MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Late nite]

In reply to mactitan's question 'how good are these guys?', I would say where else can you find a Division 3 school with 3 kids who have earned Illinois ClassAA or ClassA all-state recognition?  And, I believe, the majority of the class have enjoyed significant tournament success;  i believe there are two state champs, three Elite 8, and one Sweet Sixteen level kids in this group.  It will really be interesting to see which kids, if any, crack the starting line-up by the time CCIW conference play begins.

I guess it is the nature of recruitment news, but it sounds like IWU has had an amazing off-season.  When Ron Rose, a high school coach, was hired, the first thing I thought was, "I hope he can recruit." It seems like that question has been answered.  I do not remember a year with so many recruiting stories.  It seems like just Rosenkranz and Sexauer would be a good combo, but there are so many other guys too.  Has Rose recruited a full 12-man roster?  Obviously, this question cannot be fully answered for four years, but how good is this recruiting class?

And my favorite thing about reading these stories is that most of the kids are quoted as citing two things as major factors in their decision - 1. academics and 2. fan-support.  That makes me think these are not just good players, but good people too.

It's good to see the Green pounding their chests again---Not much input last winter---There must be a ton of White Sox fans in B-N, as they also disappear when their team is losing---Those are really impressive credentials---Too bad that they can't bring them with to college---I don't think that the other teams are just sitting on their hands---Outstanding recruits are in every program but most are not counting on their freshmen because they have actual college players returning

[Titan Q]

In reply to mactitan's question 'how good are these guys?', I would say where else can you find a Division 3 school with 3 kids who have earned Illinois ClassAA or ClassA all-state recognition?  And, I believe, the majority of the class have enjoyed significant tournament success;  i believe there are two state champs, three Elite 8, and one Sweet Sixteen level kids in this group.  It will really be interesting to see which kids, if any, crack the starting line-up by the time CCIW conference play begins.

I guess it is the nature of recruitment news, but it sounds like IWU has had an amazing off-season.  When Ron Rose, a high school coach, was hired, the first thing I thought was, "I hope he can recruit." It seems like that question has been answered.  I do not remember a year with so many recruiting stories.  It seems like just Rosenkranz and Sexauer would be a good combo, but there are so many other guys too.  Has Rose recruited a full 12-man roster?  Obviously, this question cannot be fully answered for four years, but how good is this recruiting class?

And my favorite thing about reading these stories is that most of the kids are quoted as citing two things as major factors in their decision - 1. academics and 2. fan-support.  That makes me think these are not just good players, but good people too.

It's good to see the Green pounding their chests again---Not much input last winter---There must be a ton of White Sox fans in B-N, as they also disappear when their team is losing---Those are really impressive credentials---Too bad that they can't bring them with to college---I don't think that the other teams are just sitting on their hands---Outstanding recruits are in every program but most are not counting on their freshmen because they have actual college players returning

A post by coebball70 is being attributed to "the Green"?

[titanfan]

Q,

Are the Titans still waiting to hear from other recruits, or is this class pretty much wrapped up?

[Titan Q]

Q,

Are the Titans still waiting to hear from other recruits, or is this class pretty much wrapped up?

I'm assuming it is wrapped up, but I'm not 100% sure.

[mactitan]

Yeah, I am excited about the recruits this off-season.  That is why I posted.  Every recruit sounds great in the newspaper.  I wanted to hear what more objective observers (like a fan from Coe) might have to say. I don't remember an off-season with this much recruiting news.  Maybe I'm paying more attention this year because I wanted to know if a former HS coach could recruit.  Maybe I'm paying attention more because I was disappointed with a poor season last year.  What's wrong with that?  That is what the off-season is all about.  As far as disappearing when the team loses - there might not have been as many posts last year, but there was still over 2000 people at a game in February last year, in the midst of the worst season in years. 

