MBB: American Rivers Conference

[AENeumann Jr]

not William Penn, Iowa Wesleyan

[Alfredeneumann]

BV picked to win conf. title

2008-09 IOWA CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL PREVIEW
CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA . . . Buena Vista University, which won its ninth Iowa Conference title overall and its
sixth title since 1996-97, is the coaches' pick to capture the 2008-09 IIAC men's basketball championship. TheBeavers received eight of nine first-place votes (coaches cannot vote for their own teams), totaling the maximum 72 points in the IIAC Men's Basketball Coaches' Poll.
Loras College picked up the remaining first-place vote and is second in the poll with 64 points. The Duhawks finished one game back in a bid to repeat after winning their first Iowa Conference title since 1950-51 in 2006-07. Cornell College and Wartburg College tied for the third spot with 51 points each, followed by University of Dubuque (41 points).

The complete 2008-09 IIAC Men's Basketball Coaches' Poll follows.

Rank School (1st place votes) Points 2007-08 Record
1 Buena Vista (8) 72 (23-7, 14-2 IIAC)
2 Loras (1) 64 (22-7, 13-3 IIAC)
3 Cornell 51 (9-17, 7-9 IIAC)
  Wartburg 51 (9-16, 6-10 IIAC)
5 Dubuque 41 (14-12, 8-8 IIAC)
6 Coe 35 (16-11, 10-6 IIAC)
7 Central 31 (14-10, 7-9 IIAC)
8 Simpson 29 (7-18, 4-12 IIAC)
9 Luther 22 (7-18, 3-13 IIAC)

[Kohawk Krazy]

Here are my projections...

Buena Vista ( 72 (23-7, 14-2 IIAC)
Loras (1) 64 (22-7, 13-3 IIAC)
Coe 35 (16-11, 10-6 IIAC)
Wartburg 51 (9-16, 6-10 IIAC)
Cornell 51 (9-17, 7-9 IIAC)
Dubuque 41 (14-12, 8-8 IIAC)
Simpson 29 (7-18, 4-12 IIAC)
Central 31 (14-10, 7-9 IIAC)
Luther 22 (7-18, 3-13 IIAC)

[dansand]

For anyone interested in listening to the Simpson-Augustana game on Saturday, here is the link to the Augie webcast:

www.hearitfromhome.com/augustana.php

[sportsknight]

Just looking over the Wartburg schedule again and I guess I didn't realize that after the Buzz Levick tourney, Wartburg won't be back at home until after the first of the year for the conference opener against Loras. 

[siwash]

any news from the Dubuque--Knox game tonight???

[doolittledog]

any news from the Dubuque--Knox game tonight???

Dubuque beat Knox 66-52

[Kohawk Krazy]

Should be an interesting opener for the young Kohawks tonight.  Traveling the 5 minutes to Mt. Mercy to take on a Mustang team that has 5 games under their belts already.

Should be tough for the Kohawks to face a Kuenstling instead of playing with one.

[Kohawk Krazy]

Big come from behind victory for the Kohawks tonight.  Trialing 27-17 at halftime, they came back for a 65-64 win.

Good way to start the season, especially with a Top 20 team coming up next...

[Klopenhiemer]

Beavers open up the season with a win against UW-Stout.  68-61 overtime victory.  Sounds like all played well and BV was on the road.  They have a couple of days off before the open opener against St. Olaf. 

I look for good things out of this years Beavers.  I hope they can reclaim the conference and represent the IIAC in the National Tournament again. 

[doolittledog]

Beavers open up the season with a win against UW-Stout.  68-61 overtime victory.  Sounds like all played well and BV was on the road.  They have a couple of days off before the open opener against St. Olaf. 

I look for good things out of this years Beavers.  I hope they can reclaim the conference and represent the IIAC in the National Tournament again. 

Preferably with a 1st round tourney game somewhere in the greater Chicago area

[Klopenhiemer]

Beavers open up the season with a win against UW-Stout.  68-61 overtime victory.  Sounds like all played well and BV was on the road.  They have a couple of days off before the open opener against St. Olaf. 

I look for good things out of this years Beavers.  I hope they can reclaim the conference and represent the IIAC in the National Tournament again. 

Preferably with a 1st round tourney game somewhere in the greater Chicago area

I like your thinking, but I will go with a first round game at the Siebens Fieldhouse and listen to it.  Lets hope for a game deep in the tournament in the Chicagoland region! 

[Klompen]

Central will look a lot different this year with most of last year's starters gone.  The most experienced returning players are Miguel Ley and Zach Cooper.  Jordan Leuschen missed all of football with a knee injury and is not listed as going out for basketball.  Central got a few transfers in this year and a couple of kids returning to the team after a season or more off.  Demarco Turner transfered from ISU, he played at East and I've heard good things about him.  First home game tonight, I will find out more then.  Like football, it seems there will be a lot of newer faces.  Hope this year's team can continue the long process of improving the records. 

[Klompen]

Congratulations to Central for another win last night.  Got my first look at this year's version of the Dutch.  Lots of new faces this year.  Not sure how good Graceland is, so I don't know how predictive last night was, but they seemed to be playing well together.  Wartburg transfer Grant Franzen started, but was injured in the first half.  It was a close game and I have not seen the crowd as excited as last night about a basketball game, men's or women's for awhile, other than the fact that we could somehow surprise BV the past couple of years.  Franzen was an okay player, not sure I would have called him starter material, but really disappointed me in that he spent the entire second half pouting on the bench instead of supporting the team.  I know it's disappointing to get hurt on the first home game, but when the team comes from behind to take the lead in a close game and you can't even get up during time outs, well let's just say you don't get my vote for being a team player.

Central is a taller version this year and it was nice to see some size for a change.  They need to work on their free throws though, missed about half of them in the early going, but nailed them at the end when they were crucial.  Ley is still the guy to make things happen, but we have some good potential at other spots.  Some nice transfers in will be interesting to watch develop.

[Klompen]

I was probably a little hard on Franzen in my earlier post, he is new at Central and playing basketball may have been a way to get a little recognition and could speed up fitting in to a new campus, so he had a right to be down.  But being a team player is a personal pet peeve of mine.  I love Central football and basketball and there is such a difference in the attitudes I see from the players in the two sports.  In football when a guy goes down, they are on the training table being worked on and stretching out as much as they can to see around the players blocking their view to catch what is happening on the field.  They still want to be part of the action, no matter how much pain they are in.  When the football team loses, they get mad.  Central football teams have a winning attitude, even if the results don't always support it, as was the case this year. 

I just can't say that about the men's basketball team.  This year's team has a lot of new faces on it and I hope they have brought a new team-first, winning-matters attitude.  Some of the recent Central men's teams have seemed to accept losing as status quo, they just want to play and that's good enough.  Last night, it looked like the team had a new level of desire and I hope it leads them to new heights.  Seeing Franzen sitting on the bench during time outs with the game up for grabs, bugged me.  I hope that once his injury, no matter how serious or non-serious sinks in, that if he has to ride the bench for awhile, he will be mentally in the game, if not physically.