Have not been on the site for quite a while.  Very Very sorry to hear about Roop's passing.   I followed LU closely from 2002-2007 and really enjoyed his wit and loyalty to Beloit. 

He is what kept me coming back to the site and visiting it.   He will be missed.

Been a while since I posted. I will share some wisdom: no charge.

What LU and Carroll has accomplished over the past 6 years is unbelievable given the MWC desire to keep athletics as a secondary sport to academics.   With the move of Tharp and now Shultz, the golden age of MWC b-ball is going to be over.   

I am not going to look things up, but the number of wins that LU and Carroll have had in NCAA play far outstrips anything that the conference has ever done with the exception of the crazy good Beloit teams gong way back then they were really D1.   With the move of Tharp and now Schultz, the league is going to move expeditiously back to the back of the bus.   I have not seen anything in the recruiting classes at LU last couple of years that suggest they are not heading back south.  Many of you have probably forgotten how bad they were for years and years and years.

Not my hope,  but my prediction.  It has been great to see the MWC kicking around the CCIW and WIAC on occasion, but I believe it is over.

Nut

Roop

As always, you are right and all knowing.......I should let the comments go, but cannot.

Nothing But Net is a homer know-nothing.  I have seen 10-12 LU/Grinnell games over the years.  I have nothing against the system at all.  I find it enjoyable for about 5 minutes and then kind of a drag.  However, D3 ball is about participation and the experience and that drags me back to being intrigued about the system.  If you go the GC and are on the team, you get to play.

I have been solid Grotberg and Long fans.  I hold nothing against little A, but am not sure how much value he really brought.  The whole thing about stiving for stats a year or two ago was twisted in my feeble mind.  It made me lose some respect for what the Coach was trying to do at GC.

Back to "Nothing but Net".    You are a homer and out of your mind.  GC gets away with hell and usually does at home.  Their hacking defense gets less of a pass on the road.  I watched the whole game Saturday and you are delusional if you think arms were getting hit on 3 point shots.  That is the easiest call a ref can make.   The issue with the system is that tend to be as good as you are able to shot percentage wise.  Remember a few years ago, the year before Grotberg and Long got there?  Grinnell was thr ugliest team in sports and they put them on ESPN based on reputation and they stunk up D3's reputation.  That was a bad shooting team shooting a lot of 3s.  Very , very ugly to watch.  Again, when Grinnell is playing good Defense and hitting their 3s, they are fun to watch.  

The other key to Grinnell is having a tall guy back to defend on the lay-ups that occur.  LIttle Nordland did it some years ago and then Chamberlin.  They had some guys this year............page got a lot of shots put back, but their shooting just was not there because of solid LU perimeter defense.  To call out the refs is crazy.

I have a question for long time Grinnell followers.  Who is better?  Grotberg or Wood???

Congrats to Long and Grotberg on great careers.

BTW, I'd take Wood's all around play.   Hoever, Grotberg has been terrific.

win or lose...right move to put the guards back in.  Will not win without them.

page has had a nice game rebounding.....................that is all I have to say about that (to quote Forest Gump)

4 fouls on Kroeger and Kadison huge.

two most important players when playing GC.

Roopster:

I'd rather get shipped out  west than play all the CCIW and WIAC teams.   The Midwest is loaded, making it very difficult to get out.    Much of LU's post season success over the past 5 years was when they were matched up against teams outside the core of the MidWest, even on the road...Buena Vista on the road, Gustavas on the road, St. Thomas home, etc.   Having to work your way through the WAIC, the CCIW and plus Wash U. makes things tough for everybody in the MW.   LU has had some regular season success against the top conferences, beating Platteville, Oshkosh numerous times, and Carthage, but less success against those conferences in the post season.   

Should be an interesting season again.

Nut

Roop,

Do not hesitate to list Lu_nut as a reference.............I think the idea of you serving as joint ADs of both LU and Beloit would do wonders for their limited athletic budgets.

