MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[aceon2]

#1 ranked Wash U. gets hammered today and Chicago knocks off #3 ranked Rochester??!!

I'm officially done saying the CCIW "doesn't have a Final Four team" this year.  It sure doesn't look like there is a dominant team in Division III this year.  The CCIW's rep (I think we're only getting one) will be able to beat - or lose to - any team in the tournament field.

Well said Q... Do you think its possible that if Augie were to win out and then lose in the conference tourney to someone they could get an at large bid?

[Titan Q]

#1 ranked Wash U. gets hammered today and Chicago knocks off #3 ranked Rochester??!!

I'm officially done saying the CCIW "doesn't have a Final Four team" this year.  It sure doesn't look like there is a dominant team in Division III this year.  The CCIW's rep (I think we're only getting one) will be able to beat - or lose to - any team in the tournament field.

Well said Q... Do you think its possible that if Augie were to win out and then lose in the conference tourney to someone they could get an at large bid?

Yes, that is the one scenario for 2 teams possibly getting in (Augie finishing the CCIW season at 11-3 or 10-4, and then someone else winning the conference tourney).  Augie is 14-4 in-region right now...19-7 (10-4 in the league plus 1-1 in the CCIW tournament) would seem to be good enough.

One important reminder -- this is the first year for the new Opponents' Winning Percentage (OWP) and Opponents' Opponents Winning Percentage (OOWP) metrics, replacing the Quality of Wins Index.  These new calculations should help the teams in strong leagues, but I don't think we have any idea how they'll really be used by the men's basketball committee.

[Mr. Ypsi]

#1 ranked Wash U. gets hammered today and Chicago knocks off #3 ranked Rochester??!!

I'm officially done saying the CCIW "doesn't have a Final Four team" this year.  It sure doesn't look like there is a dominant team in Division III this year.  The CCIW's rep (I think we're only getting one) will be able to beat - or lose to - any team in the tournament field.

Well said Q... Do you think its possible that if Augie were to win out and then lose in the conference tourney to someone they could get an at large bid?

Yes, that is the one scenario for 2 teams possibly getting in (Augie finishing the CCIW season at 11-3 or 10-4, and then someone else winning the conference tourney).  Augie is 14-4 in-region right now...19-7 (10-4 in the league plus 1-1 in the CCIW tournament) would seem to be good enough.

One important reminder -- this is the first year for the new Opponents' Winning Percentage (OWP) and Opponents' Opponents Winning Percentage (OOWP) metrics, replacing the Quality of Wins Index.  These new calculations should help the teams in strong leagues, but I don't think we have any idea how they'll really be used by the men's basketball committee.

Agreed.  Under QOWI, the CCIW and WIAC would already likely once-again be one-team conferences (and if the UAA has more days like today, they might be headed from 3-4 teams to 1-2!).  OWP + OOWP should help, but we shall see how much.  The one thing that I will predict with great confidence is that Selection Sunday will still see wailing and gnashing of teeth, especially if the usual 2-3 top 25 teams in the poll stay home.

[sac]

I don't know about everyone else but ...........I'm down with OOWP. 8)

[Pat Coleman]

Yeah -- you know me.

[AndOne]

Can anyone explain North Central's 6 game winning streak over Wheaton? Is it just one of those things that happen?

I'll give it a try Naperick-----

1. Its the Karma. NCC has been able to brew up the right kind against WC.    8)   
2. As Mr. Sager aptly suggests, the nemesis factor. Todd Raridon seems to have Coach Harris' number.   
3. Over the last 3 years, the Thunder may have had the brightest single star, but on a position by position match up basis, they simply have not had as strong a team as have the Cardinals.   

Thanks for your post, AndOne.

U r very welcome, Naper

I agree with nmbr 1 and 2 but there is zero evidence for number 3. In fact wheaton has had a better conference record every year the past 3. Raridon definately has Bill Harris' number and NCC has won over the past 3 seasons everywhere from 80-733 to 52-47.

Usee-----

There is a great deal of evidence to support #3. You have to remember that in the recent years prior to this one, NCC had 5 of the best players to ever play for the Cardinals in Walton, Simmons, Krumtinger, Teising, & Vicario. The Thunder, as a team, couldn't come close to stacking up against such a lineup. This year, Wheaton comes close in the 1st game due mainly to the fact that one of the best ever, Mr. Raymond, goes off for 37. Last night, as you said, the Thunder played atrocious defense, allowing the Cards to shoot 57 % while additionally submitting to a relentless Cardinal defense that forced the Thunder into an abysmal 20 turnovers.
The Cards were the superior TEAM. Over the 6 game streak, NCC has outscored WC by an average of 10+ ppg.