And if I were a Cub fan I'd be making idiotic predictions about how we're going all the way this year, and I'd go to an old dump of a stadium and drink beer and not pay attention to what was happening on the field while I cursed Leon Durham and Bartman and the Amazin' Mets, and wish that my team could play meaningful games in September more than once a decade. Or I'd say something about how Augustana and IWU are the two most successful teams historically in this league, but I'd forget that North Park has five banners hanging in their gym. 

Finally, I don't deny that other teams have had great recruiting years.  But I'm a Titan fan, so I hear about IWU recruits. The only thing I have read about Augustana's recruiting this year is that one of the guys going to IWU considered Auggie.

Here's another question that I'd like to hear from some of the veterans - What was the best recruiting class in CCIW history?  I mean a crop of freshman that stayed four years and were integral to team success.

[scacbbfan]

Obviously, I am not a Titan fan.  And do opponents still call them the Green Weenies?  But, I digress.

I have had a lot of opportunities over the last few years to watch two of IWU's new recruits, Duncan Lawson and Danny Schouten.  First, both are great kids from good families.  I'm confident that they will represent IWU quite well.  Second, both are also good players who, at least early in the season, were getting looks from lower level D-1s and D-2s.  At Glenbard West, the 6-8 Duncan played mostly on the perimeter.  I think that was mostly out of necessity as GW's perimeter players needed help and Duncan is a decent ball-handler who can also shoot the 3.  GW also had 6-7 Junior John Shurna who is a beast inside.  If Downers Grove South had to play this past year without Schouten, they would not have won 5 games.  Danny is a versatile, athletic 6-5 player who loves to compete.  He can also step out and hit the 3, although he is at his best in the 12-15 foot range.  I expect him to be a very nice CCIW player.

So, yes, IWU fans have a lot to look forward to.  Man, I hate saying that.

[Mr. Ypsi]

WOW!  A Millikin fan sticking up for the Titans!

That's about as improbable as when I actually opened champagne to toast your ladies winning it all a couple years ago.  If Green and Blue can do this, maybe there's hope for the Middle East yet!

+k to you.

[diehardfan]

Wheaton's 07-08 has been posted!

Our nonconference schedule is:

Fund Tourney: Wittenberg, Benedictine, and Kalamazoo (so I'm assuming Ben first round and Witt second)

at Loras College
vs University of Chicago    
@ Calvin
vs Hope (at Calvin)
at Illinois Institute of Technology    7:30 PM
at Wartburg    7:30 PM
at University of LaVerne    7:30 PM
at California Insitute of Technology Tournament

That's right, we play only three home games (and none after Nov 28), and a whoooole bunch of perennially strong and recent playoff teams in Witt, Loras, Chicago, Calvin, Hope, and Wartburg. I'm pretty psyched about our schedule this year. Especially, of course, the part where my boys come out to Cali!  8)

[Mr. Ypsi]

Watch out for that Cal Tech game - those guys are due for an upset!

Any chance you'll make the MIAA-CCIW clash in Grand Rapids?  I have no current plans to attend, but might change that if you were coming (even if you did stand me up at your own place!).

[diehardfan]

Watch out for that Cal Tech game - those guys are due for an upset!

Any chance you'll make the MIAA-CCIW clash in Grand Rapids?  I have no current plans to attend, but might change that if you were coming (even if you did stand me up at your own place!).

That's a good question. Since this is, of course, the tournament that I have been trying to get to for three years (and last year I sabotaged myself cause I volunteered myself to teach an CPR and First Aid class on the weekend of the MIAA challenge!) it's probably unwise to make any promises though I obviously would love to come. However, the fact that there are three good games (Chicago, Calvin, and Hope) within 4 days, it's pretty darn tempting.

With Witt in the Fund and the fact that I still haven't been back for that since Will passed (and there are some rumblings of a certain 10th Anniversary celebration that weekend) opening weekend is pretty tempting too.

It also sorta matters what games I'll miss out here by going there... last year I missed Wooster and Puget Sound (and someone else?) because I was in the Chicago area for their games... I don't want to run into that problem again.

I guess that's all to say that it's probably a little too early to plan... even though I've obviously totally already started musing!




Notice how I ignored your first comment since it didn't make sense.