System Error: Great name.

To directly answer your question, Grinnell can and will be very compeititive without Chamerblin.  Their top three guards are all among the top 10 in the conference.  Equally important, two of them can shoot the 3 very well.   What I have noticed about GC over the years is they need to have shooters.  The team 4 years ago was bad bad bad because no one could shoot.   This group can shoot and will win their share of games.

Their system does work a lot better when they have a big guy to reduce the layups.  Chamberlin made them very good his junior year.  Nordlund played the role well before he was hurt as well.

I look for GC to be in the top 4, too much talent not to be........and this conference is still not terribly deep unless things change.   Last thing I will say is that I have always noticed that it is a benefit to have your best players be seniors.   You see it all the time.  GC will benefit from their strong senior class.

Nut

Thanks Pat.   I guess I missed a legend in the making.  Thanks for the info.

Did a little more research on Cal Tech.  Terriffic math and science school.   Basketball legendarily bad.   They have a 273 game conference losing streak.   They have only beaten two NCAA teams in over 10 years.   Most of their players did not play HS b-ball.   Coach must have been a gluten for punishment to take the job.   Probably only place in America you can win 2 games in 6 years of coaching and keep your job..............not that I have a problem with that given the priorities of the school.

Still don't know how you can lose 273 straight conference games in b-ball.   I never knew there was a sports program anywhere that was quite that accomplished at being bad.

Amos:  Thanks for the heads up.   Looks like JoJo got a good one from Colorado.

I also noticed that LU posted their schedule.   They are making a trip to California to play Cal Lutheran and Cal Tech.  Out of curiosity, I took a quick look at the sites for those teams on D3.  Cal Lutheran looks like they have a very strong program.    Cal Tech. appears to be unbelievably bad.  Unless I am missing something, they have won a total of something like 3 games over 5 years....wow......and keep in mind that the west coast is not a hotbed of D3 basketball.      Roop or someone should take a look::::  do they have the worst record in all of D3 over that period??? surely they do.  It looks like they were embarrassed enough that they quite posting results on their own site after their first scrimmage this past year.

They have not won more than one game in a year for a good while.   That cannot be much fun.

Lu nut.

Thanks pgkevin for trying to stimulate a little basketball discussion.   I have not heard a thing about recruits, which I imagine will have some impact on next years projections.    Your picks all seem directionally correct, but I have a hard time seeing Ripon moving around Grinnell.   Ripon, in my humble view, has been a disappointment ever since Becker graduated.   They lost their second and third leading scorers as well.   The coaches son will score a lot, but will need to shoot a lot again in order to do so.   I really do not see them moving up.  They only won 6 conference games this past year.  I agree that as long as Ladwig and the coach are at Carroll, they will be competitive.

My view is the same 4 teams make the tourney.   Having said that, that is probably a rarity.    It seems that strong coaching has moved certain programs towards the top such as LU, Carroll, and Grinnell and they now seem to be there each year.    I would think that one of the southern teams that have changed coaches such as MM or Knox will get it going one of these years.   Same for Beloit, but it is going to take some time to get the recruits into the program.

I do agree that LU will miss their two seniors that graduated.  However, their guard combo of Kadison and Kroeger will once again be the best in the league(grinnell is close) and will make them tough to beat.   Page and Decker had very strong years as well and return along with Applegren.  Chamberlin's importance to Grinnell was shown this year, but they made the playoffs basically without him and with Grotberg, Arsenault, and Long all back, it is hard to see them missing the playoffs.   In my view, Long is one of the better players in the conference and due for some recognition.  That threesome is very good and senior leadership makes a big difference.

Again, it is likely that someone new breaks in, but I just do not see who it is at this point.    I would think that the battle for first should be pretty close this year, but I must say I thought Grinnell would battle LU to the wire last year and I was wrong.

