Elmhurst had a surprisingly easy time of it against North Central, downing NCC 80-66 in the battle of songbirds at Faganel. Dom Trelenberg (18 and 7) and Tagen Pearson (18) led the way for the 'jays, while Sebastian Blachut added 10 and Aidyn Boone grabbed seven boards. The 'jays shot a crisp 46% from downtown and 84% from the line while doubling up NCC in the team rebounding category. The Cardinals were paced by James Bullock, Jr.'s 14 and 7, while Terrance Moncrief scored 11 and Tyler Swierczek added 10.

Elmhurst is now 6-7, 2-2, while North Central falls to 9-4, 2-2.

Millikin won comfortably over Carroll in the Griz, 81-66. Lane Thomann led the Big Blue with 20 points, including 8-8 from the line, while Demarcus Bond added 16 and Nate Straughter scored 10, with Tionne Spates leading the cause with seven caroms. The visitors were led by Eric Victorson's 23 (he was 5-10 from downtown) and Jacob Naber's 12.

Millikin improves to 8-4, 2-1, and Carroll endures the longest bus ride in the league this evening wearing a mark of 4-9, 0-4.

Quote from: Gregory Sager on January 04, 2025, 07:35:50 PMNorth Park 69
Carthage 68

John Gaines: 11 pts, 7 rebs
DJ Wallace, 10 pts, 3 stls
Tristan Arneaud: 4:1 a:to
Davante Robinson: 4 stls
Rico Powell: 3 stls

Riley Brooks: 19 pts
AJ Johnson: 18 pts (10-11 FT)
Ryan Johnson: 10 pts, 10 rebs, 3 blks

Taijon Barry made the first of two FTs to break a tie with one second left, and Rico Powell grabbed the offensive rebound after Barry missed the second. Kudos to Carthage for forcing the game to go down to the wire by closing late, as NPU led for the vast majority of the game but could never put away the Firebirds; the Vikings never led by more than 10.

North Park moves to 9-4, 4-0, and is the last undefeated team left in CCIW play. Carthage drops to 8-4, 2-1.

Big, big road win for the Park.

As exciting as Wallace's 10 pts are, his 5 rebounds are just as exciting, if not moreso!

Quote from: petemcb on January 04, 2025, 08:18:50 PM

Quote from: Gregory Sager on January 04, 2025, 07:35:50 PMNorth Park 69
Carthage 68

John Gaines: 11 pts, 7 rebs
DJ Wallace, 10 pts, 3 stls
Tristan Arneaud: 4:1 a:to
Davante Robinson: 4 stls
Rico Powell: 3 stls

Riley Brooks: 19 pts
AJ Johnson: 18 pts (10-11 FT)
Ryan Johnson: 10 pts, 10 rebs, 3 blks

Taijon Barry made the first of two FTs to break a tie with one second left, and Rico Powell grabbed the offensive rebound after Barry missed the second. Kudos to Carthage for forcing the game to go down to the wire by closing late, as NPU led for the vast majority of the game but could never put away the Firebirds; the Vikings never led by more than 10.

North Park moves to 9-4, 4-0, and is the last undefeated team left in CCIW play. Carthage drops to 8-4, 2-1.

Big, big road win for the Park.

As exciting as Wallace's 10 pts are, his 5 rebounds are just as exciting, if not moreso!

Agreed, and I really liked his three steals as well. It's a career high for him. I don't think it'll remain a career high forever.

As a team NPU had a dozen steals today at Tarble. It's the eighth time in 13 games that the Vikings have come up with double-digit pilfers. That plus a strong rebounding day in which the Vikings basically broke even with Carthage on the boards, made up for the fact that they only shot 26% from the field in the second stanza and thus couldn't get sufficient separation from the Firebirds to keep the game from going down to the wire.

IWU  85
Wheaton 80  (OT)

Wheaton played a fantastic game with a masterful strategy - for 38 mins.  We've all seen it so many times where a big underdog, on the verge of a big win (up by 9 with 4 mins remaining), gets just a little bit too conservative on offense down the stretch trying to run some clock and it just goes badly.  Once a team loses its offensive edge, it is tough for a veteran team to get it back to say nothing of a young team.