Also, we're not talking about overall records, but just a comparison of the NCC and WC teams over the period being examined. 

Your claim that the cardinals have had a stronger team each of the last 3 yrs implies they were better over the course of the season. Obviously they were better in the 6 games against wheaton by virtue of a 6-0 record. If it didn't mean outside of those contests than what's your point? It's clear Wheaton has had a better season than the cardinals every year in the past 3 (and longer) but they cannot beat NCC and most of those games haven't even been close.

Usee-----

I'm surprised at you. You are often one of the more intelligent and knowledgeable posters here. Accordingly, I would expect your reading and comprehension skills to be substantially more refined. The question that Naperick originally posed was "Can anyone explain North Central's 6 game winning streak over Wheaton?"
That is exactly what I did. When comparing NCC vs WC, the reason NCC has won 6 in a row is because, as a team, NCC has matched up better than WC over the last 3 years. WC has the brightest individual star, but between the two teams, NCC has had the better team when matched against WC. The question specifically asked for a comparison between NCC and Wheaton. In no way, shape, or form was the question asked with regard to who had the better overall record. It solely asked for an analysis of North Central vs Wheaton, and thats the question I answered. You can't twist the questioning to fit your desired answer, Usee. You need to follow the original line of questioning to arrive at the correct answer. 

[AndOne]

Usee-----

There is a great deal of evidence to support #3. You have to remember that in the recent years prior to this one, NCC had 5 of the best players to ever play for the Cardinals in Walton, Simmons, Krumtinger, Teising, & Vicario.

AndOne,

Krumtinger, Teising, and Vicario are not on any sort of list of best NCC players ever.  Better freshen up on your Cardinal history.

Simmons and Walton-absolutely

Au Contraire TQ.

Adam Teising was the quarterback and floor general for the 05-06 season team which was the most successful in NCC history. He was faster with the ball than 99% of other players are without it.

Adam Krumtinger is tied for 1st place all time in the history of NCC for games played. Additionally, he scored almost 1000 points.

Ray Vicario is 2nd all time in most 3 point field goals made. He is 1st all time in number of 3 point shots made in a season. He is also 1st all time in 3 point FG % for one season.

Three great players. Not THE greatest, but great.

[usee]

AO,

Please forgive me if I interpreted that when you said this:

...they simply have not had as strong a team as have the Cardinals.   

You really meant this:

...NCC has had the better team when matched against WC.

[CardinalAlum]

Usee-----

There is a great deal of evidence to support #3. You have to remember that in the recent years prior to this one, NCC had 5 of the best players to ever play for the Cardinals in Walton, Simmons, Krumtinger, Teising, & Vicario.

AndOne,

Krumtinger, Teising, and Vicario are not on any sort of list of best NCC players ever.  Better freshen up on your Cardinal history.

Simmons and Walton - absolutely.

Completely agree with TQ on this one.   Sorry, AO, but those three don't make the cut if you are talking about the best ever at NCC.

[AndOne]

With an apology to whoever feels they need one, I'm sorry. However, I just think that if you are at or near the top of a school's all time list in any category, then you are one of the greatest players to ever play at that particular school. We're not talking All Americans here, or even necessarily members of the school's Hall of Fame---of which for NCC I believe there are only 2 basketball players.

I respect your right to disagree. However, if you do, rather than smite me a point for having the audacity to voice my opinion, please explain to me how someone can rank FIRST, or near first, ALL TIME in any statistical category, and not be considered one of the best ever to play at the school. 

[Gregory Sager]

I have read the posts regarding North Park's effort in their loss to Millikin tonight.  It's still hard for me to believe that the Vikings lost by 13 in overtime.

you and me both...

You really shouldn't even give up 13 points in a 5 minute overtime period.

It was a 12-point loss, not a 13-point loss, but who's counting?

There's really nothing hard to believe about this at all, Naperick -- unless your disbelief focuses upon the fact that a Millikin team that was only shooting a modest .698 from the free-throw line going into Saturday's game was able to do so well in overtime at the charity stripe.

NPU went into the final minute of play in OT trailing by six points. In that situation, the time-honored practice of trailing teams is to unintentionally-intentionally foul the opponent, put the opponent at the line, force the opponent to make free throws (while also stopping the game clock), and try to make the comeback by scoring twos and threes on your possessions while your opponent is (you hope) either scoring zeroes or ones on its possessions.