Nut

Q:   Wasn't Carroll once in the CCIW as well???   Some on this site may have forgotten, but the MWC has changed a great deal over the years too.    Past members have included St. Olaf, Carelton, Coe, Cornell and the University of Chicago.

For what it is worth, Wisconsin is a nice place for D3 to recruit kids as well as the Chicago area.   What makes Wisc. a good area is that the HS ball has gotten pretty good and more importantly, there is only one D2 program in the state.   In Illinois, you have a ton of D1 programs, even low level ones like Chicago State, at least a couple of D2 programs like Lewis and then I believe a number of NAIA D1(scholarship) programs like St. Xavier and I believe Robert Morris(I think they are NAIA, too lazy to look for sure).    Winona State has dominated D2 nationally the last 3 years with a number of Wisconsin kids.   Minnesota HS ball is probably not as good as Wisconsin ball, but the state has a bunch of D2 programs like Bemidji, Duluth, Mankato, etc.    One of the problems for the MWC schools is the competition by the State WIAC schools which are much less expensive.   Of course, private schools with solid endowments can and do bridge the gap for kids that are either very bright or do not come from terribly wealthy homes.      I guess what I am saying is that I think proximity to Chicago is less a variable than the facilities, traditions, etc.
Having said that, many MWC facilities have been upgraded in recent years, but I still think they pale in comparison to most the CCIW facilities.   I also do continue to believe that size is something of an issue.   All of the CCIW schools are 2000 or over.   All but 2 of the MWC schools are around 1500 or less.   Kids in the Chicago suburban schools that tend to be a hotbed for CCIW players tend to come from HS's that are around 2000 kids or more and struggle with the idea of going to a College smaller than their HS.  Of course, there are exceptions.   

Titan Q.  I do not know for a fact what the reason was that IWU did not play up to par during parts of that season.  I threw out two options that obviously you found a bit insulting.   Not my intention.   Your observation that you have seen the same thing happen to other teams that had success earlier is interesting.   I have found in the MWC that senior leadership is really a big deal and has a lot to do with success, even when it is a group that has been playing a lot the previous years.    Lake Forest a few years ago is probably an exception in that they had a good group that made the playoffs as Sophomores and then actually faded.   That was the group that including the Klos kid that led his Glenbard North team downstate in HS.

I did see a lot of the North Central team you mentioned as well Carthage and Ehlmurst to a bit lesser extent.   All had very good big guys(at least until Powell graduated at Carthage) The North Central team had a great front line.   I found it very interesting that the current coach did a lot better with Taylors kids than Taylor did...........however, he has not yet proven he can recruit a similar level of kids given the level of competition in recruiting in the CCIW.   LU played against that group in Naperville(and lost in OT) in Taylors last year as coach.   I just still believed IWU had superior talent and depth.

I asked other people/fans/parents in the CCIW that year how the heck that IWU team lost 6 games and the response was that the same team did not always show up.    I know the CCIW is a very good conference and that was probably a strong year.    The point I am making is that I think that team was exceptional in it's talent.   Heck, three of the kids were all-american (two that year, one the next).
Maybe they got a little complacent after playing together for 3 years.     All I know from watching them was that when they were on(or really wanted it), they were a very, very good team.

Mr. Sager.   I certainly understand that size of school is not the main driver of the level of b-ball played.  I probably should have said the size of the school, the facilities and the commitment to sports.   I think that the CCIW clearly has an overall advantage over the MWC due to these facts.   Again, I am not complaining.  I just think those are the reasons that the CCIW is and will continue to be a superior athletic conference to the MWC.   As you probably know, the MWC only allows 23 games in the regular season and does not allow in home recruiting.    I guess I would say that the MWC administrators like their position in the world.    It will likely be a very  long time before a MWC football team wins a NCAA football game.

I think all of those reasons make the 5 year run that the top of the MWC has had in b-ball all the more exciting.   Having success against some of the better teams in the CCIW and WIAC is a big deal for a MWC school.   It will be very difficult for it to be maintained in my humble view.   

Nut