Desperate times and lack of height in the lineup = Wheaton playing a 3-2 zone the entire game and to great effect.  The Titans really struggled against it, again, for 38 mins.  As painfully disappointing as this one was, the Thunder played a clearly superior team very tough all night.  And while Mike Schauer will not claim a moral victory, this was as close as it gets.  Still way too many 3 point shots ( 39 trey attempts out of 64 total shots) for my taste, but y'know, whatever.

Wheaton nearly pulled off the upset of the year but fell in OT to Illinois Wesleyan, 85-80. The Schauerites were leading Illinois Wesleyan by nine with under four minutes to go in regulation, but they got too conservative on offense and ended up getting stuck with low-percentage shots, while the Titans, who played clenched-butt basketball for most of the game, finally got their offense unstuck courtesy of some Hakim Williams baseline drives (dunno why it took the Titans the whole game to figure out that he was their best-percentage weapon against a smallish, not-super-quick team that was 100% committed to playing zone). Nick Roper didn't shoot well from the field, but he poured in 10-11 FTs en route to a 26 and 10 double-double, while Williams, who did a superb job covering Soren Richardson for the entire game, added 17. WC was led by Richardson's 22 (but he was only 6-20 from the field), while Noah Hedrick (15 and 7), freshman phenom Devin Martin (15 and 6 with a magnificent 8:1 floor game), Ty "Little Ferg" Ferguson (12), and Kyle Neibch (10) all did their bit. That scrappy, undermanned, and really young Wheaton team may only be 3-9, 0-4, but the Blue and Orange is going to damage somebody's season along the way ... maybe even a couple of teams' seasons. IWU is breathing a heavy sigh of relief right now at 11-2, 3-1.

A couple of true CCIW classics played today in Tarble and King.

What I want to find out is this: Did NPU's Taijon Barry take the initiative in deliberately missing the second free throw after making the first to break the tie with 1.1 seconds to go at Tarble, knowing that the clock would start as soon as someone touched the missed shot, or did Ed McGhee instruct him to do that? And, if so, did Ed only get the opportunity to deliver that instruction because Steve Djurickovic called timeout after Barry made the first free throw rather than before it?

Endgame tactics are always fascinating in basketball.

Greg and GoPerry described the IWU-WC game well.  IWU escapes in OT.  Nick Roper making the big tying trey with 8 seconds to go.  In the OT, IWU jumped out and never trailed.  The WC zone was pretty effective and Soren Richardson is really good, even with Hakim's tough D on him all night.  He's going to be good in the CCIW for a long time.

For WC:

Richardson 22
Hedrich 15
Martin 15
Ferguson 12
Meibch 10

WC made 15 threes!

For IWU:

Roper 26  10-11 FTs
Williams 17 9-10 FTs
Wilmsen 9
Funk 7
Anderson 7 and 9

IWU shooting 38%, 24% from three, and 86% FTs

IWU very lucky to get this game to OT and then lucky again to win it at the end.

11-2, 3-1 now.  IWU plays at NPU on Wednesday.  Should be a good one, a big game for both teams.  A defining game in the CCIW race early on.

'70

Wednesday's menu:

Millikin (8-4, 2-1) @ Augustana (8-4, 1-2)
Carthage (8-4, 2-1) @ Elmhurst (6-7, 2-2)
Illinois Wesleyan (11-2, 3-1) @ North Park (9-4, 4-0)
Wheaton (3-9, 0-3) @ North Central (9-4, 2-2)

All four games are 7 pm tipoffs.

Carroll (4-9, 0-4) is idle.

IWU up to #7 in the latest poll.  I have to admit I don't get these voters at all -- or they aren't paying attention.  IWU beat #1 UW Platteville and beat Wash U handily, yet both are ranked higher than IWU.  As you know, I've expressed doubts about IWU being a top 5 team, but this seems wrong or just ill-informed.  Are these voters not paying attention? 

IWU @ NPU should be a good one.  A key CCIW test early on in the CCIW race.

