them from Montana and Idaho. For every new oil related job, multiple other jobs are created in services, retail, education, medicine, etc.

It's not just oil wells, but a whole industry setting up for the long-term ($20 billion a year in drilling for at least the next 25 years, billions in natural gas infrastructure like processing plants (six recently built, more coming), new factories for fracking ceramics, new power plants fueled by nat gas, ammonia/fertilizer plants with nat gas as raw materials, oil/diesel refineries - two permitted for construction and more coming).

Just in the past few months, outstate developers announced plans to expand three different small towns outside of Minot to nearly 10,000 people each. Minot itself is in a massive housing and retail boom, and it is 40 miles from the drilling. Huge housing developments are being built in and around Williston, with many more years of building to come. There too, plans are to expand nearby small towns of 100 to 10,000. The Permian Basin in Texas now has 500,000 people, but before oil had perhaps 40,000. The Permian Basin has seen major economic dips, but always roars back economically. The Permian Basin was the most important oil Basin in the US (and is growing again because of horizontal drilling and fracking), but now the Williston Basin will possibly equal or exceed that. Two layers (Bakken and Three Forks) are being drilled, and six more have significant potential.

http://bismarcktribune.com/news/col...cle_17f93572-cb75-11e1-a78b-001a4bcf887a.html

The fracking technology is literally breathtaking. It is also very recent. It has allowed Ron Ness (and others) to project—using currently available technology—that it will be possible to recover 12-20 billion barrels of oil in western North Dakota. If that is true, the state of North Dakota alone has as much oil as the nations of Qatar or Angola, and a fifth (possibly a quarter) as much recoverable oil as the nations of Iraq and Kuwait. If we come to extract a million barrels a day, that’s three years to a billion barrels. That would seem to indicate somewhere between 20 and 60 years of steady oil extraction before the North Dakota fields play out. And this only represents currently available technology, in a field where the technology is becoming more sophisticated almost by the month.

It is going to require tens of thousands of fracking wells to get all that oil up out of the ground, not to mention storage and shipping facilities, pipelines, rail lines and spurs, refineries, plants to handle the derivatives, water storage and treatment facilities, much wider and more ruggedized roads, and a housing and amenities infrastructure that is going to stagger the imagination. Dickinson is probably going to be a city of 50,000 people (for decades), Williston more, and Watford City, Stanley, Killdeer, Belfield, and other formerly sleepy villages are going to be transformed into something never before seen on the plains of North Dakota.

 

[MT Jack]

This has gotten way off track but that's okay. It's possibly one of the more intelligent and cordial threads I've read here in a while. Civil debate (it's like a rare family reunion when my dad's side of the family from MT somewhat gets along with my mom's side of the family in ND) and learning something new about science (fracking doesn't just make me think of Battlestar Galactica anymore).

Zirg - Flagstaff and Missoula are similar in attitude and vibe. Population is nearly the same (65K to 67K) and university enrollment may be skewed (~25K to ~15K) to NAU's favor due to the multitude of state-wide campuses NAU operates in AZ. Take away the rivers and replace multiple mountain ranges around Missoula with one big ass peak and you have Flagstaff. Outdoor opportunities are fantastic in both towns. Missoula has water sports/fishing more easily accessible nearby with Glacier/Yellowstone close but Flagstaff has the Grand Canyon, Sedona and the Four Corners/S. Utah area to go to when the snow piles up in the winter.

 

[Grisly Fan]

This has gotten way off track but that's okay. It's possibly one of the more intelligent and cordial threads I've read here in a while. Civil debate (it's like a rare family reunion when my dad's side of the family from MT somewhat gets along with my mom's side of the family in ND) and learning something new about science (fracking doesn't just make me think of Battlestar Galactica anymore).

Zirg - Flagstaff and Missoula are similar in attitude and vibe. Population is nearly the same (65K to 67K) and university enrollment may be skewed (~25K to ~15K) to NAU's favor due to the multitude of state-wide campuses NAU operates in AZ. Take away the rivers and replace multiple mountain ranges around Missoula with one big ass peak and you have Flagstaff. Outdoor opportunities are fantastic in both towns. Missoula has water sports/fishing more easily accessible nearby with Glacier/Yellowstone close but Flagstaff has the Grand Canyon, Sedona and the Four Corners/S. Utah area to go to when the snow piles up in the winter.

I lived in Phoenix for 4 years and hated it but I was pretty sure at the time that I could live in Flagstaff. Sedona is awesome and Southern Utah is really interesting also. Then, love it or hate it, there's always Las Vegas for something different.

 

[AZGrizFan]

This has gotten way off track but that's okay. It's possibly one of the more intelligent and cordial threads I've read here in a while. Civil debate (it's like a rare family reunion when my dad's side of the family from MT somewhat gets along with my mom's side of the family in ND) and learning something new about science (fracking doesn't just make me think of Battlestar Galactica anymore).

