FARGO, N.D. (FargoPhantom.com)–On Tuesday night, the NDSU Bison Men’s basketball won the Summit League tournament and thus qualified for the NCAA tournament. This is indeed laudable, since this is the first year Bison were eligible for the tournament. This has only been done once before (L:ong Beach State in 1970). Even more impressive to me is that the Bison are primarily made up of home grown talent(North & South Dakota, Minnesota and Montana). Our area is known, for a variety of reasons more for producing football and hockey players.
But of course I do not need to point out this is an impressive accomplishment: we’ve heard and read little else in the media in the last few days. I looked to me like the front page headline in Thursday’s Forum were six inches high. NDSU President Chapman was interviewed in Souix Falls just after final game. The TV station that showed the game and conducted the interview said Chapman would explain why this win was so important to the University and the state. All I heard him say was “this is a great win for the school and the state.” He didn’t say why.
The next night, in the same time slot with an equal amount of coverage during and after the game as given the Bison, Robert Morris University won the Northeast Atlantic Athletic Conference and thus qualified for the NCAA tournament. Only this will be their sixth appearance, so they must really be a well known school. Unfortunately, I had never heard of the school academically or athletically. I surmised they must be in New England somewhere. since they call themselves “the Colonials<” and the name of their conference puts them in the northeast somewhere. I know that Robert Morris was ne of the signatories of the Constitution, but I had no idea what town the school is in or what state it is in. I wonder how many others are in the same situation. I now know(and there is no town associated with the institution), but I’ll keep the information to myself. Other “important” qualifiers are Sienna, Radford and Charleston. Real academic and athletic powerhouses.
Now, I’m not trying to rain on anybody’s parade. I’m just trying to bring a little perspective to the situation. Certainly in would be nice to see the Bison advance even one round, but that’s not likely. Let’s face it: the Oakland University team they beat on Tuesday resembled, to me, a disorganized, badly coached high school team. The only reason they were in the game is that they were so much taller. But they threw up more air balls than a bingo parlor, were fond of throwing the ball to nobody, and one of their seven footers even went up for what was presumably a dunk and slammed the ball off the side of the backboard. To me, if this was representative of Summit League basketball, I’m not impressed.
It actually bothers me to watch the time and effort followed by the expectations that people put into Bison Athletics. I’ve heard TV sportscasters talk about the “signature” win over Wisconsin a couple of years ago. Yeah, along with the signature 40 point loss to Kansas State the same season. Does this mean that Grand Valley State’swin over Michigan State(admittedly in an exhibition game). Gardner Webb’s win over Kentucky and Hampton Institute’s win over North Carolina are all “signature” wins for significant programs?
The move to division one was, I think, driven by football. But football is expensive. I don’t think we have the fan or financial base to support a big time program, actually in either sport. I’m not impressed by a near win and a win over a dispirited and disinterested Gopher team. I might be if, after that game, the Bison had to play another Big Ten team the next week, and another the week after that. But I think we saw last season what would have happened. Many were surprised at the number of losses the Bison incurred last fall and I’ve heard people ask “what’s up with that.” To me, the answer’s simple: for the first time, the Bison actually had to play a schedule of established division one programs. No weeks off to play Concordia of St Paul and lick the wounds of the previous week.
It pains me even more to hear people interviewed on television talk about how they love tie Bison, wouldn’t miss a game, etc. Love the bison, OK, but what about the University? Even with our huge state surplus NDSU is still one of the worst funded research institutions in the country. Of course, many don’t understand the level of competence in their fields of many of the faculty, or what a strong land grant school does for a state. If you need some indications, look at our financial situation, which regardless of what you here is not good. And we essentially feed the world. We should have many communities like Apple Valley, Edina, Eden Prairie, al in the Twin City area. But we don’t. We don’t have the people with the education to make it happen, in my view.
NDSU’s mission is supposedly “Teaching, Research and Service.” President Chapman used to think it was “Athletics, Education and Research” until the faculty reminded him otherwise. Somehow, NDSU does a good job with its stated mission. The opening night of the Fargo Film Festival showed a documentary about two NDSU geology professors and their trip to Antartica with two of their students. They made an extremely important discovery on this particular trip, and the film gave an excellent description, I thought, of what drives driven researchers like these two professors. Oh yes, somehow Dr. Chapman seemed to have missed that event, as well as the play “Mr Lincoln” held in Lincoln’s 200th birtday, as well as many other concerts, plays and other academic events at NDSU and elsewhere.
As impressive as I think NDSU’s faculty is,, this needs to be kept in perspective too. The University of Minnesota is currently growing hearts, presumably for replacements. I won’t go into the details, but that’s impressive. I’m sure most of us have heard of the Collider that has been built in Europe to create sub=atomic collisions bewteen particles in an effort to understand the nature of matter(believe me, we’re still very much in the dark: in joke, pun intended).
We’ve got a fine little University here in Fargo. Should be smaller, according to many faculty, many of whom think the increase in enrollment has actually hurt the overall quality of student. We ought to support it, and support does not mean making a big deal of a mid-level athletic program.
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