What happened at North Park in 1968 to have a season that was such an outlier?

November not too kind to NPU.

What happened with North Park in 1968? Why the outlier of a record?

What happened to the park's season?

Quote from: Gregory Sager on October 23, 2023, 01:56:54 PM

Quote from: Stertorous Thunder on October 19, 2023, 10:39:58 PM
https://athletics.wheaton.edu/sports/mens-basketball/roster

Three disappointing missing names from the Wheaton roster: Micah Schnyders, Jacob Schauer and Cole Reid

The loss of Schnyders will hurt the most, but it appears that he was able to get back to D1 with a spot on the Eastern Michigan roster.

He was considering North Park for awhile, but it appears as though getting back to D1 was his true desire. (Honestly, he'd be fighting just to get on the court at all for NPU this season.) Given that he didn't start last season at the D3 level and averaged less than four points per game and less than 15 minutes per game for Wheaton in 2022-23, I'm pretty sure that he's at EMU as a walk-on. Best of luck to him. I always root for the D3 guys who transfer to D1, because I figure that their success in D1 makes D3 look better in the eyes of the general basketball public. After all, that general public is pretty skeptical (to say the least) of the quality of ball played at this level.

Quote from: Stertorous Thunder on October 19, 2023, 10:39:58 PMIn what looks like it will be a rebuilding season, Jacob Schauer probably would have been rewarded with a decent amount of playing time for his years spent as a program player. It's a shame that he didn't participate in the Senior Night festivities, but he certainly has plenty of other opportunities to hear compliments from Mike Schauer and I have it on good authority that the highly accomplished young Schauer was offered a dream job.

Cole Reid's minutes decreased a little throughout last season, but he was viewed as a potential future all-conference big man. His absence is concerning because of the makeup of the rest of the roster. I don't know what kind of scheme Wheaton is going to run this season but the roster has only two non-guards listed. Connor Braun is a solid 6' 9" starter, but the only other player listed as a forward has a collegiate stat line of 1 shot attempted and 1 foul in 1 minute over 2 years.  If I'm an opposing coach, I'm going to run the first three or four possessions through Braun to put him on the bench with foul trouble, and then watch my forwards back down all of the 6' Wheaton guards and score a lot of buckets in the paint.  The Thunder better have personnel that can rain threes from everywhere if they're going to counterbalance their size deficit.

It doesn't appear that Mike Schauer added much. He's got the grad student from D2 Western Oregon, R.J. Veiliz (WOU spelled it "Veliz", but I'll put my money on the Wheaton spelling), but he was a bench player there whose minutes, scoring, and shooting line were notably modest. Setting aside for a moment the fact that he is a guard and T.J. Askew was a forward, he doesn't look primed to provide the kind of impact for Wheaton that Askew's arrival did last season. Could be wrong about that, though. But there are no other new transfers indicated on the Wheaton roster, aside from 6'4" Noah Hedrick, who was a steady but unremarkable bench player for Hope two years ago. What's more, Wheaton brought in just three freshmen, two of whom are legacies, -- and legacies always make me wonder if the coaches pursued them or if the kid was already planning to go there (and thus may not have been a recruiting priority for the coaching staff). Still, one of the legacies is the son of former Wheaton assistant coach Paul Ferguson, who (like Mike Schauer) logged a number of years sitting second chair for Bill Harris, and Ferg has already blessed Wheaton with one of his Columbus (IN) North standouts in Nick Schiavello. If Ferg's kid turns out to be in the same ballpark as Schiavello as a player, then Ferg's done his former employer yet another solid.

All told, this looks like a really down year for Wheaton. I hesitate to say that, because Wheaton always plays hard and smart, is always well-conditioned, and because Mike Schauer always seems to have a trick or two up his sleeve. But I'm not really sure where all of the CCIW-level talent is beyond Schiavello and Sock and maybe Veiliz and Hedrick, unless Mike's got four or five guys who've made monster strides in ability while jumping from last season's JV to this season's varsity, and I mean monster strides. (And Braun would really need to make monster strides as well, because he was a negligible factor off of the bench for Wheaton last season.)

How does someone transfer up to Division 1 without playing much at a lower division? I'm sort of at a loss on that one.

Not anyone here, of course, but some folks are taking the "NPU has never won the conference tournament championship" and thinking it means NPU has never won a conference championship.

I thought NPU was getting better?

Rumor has it North Park has received a NetJet gift card from a certain alum and will now be flying Gulfstream 650's for all trips longer than 30 minutes.

Boy, you gotta be a Navajo wind talker to understand what's going on around here.

Seriously, what's with the politicking?

Quote from: Next Man Up on April 30, 2022, 01:17:19 PM

Quote from: deepthroat on April 30, 2022, 12:31:49 PM
I don't want to make a big deal about this but I knew the names 24 hours BEFORE the previous post said he knew them.

Deepthroat,
Congrats on having the names 24 hours before itsnotmeitsyou said he had them. I'm sending you a + 1 for that. 
However, I'm glad you don't want to make a big deal out of it, because the names were first known back on April 18th!
Give me a couple minutes please, and I'll explain.

Again, I don't want to make a big deal, but I actually knew them on April 17th. So.....

I don't want to make a big deal about this but I knew the names 24 hours BEFORE the previous post said he knew them.

I have often wondered how successful a program would be if it crowdsourced its hires.

Quote from: itsnotmeitsyou on April 07, 2022, 05:10:53 PM

Quote from: Gregory Sager on April 06, 2022, 12:08:43 PM

Quote from: Next Man Up on April 05, 2022, 08:22:56 PM
1. Greg,
I was in no way implying the NPU hiring process was anything made up "on the fly." I'm sorry if it came off that way.
My post was actually intended as a compliment.

No worries. I understood it as a compliment.

All I can say is that I've been encouraged by what I've heard, which is that John Born got a huge response from dozens of what appear to be very capable coaches. It's made the winnowing process a little more laborious than he expected and perhaps more time-consuming on his part, but I'd rather that he had to burn the midnight oil a little longer because of an overabundance of quality applicants than because of a scarcity of them (the latter case of which burned North Park and completely wrecked the men's basketball program back in 1994).

NPU brought 4 finalists to campus for in person interviews during
That hiring cycle. Then:
#1 choice was offered and declined the job.
#2 choice was offered and declined the job.
#3 withdrew from consideration.
#4 was offered and accepted the job. He was surprised to get it - only applied hoping to get an interview so he could press his current school AD for additional resources/changes.

There wasn't a dearth of applicants, a plethora of circumstances (one of which was a poor due diligence process by the AD in selecting appropriate finalists), caused the process to result in the coaching selection.

yikes

Quote from: Next Man Up on April 06, 2022, 11:04:51 PM
We know that the immediate past Head Coach, many past players, parents of past players, current players, parents of current players, other program-supportive alums, and non-alum community boosters, have written and/or called in voicing support of Vince for the Head Coach position.

However, here might be the strongest endorsement of all for Vince Kmiec..................
I recently had a two hour conversation with a very successful D3 coach who is highly desirous of the position, and who is among the applicants. During our conversation I told him he is my second choice for the job should, for whatever incomprehensible reason, Vince not get it. He then told me that he had previously talked to Vince and told him that he (Vince) is the top choice for the job and should be the choice if he wants it. Imagine that. An applicant for a job saying another applicant should get the job.

***Can there be any doubt about the best choice here?

What's with the campaigning?