Of course, if your opponent makes all of its FTs, this tactic backfires badly. And that's exactly what happened; NPU deliberately fouled Millikin six times in the final minute of OT, and the Big Blue made 11 of its 12 free throws. That's why Millikin scored an abnormally large number of points in OT, and it also explains the sizeable final margin.

Don't be fooled by the final score. A 12-point final margin in overtime is still a closer game than a one-point final margin in regulation. That's little solace for NPU, however. Last night's defeat is a bad loss, and it would've been a bad loss even if it had been a one-point decision in three overtimes.

[Gregory Sager]

North Central's FG% in the 6-game winning streak over Wheaton...

2/2/08 @ WC - 57.1% (32-56)
1/12/08 @ NCC - 60.4% (29-48)
1/27/07 @ NCC - 61.1% (33-54)
1/06/07 @ WC - 42.9% (18-42)
2/06/06 @ NCC - 56.7% (34-60)
1/28/06 @ WC - 59.6% (34-57)

Cumulatively, North Central is 180-317 (56.7%) from the field in those games.  Against a Wheaton program that is known for being very good defensively, that is really amazing.

It's usually really amazing, but less so this season. The level of interior defense played by the 2007-08 edition of Wheaton is not very good, and since NCC's two major weapons are interior scorers (Drennan and Rogers), Wheaton's interior weakness plays right into Todd Raridon's hands.

It hasn't been said much on CCIW Chat thus far throughout 2007-08, but Wheaton really misses the graduated Michael Fiddler. Like his predecessor Will Landry, Fiddler was a tireless and zealous interior defender, and Wheaton badly lacks someone with that zeal, energy, and skill set this season.

[Gregory Sager]

With an apology to whoever feels they need one, I'm sorry. However, I just think that if you are at or near the top of a school's all time list in any category, then you are one of the greatest players to ever play at that particular school. We're not talking All Americans here, or even necessarily members of the school's Hall of Fame---of which for NCC I believe there are only 2 basketball players.

I respect your right to disagree. However, if you do, rather than smite me a point for having the audacity to voice my opinion, please explain to me how someone can rank FIRST, or near first, ALL TIME in any statistical category, and not be considered one of the best ever to play at the school. 

Sorry, AO, but as someone who has seen a lot of North Central basketball over the past thirty years I have to agree with Bob and Cardinal Alum.

All-time lists can be deceptive, especially when they're lists of career counting stats (as opposed to career percentage stats), or seasonal stats rather than career stats. Plus, all-time stats don't provide the important contextual question necessary to ask regarding a team sport: Of what sort of teams was that player a part?

Being an all-time leader in games played says something great about a player's durability and general usefulness, but it can also be a case of achievement through negation -- in other words, it may say something about a team not really having anyone better to play that position, or it may say more about roles and team chemistry than it does about star power. F'rinstance, North Park's Jim Clausen (1977-78 thru 1980-81) was at one time the D3 career leader in games played. Clausen was a reliable lunch-bucket power forward on the NPC threepeat national champions who helped Michael Harper, Bud Greer, and Michael Thomas to shine without hardly ever taking any shots himself. His extraordinary number of games played really doesn't offer much in the way of supporting his case as being better than, say, 1986-87 CCIW MOP Michael Starks -- who played the same position for North Park as Clausen had before him, and who only played in about 2/3rds as many career games as Clausen did, but who (unlike Clausen) was an actual superstar worthy of being mentioned for NPU's all-time-greats list.

Nor are single-season records always that indicative of a player's prowess in comparison to players of other eras. The single-season record for trey percentage at NPU is held by Robert Bady, a 5'9 point guard who knocked down bombs at an amazing .571 clip in the 1989-90 season and simultaneously set a CCIW record that still stands by shooting .600 from downtown in league play that year. Bady had plenty of virtues as a player, but he wasn't really a shooter; he had several teammates during his time at North Park who were far more reliable perimeter snipers than he (Dan Hill, Jason Vukas, Curt Lau, Joe Sebek, and Jeff Pearson all come to mind). Bady isn't even in the top fifteen in career trey percentage for NPU. He was simply lights-out for one anomalous season, and an indifferent three-point shooter during his other three seasons in royal blue and gold.

