MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Viking Blue]

Thanks for the info, Q.  As stated earlier, my experience with B-N is limited to the times I was down there as an athlete.  I also know several guys who played baseball at ISU, and was basing my judgments off of what they had to say.

At any rate, it is impressive to see such support from the community.  It's a pipe dream, but it would be nice to see from the North Park community.

[Titan Q]

ISU: there have probably been a couple who got 'a cup of coffee', but if there have been any stars, I'm at a loss to remember who.

http://www.admissions.ilstu.edu/imagine/alumni/collins.shtml

[Titan Q]

Thanks for the info, Q.  As stated earlier, my experience with B-N is limited to the times I was down there as an athlete.  I also know several guys who played baseball at ISU, and was basing my judgments off of what they had to say.

At any rate, it is impressive to see such support from the community.  It's a pipe dream, but it would be nice to see from the North Park community.

Just too small of a fish in too huge of a pond, VB.  As long as NPU gets the students out (and puts good players on the floor), it will always be a real tough place to win a game.

[Mr. Ypsi]

I totally forgot that Doug Collins was a Redbird - my bad!   (Especially embarassing since he was already a VERY talented freshman when I was a senior.)

I'm not sure that we're in disagreement.  ISU has the larger attendance - they are d1!  IWU's attendance is a tiny fraction of B-N's population - we are d3!  Both are obviously to be expected.  But I see it as the feelings toward the neighborhood deli vs. the supermarket.  Of course you do most of your shopping at the supermarket, but who has your heart?  I'm nearly certain it was true many years ago, and would be surprised if it was not still true - whose fans (however numerous in raw totals) are more dedicated and passionate?

[David Collinge]

But I see it as the feelings toward the neighborhood deli vs. the supermarket.  Of course you do most of your shopping at the supermarket, but who has your heart? 

I don't know from heart, but the deli has a nice fresh tongue, wait a minute let me show you...

[Titan Q]

I totally forgot that Doug Collins was a Redbird - my bad!   (Especially embarassing since he was already a VERY talented freshman when I was a senior.)

I'm not sure that we're in disagreement.  ISU has the larger attendance - they are d1!  IWU's attendance is a tiny fraction of B-N's population - we are d3!  Both are obviously to be expected.  But I see it as the feelings toward the neighborhood deli vs. the supermarket.  Of course you do most of your shopping at the supermarket, but who has your heart?  I'm nearly certain it was true many years ago, and would be surprised if it was not still true - whose fans (however numerous in raw totals) are more dedicated and passionate?

Chuck, Illinois State has a lot of equally dedicated and passionate fans...people that have stuck through what has really been a rough stretch since Kevin Stallings left for Vanderbilt in '99. 

I don't really see any difference - everyone loves their team.

[Hoosier Titan]

I think I started all this musing on the IWU fan support a couple of pages ago.  There's no question that the Titan fan base is wide and loyalty is deep in both the B-N community and the alumni.  I love going to a game and knowing exactly where to look for my friends and students, and they know where to look for me--right behind the bench. 

What I actually said was that it seems to me that the student section has been passive this year--by which I meant very little organized cheering, and quite long stretches where they seemed to just stand and watch.  The last home game was after a televised game involving one of the Big Ten teams--Michigan, I think--where the students seemed to jump and chant during every opposition possession.  That might be a little excessive, but the contrast with the IWU student section the next night was strong.  They were there in numbers, but apart from the occasional "defense, defense" chant they weren't making much noise.  The compliments to the North Park student section here seem to be in contrast as well.

Of course, everyone has a right to yell or not, and to chant or not, and Shirk is still plenty lively and a great place to watch a game.  I was just observing that the IWU student section seems quiet this year, at least to one kinda-old person who sits across the gym.

[Gregory Sager]

That's a very good point on the North Park bench, And One.  Specifically, I think John Chimino's minutes proved to be key.  He played a big role in the first half, especially with the fouls troubling Alexander and Williams.  Nice to see a newer face make a difference.  The more depth, the better off NP is down the road.

I'd say that NPU is already one of the deeper teams in the league, but the emergence of Chimino is certainly helping in that regard. He's basically taking Jorge Gonzalez's minutes, and while he isn't nearly as athletic as Gonzalez he's a better shooter and is much more experienced.

With the departure of Bruce Durham, Kendall Greer has emerged as the only member of NPU's talented freshman class to currently get varsity playing time. He's not really making an impact yet, but the coaches love him. They think that the sky is the limit for Greer, and my guess is that they're grooming him to fill Jason Gordon's role next season.

[Gregory Sager]

There were enough bad calls and no calls in last night's game at North Park for two games - one official who called nothing, one official who called picky-touchy in the first half and then disappeared in the 2nd half, and one long-time official from Chicago, who just let the players play.  I'd never seen the first two - hope I never do again - but I think they gave it their best efforts, anyway.

The 'long-time official from Chicago, who just let the players play" was Reuben Norris. I've yelled at Reuben plenty over the years from the stands, as I have at just about every ref who's come down the pike, but I have to say that ol' Reub's certainly earned my respect. He calls the game the same way every time that you see him, and he does it with a minimum of fuss. Consistency and unobtrusiveness are all that you can ask for in an official.