[Gregory Sager]

Sorry, Titan Q.  But I think you and many IWU fans are going to be disappointed in most of next year's team, except the Freeman's and Gant.  After that, there is not much.

I had to pull this one out of the archives, especially since I said it before the beginning of the 05-06 season, and that I was right on the money.

Yeah, well, that same fall you also said that Concordia (IL) and Dominican wouldn't win ten games between them all season (they had ten wins between them by mid-December); that North Park and Augustana would finish tied in the CCIW cellar in women's basketball with matching 1-13 records (NPU went 8-6, finished fourth, and made the CCIW tournament); and that the White Sox wouldn't win a playoff game (and we all know how they did in October of 2005). So I hope that you didn't get too full of yourself with regard to your prognosticating skills on the basis of your post about the '06-'07 Titans. 

[Gregory Sager]

Secondly, I don't believe he even made all conference in the Upstate 8. Players who are not all conference in high school often do not make much of a contribution in the highly competitive CCIW.

True, but they do often enough to keep this from being a general rule. There are any number of reasons why a future D3 player might not make a high school all-conference team: Size of the all-conference team; strength of the conference (i.e., it's loaded with future scholarship players); the player's particular size and/or skills might not have fit with the coach's philosophy; he might be recruited by the D3 team upon the basis of his potential rather than his past performance (something which we see happens frequently on every level of basketball, up to and including the NBA), etc.

NPU has two good examples of this among their first three recruits for 2007-08, 6'7 forward Christian Alsing of Brother Rice and 6'6 forward/center Phil Schniedermeier of Loyola. Alsing's statistics were modest last year; in spite of being highly touted in such venues as the Chicago Tribune's prep basketball preview section, Alsing put up undistinguished numbers for the Crusaders this past season and failed to achieve All-Chicago Catholic League status. In fact, he didn't even average in double figures in scoring. But he was thought of highly enough to have been pursued by a large number of very good local D3 programs; North Park beat out Elmhurst, Illinois Wesleyan, North Central, Chicago, and DePauw for Alsing. Schniedermeier didn't have Alsing's preseason hype, but he, too, flew under the radar and didn't make All-Chicago Catholic League this past year. Heck, he didn't even start most of Loyola's games. But he's a big, strong kid (6'6, 225) with a great upside in terms of intelligence (29 ACT) and coachability, and the NPU coaches think that he could turn out to be a very good CCIW big man. Elmhurst must agree with that assessment, since Scherer and Baines were after Schniedermeier as well (so was Gary Grzesk from St. Norbert, a guy whom I think is a really solid D3 coach).

I know that Paul Brenegan is really excited to have Alsing and Schniedermeier, regardless of the fact that neither one made the All-CCL team -- and I know that Mark Scherer would've been excited if he'd been the one to land the two of them instead.

It's often true that the potential of a CCIW newbie can be projected with some degree of accuracy by his high school stats and accolades. But it's often not true as well. If high school performance translated into college performance that seamlessly, then Tyler Smith would've been a CCIW superstar last season and Dan Walton would've been sitting on the end of his team's bench, rather than the other way around.

Bottom line: Don't dismiss Mike Avallone as a potential CCIW player based solely upon the high school trophies and plaques sitting on his dresser. Judge him based upon what you've seen of him with your own eyes, or upon what people whose knowledge of the game you respect tell you that they've seen with their own eyes. (And, to be fair, that's exactly what you did in your followup post.) I'll always take the eyewitness perspective of a trustworthy observer over high school stats and awards when it comes to assessing a recruit's CCIW potential.

(I know that Bob made many of these same points immediately after your post, AO, but since it pertains directly to both Alsing and Schniedermeier I thought I'd expand upon his post. Besides, I'm still catching up after spending three weeks away from CCIW Chat. )

[Gregory Sager]

The school in question, Prospect, and to that group you can add Rolling Meadows and Elk Grove as well, have all been hurt by a lack of imagination in their approach to offensive basketball.  It doesn't help that they don't seem to get any players from their feeder schools that show they know how to create their own shot.  Their games are boring and an agony to watch. 