Adam Krumtinger was a solid CCIW role player underneath the basket who made life a lot easier for Dan Walton and Anthony Simmons, but he was no star. No knock on Krumtinger, but I can name several NCC centers you never saw who were better than he was. Adam Teising was, as you say, an exceptionally quick PG and a very useful player, but he was never an All-CCIW player and he didn't deserve to be one. Ray Vicario was a strong all-around player for NCC, but if you're talking about one of the great shooters over the past three decades in this league, he doesn't come to mind. I think that part of his prominence in the NCC record books comes from the fact that, aside from the great Robert Brown, North Central has never been known as a haven for great outside shooters (must be the empty shooting background in the airplane hangar ). No slap at Vicario, whom I liked a lot as a player and would've loved to have seen in an NPU uni instead of NCC red and white, but there's a number of guys who've played his position for the Cardinals over the past thirty years (Tony Jordan, Robert Brown, Yulander Wells, etc.) who were better than he was.

[CardinalAlum]

With an apology to whoever feels they need one, I'm sorry. However, I just think that if you are at or near the top of a school's all time list in any category, then you are one of the greatest players to ever play at that particular school. We're not talking All Americans here, or even necessarily members of the school's Hall of Fame---of which for NCC I believe there are only 2 basketball players.

I respect your right to disagree. However, if you do, rather than smite me a point for having the audacity to voice my opinion, please explain to me how someone can rank FIRST, or near first, ALL TIME in any statistical category, and not be considered one of the best ever to play at the school. 

AO,
I was neither asking for an apology nor looking for one.  These boards are all about opinions and a great place to voice them!  Your passion in this forum for NCC basketball is unequaled and appreciated by those of us that can't get to all of the games.  I believe I am more than fair on these boards, even if I have to disagree with a fellow Card sometimes!  Keep up the great work! 

[CardinalAlum]

Sorry, AO, but as someone who has seen a lot of North Central basketball over the past thirty years I have to agree with Bob and Cardinal Alum.

All-time lists can be deceptive, especially when they're lists of career counting stats (as opposed to career percentage stats), or seasonal stats rather than career stats. Plus, all-time stats don't provide the important contextual question necessary to ask regarding a team sport: Of what sort of teams was that player a part?

Being an all-time leader in games played says something great about a player's durability and general usefulness, but it can also be a case of achievement through negation -- in other words, it may say something about a team not really having anyone better to play that position, or it may say more about roles and team chemistry than it does about star power. F'rinstance, North Park's Jim Clausen (1977-78 thru 1980-81) was at one time the D3 career leader in games played. Clausen was a reliable lunch-bucket power forward on the NPC threepeat national champions who helped Michael Harper, Bud Greer, and Michael Thomas to shine without hardly ever taking any shots himself. His extraordinary number of games played really doesn't offer much in the way of supporting his case as being better than, say, 1986-87 CCIW MOP Michael Starks -- who played the same position for North Park as Clausen had before him, and who only played in about 2/3rds as many career games as Clausen did, but who (unlike Clausen) was an actual superstar worthy of being mentioned for NPU's all-time-greats list.

Nor are single-season records always that indicative of a player's prowess in comparison to players of other eras. The single-season record for trey percentage at NPU is held by Robert Bady, a 5'9 point guard who knocked down bombs at an amazing .571 clip in the 1989-90 season and simultaneously set a CCIW record that still stands by shooting .600 from downtown in league play that year. Bady had plenty of virtues as a player, but he wasn't really a shooter; he had several teammates during his time at North Park who were far more reliable perimeter snipers than he (Dan Hill, Jason Vukas, Curt Lau, Joe Sebek, and Jeff Pearson all come to mind). Bady isn't even in the top fifteen in career trey percentage for NPU. He was simply lights-out for one anomalous season, and an indifferent three-point shooter during his other three seasons in royal blue and gold.

Adam Krumtinger was a solid CCIW role player underneath the basket who made life a lot easier for Dan Walton and Anthony Simmons, but he was no star. No knock on Krumtinger, but I can name several NCC centers you never saw who were better than he was. Adam Teising was, as you say, an exceptionally quick PG and a very useful player, but he was never an All-CCIW player and he didn't deserve to be one. Ray Vicario was a strong all-around player for NCC, but if you're talking about one of the great shooters over the past three decades in this league, he doesn't come to mind. I think that part of his prominence in the NCC record books comes from the fact that, aside from the great Robert Brown, North Central has never been known as a haven for great outside shooters (must be the empty shooting background in the airplane hangar ). No slap at Vicario, whom I liked a lot as a player and would've loved to have seen in an NPU uni instead of NCC red and white, but there's a number of guys who've played his position for the Cardinals over the past thirty years (Tony Jordan, Robert Brown, Yulander Wells, etc.) who were better than he was.

GS,

Very well said as always!!