Zirg - Flagstaff and Missoula are similar in attitude and vibe. Population is nearly the same (65K to 67K) and university enrollment may be skewed (~25K to ~15K) to NAU's favor due to the multitude of state-wide campuses NAU operates in AZ. Take away the rivers and replace multiple mountain ranges around Missoula with one big ass peak and you have Flagstaff. Outdoor opportunities are fantastic in both towns. Missoula has water sports/fishing more easily accessible nearby with Glacier/Yellowstone close but Flagstaff has the Grand Canyon, Sedona and the Four Corners/S. Utah area to go to when the snow piles up in the winter.

Your definition of "easily accessible" is interesting. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: Grand Canyon is an easy drive, but it's over 4 hours to the 4 corners through some of the most Godforsaken country on the planet...but it's a short (and beautiful) drive to Pine/Strawberry, and there IS Walnut Canyon (possibly one of the most beautiful places in all the Southwest) & Sunset Crater, and Lake Mary if you're into water sports.

 

[MT Jack]

Everywhere I've lived has required driving great distances in order to entertain myself. Living in Montana and North Dakota led me to think that a four hour drive for fun wasn't really out of the way.

I haven't been to Walnut Canyon since I was @ NAU. Think I need to go on a hike there next time I head up. Check out Red Mountain Crater (Trail) off of the 180 about 30 miles northwest of Flagstaff. The Navajo/Hopi reservations are rough terrain but it's no more god forsaken than a swaths of eastern Montana or western North Dakota. Explore the rez enough and it grows on you. Reminds me a lot of the ND/SD Badlands. Canyon de Chelly National Monument by Chinle is worth checking out also. It's a mini mix of the Grand Canyon and Sedona minus the crowds.

AZGriz - Dukes Sports Bar in September for the Griz-Jacks football game? In a perfect world, I'd fly to Missoula for the weekend but I just don't see that happening.

 

[AZGrizFan]

Everywhere I've lived has required driving great distances in order to entertain myself. Living in Montana and North Dakota led me to think that a four hour drive for fun wasn't really out of the way.

I haven't been to Walnut Canyon since I was @ NAU. Think I need to go on a hike there next time I head up. Check out Red Mountain Crater (Trail) off of the 180 about 30 miles northwest of Flagstaff. The Navajo/Hopi reservations are rough terrain but it's no more god forsaken than a swaths of eastern Montana or western North Dakota. Explore the rez enough and it grows on you. Reminds me a lot of the ND/SD Badlands. Canyon de Chelly National Monument by Chinle is worth checking out also. It's a mini mix of the Grand Canyon and Sedona minus the crowds.

AZGriz - Dukes Sports Bar in September for the Griz-Jacks football game? In a perfect world, I'd fly to Missoula for the weekend but I just don't see that happening.

I will be there. With bells on.

And I hear ya about the "great distances" thing... :lol: :lol:

 

[Walkon79]

In some ways yes, but UND (and NDSU) are the only tickets in town, they have no FBS or pro teams to compete with yet they don't even get close to averaging 10k for the football games. Hockey, a sport the BSC doesn't have, is the most important sport at that school and most of the funds go to that sport. Not b-ball and football. I'm not sure if that's a good thing for our conference.

BSBears: you're sounding like an NDSU fan with the anti-hockey talk covering up for the jealousy. The last winter Olympics and the last Stanley Cup had former UND players as stars for both teams in the finals. How's that a bad thing? Look up UND's total ticket revenue and you will find that it's larger than the Griz, more than double Montana State's, and about ten times of NoCo's. How exactly is that a bad thing? Don't think we'll go begging to the Big Sky office for a loan, like the Bears have done in the past. Both men's and women's hockey should be challenging for national championships this year: how's that a bad thing for the Big Sky to be partially associated with? What makes less sense is for UND to sponsor other non-Big Sky sports like M/W swimming, baseball, softball (although that will be an optional BSC sport), and men's golf, but UND's athletic budget is enough to cover all those "extra" non-BSC sports that bring in no ticket revenue.

There's a hunger for football and even basketball at UND - the transition took a lot of air out of those programs. Football used to draw over 10,000 routinely before the transition. Basketball, both men's and women's, used to draw very well in the 90's when both programs were at the top of their game. UND football is probably two-three years away from challenging for a BSC title, UND men's and women's basketball probably one more season away, and UND volleyball will probably dominate this year. How's that a bad thing? Or should the Big Sky have offered CSU-Pueblo and Colorado Mesa U to make Northern Colorado more at home?

When UND and Northern Colorado were last in a conference together, the Bears were actually very competitive in most sports except basketball. The difference now is that UND is much better financed than Northern Colorado ever was and has vastly improved facilities from our DII days.

But my point is that we took a school that emphasizes college hockey more than any of their other sports. I have nothing against hockey, it's not my game though. Why do you think the transition took the air out of football and basketball? Honest question. And yes, UNC used to draw pretty well with football too in the '90's. I know what you mean. I've said it many of times before that it's nothing against your athletics or academics or facilities, but you just don't match up geographically.

They match up geographically just fine. It's just as easy for me to get to Grand Forks as it is Missoula. Easier with Amtrak service.