I am late to the party, but I have a few thoughts on the whole Wheaton/NPU rivalry...
First of all, There have always been teams in the CCIW that have come up and challenged Wheaton. Augustana, Carthage and North Park have been the main ones that challenged in the past but usually it was just for a season or two and then the next one would come up. Born and North Park have bucked that trend and are a legitimate threat every year at this point. The rest of the CCIW will produce a team or two every few years, but it is pretty much just Wheaton and North Park now which is an upgrade from just Wheaton.
As far as the Swede stuff goes, I could care less where their players come from. Nothing will change with that, and frankly, it is not like they are getting some crazy advantage from it. As someone stated before, they have yet to make any noise in the NCAA tourney. They are extremely relevant in the CCIW, but not nationally yet. If they keep making the tourney and have a nice run, then they will be there.
After NPU broke through against Wheaton around 04/05 (I was there for that unfortunately) most people around Wheaton figured it was a fluke. Those NPU teams were tough and defended for the majority of the games in their half but had some good strikers that were opportunistic. The NPU teams now are more well rounded and better for sure. North Park has clearly proved that it has staying power.
It has become a rivalry and I sense the current Wheaton teams do see it that way. It took us Wheatonites a while to come around and admit it but NPU is a true perennial challenger in the conference. It has been nice to see Wheaton bounce back after the last few disappointing seasons and will be interesting to see how things play out over the next few years with the strong young team Wheaton has.
First of all, There have always been teams in the CCIW that have come up and challenged Wheaton. Augustana, Carthage and North Park have been the main ones that challenged in the past but usually it was just for a season or two and then the next one would come up. Born and North Park have bucked that trend and are a legitimate threat every year at this point. The rest of the CCIW will produce a team or two every few years, but it is pretty much just Wheaton and North Park now which is an upgrade from just Wheaton.
As far as the Swede stuff goes, I could care less where their players come from. Nothing will change with that, and frankly, it is not like they are getting some crazy advantage from it. As someone stated before, they have yet to make any noise in the NCAA tourney. They are extremely relevant in the CCIW, but not nationally yet. If they keep making the tourney and have a nice run, then they will be there.
After NPU broke through against Wheaton around 04/05 (I was there for that unfortunately) most people around Wheaton figured it was a fluke. Those NPU teams were tough and defended for the majority of the games in their half but had some good strikers that were opportunistic. The NPU teams now are more well rounded and better for sure. North Park has clearly proved that it has staying power.
It has become a rivalry and I sense the current Wheaton teams do see it that way. It took us Wheatonites a while to come around and admit it but NPU is a true perennial challenger in the conference. It has been nice to see Wheaton bounce back after the last few disappointing seasons and will be interesting to see how things play out over the next few years with the strong young team Wheaton has.