Aurora clips Augie at Augie 79-72 in first preseason game.  Although it is preseason it's still a good sign for an Aurora team who will have to find its identity early.  I understand that I'm preaching to the converted but the CCIW is always a conference of tough teams that rebound especially well, which has been a weakness and a weakness to continue to observe as this Aurora team progresses.  Good win for the Spartans in what should be a fun year.

Aurora 79  Augie 72   in scrimage played at Augie tonight.  Spartans played a quick game and beat an improved Augie team.  Good start for Aurora even if it's preseason.

Aurora is going to be able to play with anyone.  The tempo and type of style they play gets teams to play off balance.  They were an inch away from knocking off a Weslyan team that was pretty hyped last year.  I'll admit that it was the first game of the season, but both teams improved over the course of the year.  The team may take a handful of games to gel, but once they do they can compete with anyone.  Like I said before, they'll have to rebound and they're undersized, but if they can overcome that and play the type of game that most Aurora teams do, they'll be tough.

Larry Welton gets better everyday.  Right now there's no one, at least within the conference, that can even consider matching up with him.  Not to mention that Aurora as a team basically reloaded their 2 and 3 spots with a fairly strong recruiting class at both positions.  If they play good Aurora defense and can rebound with the taller teams for 40 minutes there's no doubt that the Pool B bids are down to 3.

I'm from Aurora and have graduated but I was part of a group that got to see a little of what the overall plan was.  It's been long enough that I can't remember all the details involved, but what I can remember was that it would involve the remaining 6 teams in the NIIC (no Dominican beginning this year) and then the 7 from the LMC and I believe there was talk of adding a 14th team so that you could have two separate "regions" within the conference both with 7 teams.  So basically you'd have something like the "North" which would be the old LMC and then the "South" which would comprise the old NIIC.  Coference tourney time would see a format where the top teams in the North region would play the lower seeded teams within the South region and vice-versa.  The biggest problem is that it will strip a lot of non-conference games away because there are so many conference teams, but that was a set back that everyone was willing to deal with.  The merger allowed for all sports to have conference tournaments because a lot of the schools didn't have that luxury.  For instance, in the NIIC, not every school had all the sports so we weren't able to recieve AQ's in all sports, only a select few.  This was 6-7 months ago and there were plenty of wrinkles to iron out and I'm not quite sure of how far things have progressed, but I hope that at least gave you a little bit of insight into where they hope for things to go.

This isn't much of a surprise for anyone that has followed Ippel during her time at St. Teresa High School.  I went to high school with her and watched her after I graduated on their way to state.  She's a tough player and loves a "big" game.  Millikin has something to look forward to for the next three years.  Good luck to Lindsey and Christy and the whole Millikin team tomorrow.

Sorry bully, not gonna happen.