IWU'70

Platteville hasn't lost since that very early game vs IWU.  WashU's only loss is to IWU.

IWU is coming off a loss to Mary Hardin-Baylor and an OT win against a bad Wheaton team.  This seems like normal poll skepticism based on recent results.

Sac, I hear you.  But, shouldn't head-to-head count for something?   I have my own skepticism about IWU so I don't have green glasses about them, but this still seems wrong to me.  All three teams -- IWU, Platteville, and Wash U -- now face tough roads in their conference schedules so I guess we will learn much more.

'70 

IWU has been very publibly inconsistent.  I ranked them ahead of WashU, because of how recent that game was.  The Platteville game is pretty far back now and they've been very consistent since then.

Of course, it all depends on what people are actually ranking - past performance or future prediction.  Not every voter does things the same way.

Quote from: sac on January 06, 2025, 10:51:10 PMPlatteville hasn't lost since that very early game vs IWU.  WashU's only loss is to IWU.

IWU is coming off a loss to Mary Hardin-Baylor and an OT win against a bad Wheaton team.  This seems like normal poll skepticism based on recent results.

As Ryan said, each voter in the D3hoops.com poll is welcome to measure the field by his or her own yardstick. But what Scott is saying here is, to me, the most realistic way to appraise teams, and that is to include recency bias as a consideration.

"Recency bias" is usually a negative term, but it doesn't have to be negative; waiting two extra minutes for a fresh batch of doughnuts to be put out front at the Dunkin' Donuts next to your office while you're on your afternoon break, rather than buying one that was put out front before the breakfast rush, is an example of a recency bias that has the positive result of you getting a better doughnut. Basketball teams, like doughnuts, are subject to changing conditions, and they often experience qualitative shifts over the course of a season. Unlike doughnuts, a basketball team can actually improve as the season progresses. It can also decline, or experience oscillation, or stay generally at the same level. All kinds of things go into this: familiarity among teammates, injuries, illnesses, added players, changes in strategies and/or allotment of minutes, and all of the emotional and psychological effects players experience such as confidence level, outside distractions, etc. A basketball team can be very different in early January from the same basketball team with the same players and coach in early November ... and that team could be entirely different by the end of February from what it was in early January.

Recency bias takes that into account and places a higher value on more recent games than on earlier games. That's why:

Quote from: sac on January 06, 2025, 10:51:10 PMThis seems like normal poll skepticism based on recent results.

... is a completely valid way of assessing one's ballot if you're a voter.

Greg, yes, I hear you on how teams can change over a season, and voters having different criteria etc., with many factors at play, many of them totally subjective and uncertain as to impact.  But, shouldn't results on the floor, especially in head-to-head encounters, count for something too, whenever they happen?   IWU beat both Platteville and Wash U -- and over Wash U convincingly, not long ago, in the time period of this poll.  That's called results, not some kind of silly bias about the timing of buying donuts.

It is what it is . . .and we'll find out much more as the season moves along.  Especially on Wednesday night @NPU. Platteville and Wash U will likely take some losses in their respective very tough leagues, too.  Nothing is going to be easy for any of these programs.  All three are excellent teams, but only IWU is 2-0 in head-to-head games. 

'70

The argument makes sense, to me, with regards to WashU, because it was more recent and it really seemed the difference was stark between the two teams.

Then again, most of the same rationale I'd have for putting Platteville ahead, could apply also to WashU, if a voter believed the same true - namely that it was more an aberration than a norm.

I've seen Platteville a bunch since then.  I think that was their worst or near worst performance of the season.  I've seen IWU be sub-standard (for them) more often.  Thus, if they were to play again, the likelihood of Platteville playing better than IWU seems higher to me than the other way around.

I can see where someone might apply the same standard to WashU, although, I agree, there's less evidence for it.

A head to head result isn't at all predictive of future performance and I see the poll as attempting to predict future performance.  I do that based on past results, but I'm not attempting (at least not entirely) to reflect what's happened.

It's not an either/or, obviously, but I'm certainly not going to make a head to head determinative unless I literally have no other way of telling the teams apart.