Sort of like watching the present North Park teams try to play Wheaton... no imagination and no preparation.

That Prospect is 'lily white' and both Meadows and Grove have large Hispanic populations which have NOT embraced basketball (or many other sports for that matter), have left these three schools with a definite lack of interesting basketball talent.

I served on the D59 school board, which feeds Grove and Meadows, and to a small degree Prospect, and I served on the Mount Prospect Village Board, so I have a pretty good idea of the demographics of the area.

One reason Schaumburg is so good is that these other schools are so bad and so lackluster is that Schaumburg has a really good coach and their kids play agressive offensive basketball - which most of the MSL does not.

Let me see if I'm following you here, Dennis:

1) Are you saying that "the lack of imagination in their [Prospect, Rolling Meadows, Elk Grove] approach to offensive basketball" is racially related?

2) Are you insinuating that somehow the lack of interest in basketball displayed by northwest suburban Hispanic kids is causing the high school boys programs in those schools to suffer? If so, please cite and give examples of other Illinois high schools where the Hispanic presence has been a boon to the basketball program. In fact, I'll make it easier for you: Please name two other Illinois Hispanic prep stars over the past five years besides Von Steuben's Angel Santiago, Niles West's Victor Colon, and Morton's Marco Macias, just so you can actually claim to be able to theoretically put together a bona-fide team of recent Illinois Hispanic high school basketball superstars.

(I'm not making a dig at Hispanic basketball players, mind you. There's nothing intrinsically flawed about Hispanic basketball players; I'll take Javier Sanchez on my team any day of the week and twice on Sundays. I'm saying that their impact as a group upon local high school basketball is nil. Soccer and baseball ... that's another story.)

3) Are you actually contending that Schaumburg's success is in part due to the weakness of their conference oompetition? Doesn't much explain how the Saxons managed to go to Peoria and win a state title three years ago, though, does it?

[Gregory Sager]

In terms of the SCIAC games, Oxy and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps are generally definitely two of the better to play.

However, Oxy loses a whole bunch this year and will be quite young too. Connor Whitman is quite good and returns for his senior season, but if anyone needs any indication of how Oxy plays without their star big guy Sam Betty (who really should have been an AA IMHO), well, all you need to do is look to the first round of the playoffs this year where they got blown out by Mississippi College.  I think it will be a good bar for both programs (unless they both play badly, lol).

CMS wasn't bad this year, but they suffered a lot from the loss of their SCIAC POY, more than people were expecting. The won the conference in 05-06 but fell to 5th this year going just 7-7 in conference. This year they return everyone but one of their starters from the entire team and should have a shot at winning the title but they're extremely one dimensional (unless they get the best guard ever as a recruit or someone comes out of the woodwork) so I'd imagine that they don't have the inside track to the title.

I'm really not sure what will happen with the SCIAC this year, but it's nice that there is little chance that these teams will be bottom dwellers, if not the best competition in the entire world. The regionality of these games and the fact that they'll undoubtedly be worth a lot of QOWI points makes these definitely the very smart picks that I wish more people in this administrative would take advantage of (if not only for the fact that I would get to see good teams in this area )

Bless you, April, for posting the first SCIAC preview in D3hoops.com history that didn't contain the terms "Big Three" and "fishbowl".

[Gregory Sager]

It sure has gotten quiet in here.  Any other recruiting info?  It seems like this is the time a lot of final decisions should be made.  I know the normal IWU student deadline is usually May 1st.

Illinois Wesleyan has, I think, the earliest application deadline in the conference. That's one reason why Wesleyan always seems to have its entire recruiting class announced on CCIW Chat before we've even started to hear from some of the other schools. (Bob's thoroughness is the other reason, of course.)

Other schools will be announcing their "gets" throughout May and well into the summer. NPU, for example, is famous for getting last-minute commitments right up until the last minute before school starts in August (and even beyond, coughrobberkicough). Don't mistake one school's deadline for everyone else's; different schools operate on different timetables.