My guess is that the "picky-touchy" guy to whom Dennis referred was the red-haired ref. I can't recall his name, but I've seen him at a number of CCIW games over the past few years. I don't think much of his skills.

[Gregory Sager]

They know their basketball and most of them bleed green.

I knew it! Vulcans, every last one of them!

Romulans, Pat. Romulans.

[Gregory Sager]

The best part about that was the names on the back of the "boxing robes" - one student had "Grey", the other "Bosko."  As the starting lineups were introduced, they had their backs to the Carthage bench as they sparred (with boxing gloves).  Bosko saw it and couldn't stop laughing.

Something tells me Coach G wouldn't have laughed.

Bosko loves to bring up that IWU boxing story, and he still chuckles at it. One great thing about Bosko is that he doesn't take himself too seriously, which is refreshing in an occupation that features far too many grim-faced men with big egos. Another great thing about Bosko is that he appreciates the atmosphere and the spectacle of a good student section. He enjoys the Carlson Crazies at NPU, and he still loves to talk about the antics of Carthage's Deer Stand (and its stuffed squirrel) from the late '90s.

[Gregory Sager]

Community size is an interesting question in terms of community involvement.  While B-N is obviously not Chicago, it is plenty large enough to have lots of other entertainment choices (including, for bball fans, d1 bball at ISU).  Many (perhaps even most) d3 schools are in much smaller towns where there ARE far fewer other outlets.  But large (even very big city) environments also have an obvious plus: if NPU could draw just 1/100 of 1% of Chicago-land, the Crackerbox would be too filled to admit students!

North Park has never drawn much community support for basketball games -- not even when the Vikings were a national powerhouse a generation ago -- and I don't think that it ever will. Part of the reason is that NPU is a barely-known commodity within the city in which its located. The other part of the reason is that there is far too much to do in Chicago, as compared to a place like Bloomington-Normal. As I like to tell people who live elsewhere, "If you live in Chicago and you're bored, it's your own fault." Heck, people I know from the local D1 schools complain about the attendance at their basketball games, and they're all given infinitely better media coverage than the lowly D3 hometown likes of the Vikings and Maroons.

I would simply settle for better alumni attendance at NPU games. Although North Park's alumni population is modest, due to the historically small size of the school, and most of it lives outside of Illinois, there's still a very sizeable contingent of NPU alumni who live here in Chicagoland. Vikings games used to be a can't-miss event for North Park graduates as well as the current students, but that all changed when the program went south a decade and a half ago after Bosko was fired. I see some of them trickling back one-by-one, but the vast majority have never returned.

NPU has fiercely loyal alumni, especially among those who have family or religious connections to the school. But that loyalty was squandered in the mid-nineties as far as basketball is concerned, and it has yet to be recovered.

[Gregory Sager]

Had the Vikings had to face a healthy Cards team with Williams and Johnson available, I dare say the outcome probably would have been different. If you doubt that, remember their availability would have given the Cards an even stronger interior presence. And while the Vikings, who don't really feature a strong interior defense by the admission of their own fans and posters, may have been able to throw up an acceptable defense against 2 strong inside players, the chances of their doing so against 3 such players would have been been statistically significantly decreased to the point I believe the outcome would have been different.

I disagree, largely because I don't see Jeremy Williams giving NCC any better offense than it got out of Drennan and Rogers down low, and the things that Williams does best -- low-post defense and defensive rebounding -- are things that the Cardinals got in abundance last night, anyway. NPU came into the game averaging eleven and a half offensive boards per game, and the Vikings only got five of them last night. Plus, North Park's two primary inside scorers, Nick Williams and Jay Alexander, had subpar scoring nights.

The thing I think that NCC missed from not having Williams in uniform (Justin Johnson's really not much of a factor no matter how you look at it) was depth. Rogers and Drennan had to play 36 and 37 minutes, respectively, whereas they were averaging about 27 and 30 mpg* coming into last night's contest. But I didn't see either one dragging at the end of the game, which actually surprised me a bit given that it was only Drennan's second game back since he was injured, and one would figure that fatigue would enter into the picture with him.

I think that if NCC really missed a player last night it was David Twyman. The Cardinals could've used a perimeter player with his athleticism against NPU for matchup purposes.

Also, it's not North Park's interior defense that has been an ongoing concern of NPU posters on CCIW Chat. It's North Park's interior offense that has been (and still is) a major worry.

Besides, we can all play this what-if game. NPU lost its starting PG recently, which means that current PGs Dan Oziminski and Chris Brown are the receipients of battlefield promotions. Plus, North Park lost an interior player in Jorge Gonzalez who is more athletic than anyone North Central has to offer. As you said, you play with what you have.

I don't think that the outcome would've been any different if Jeremy Williams and Justin Johnson had played, although we'll never know.


* Would-be wits, please spare us the "is that city or highway driving?" cracks. It's been done. The acronym "mpg" in basketball means "minutes per game".

[usee]

an entire page of Sagerism's. what a special treat for a thursday. 

[sac]

I don't know about mpg...........but the ppp looks pretty high


ppp=posts per page.