MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[RedmenFB44]

First time CCIW B-ball poster. I just looked at the Carthage 2-6 record. Whats going on? When I was a freshman at Carthage they went to the final four. Now I just dont know what has happened. As students we loved going to the games (very well intoxicated) but we sure did support our Carthage team. From what I hear no one is going to the Redmen games. I mean when I was a student there we couldnt find a place to sit or we jammed ourselves in shoulder to shoulder. I havent seen a game yet but I plan on going to the game where Carthage plays Grinnell. That should be a site to see.

Any insite?

[Mr. Ypsi]

Any thoughts on the attempt tonight of the Millikin men to avenge the loss by the (formerly?) #1 women to IC?  Out of conference loyalty, I took MU in the pickems, but I'm VERY nervous on that one - IC is projected to be near the low-end of the title mix in the MWC, while MU lost a ton, and may battle NP for the bottom of the CCIW.  Anyone have an insights?

[augie22]

Wow!  Augie is up to 13th.  Although rankings do not mean to much...its seems as though Harrigan is pulling a lot of weight.....(little guy).  With a couple big men down it will be interesting to see how they pull through the holdiay games.

Snow Guard

[robertgoulet]

i was wondering how i would tap into the same special powers that "the roop" seems to have.....i mean....i figured i would have them too, considering i am a "roop" in my own right.

is there special training or something?

[augiefan]

Millikin beat Illinois College 58-55 tonight and Rockford beat hapless NPU 68-58.

[Jim Matson]

So who wins when Wheaton plays North Park this year?  And who in the conference might have trouble with either of these two?  Certainly not Elmhurst or Wesleyan...

Hi April.

[Gregory Sager]

When North Park gets some players, besides Bret, who can create off the dribble, then the scoring will increase.  I have not seen Jason Gordon play this year.  Last year's team was no different.  Regarding the Loras game, NP scored 19 buckets in the whole game, and attempted under 50 despite having approx. 12 TOs.  These stats suggest little ball rotation.  Last year's team spent far too much time simply hanging around the trey line instead creating opportunities.

Mathisen doesn't create off the dribble, Mark. He's a low-post player who scores his points from backing in opponents at the basket, putting back offensive rebounds, and hitting 8'-to-12' jumpers. Putting the ball on the floor out on the perimeter and driving to the basket is not what he normally does.

Also, the Loras game was an aberration. Turnovers have been what has killed the Vikes this season. That particular game went against form in that the Vikes protected the ball but didn't rebound well. And you neglected to point out that NPU attempted more shots than did the Duhawks in that game (45 to 41, with NPU also shooting one more FT than did Loras). The reason why the Park lost to Loras was because the interior defense fell down on the job; Loras shot 63.4% for the game, with their two big men (Luke Slater and Kyle White) going a combined 14-15 from the field (i.e., layups were easy to find).

Excellent observations Mark - to which I would add - that the North Park teams I have seen have spent far too much energy in vain attempts to look they are playing man-to-man defense (which they appear they don't understand) - and obviously spend almost no time figuring out how to rebound on either the offenseive, but especially the defensive end of the court.

Here's more of that trademark incisive analysis from Dennis Prikkel. In the first paragraph of his screed the Vikings "don't understand" man-to-man defense, and their employment of it is a "vain attempt" ... but in the second paragraph he credits NPU's guards as giving a "wonderful exhibition of playing tough man-to-man defense" in the one game he's seen this season. Makes me wonder why I even bother arguing with Dennis, since he does such a good job of arguing with himself.

A lot of the rest of his screed is flat-out wrong. He lambastes the Vikings for their rebounding performance, when in fact rebounding is one of the small number of things that NPU is doing right this season. The Vikings have a plus rebounding average for the season (34.9 to 34.4), and they outrebounded Rockford this evening, 42-31. He badmouths the Vikings D when it comes to switches, but that's actually something that they're very good at. They switch well, and they're getting better at communicating them. Dennis is right about the fact that the Vikings don't fight through screens well, and while the weakside help in the low post has been good at times, it has also been very bad at times. As for blocking out, the Vikings have not done a good job of putting bodies on bodies at certain crucial moments, but they've generally done a better job than have their opponents; North Park has hauled down .384 of the misses at their basket, while their opponents have only gathered .374 of the misses at theirs.

Leave it to Dennis to miss the elephant standing in the middle of the room: Turnovers. The Vikings do not take care of the ball, and that (along with poor shooting) has been by far their biggest weakness this season. NPU turned the ball over 22 times tonight, as compared to 13 times for Rockford, and that -- along with the Regents' insistence upon ramming the ball down NPU's throats off the dribble, as they got to the line for 36 FTAs -- was why North Park lost. The Vikings are averaging an abysmal 17.3 turnovers per game, which makes them -4 in the turnover category. That overwhelms their slight advantage in rebounds, and when you add that to the fact that opponents shoot 61 percentage points better than the Park (surprise, surprise -- another NPU team that doesn't shoot well) and get to the line about 16% more often than does the Park, there's your recipe for losing basketball.

Of course, you have to actually be in the room to be blamed for missing the elephant standing in the middle of it, so I suppose we should give Dennis and his "I only need to see one game a year to figure it all out" analysis a free pass here.

North Park is playing very poor basketball. They're losing to a whole bunch of teams that should never end up on the fat end of a scoreboard against a CCIW team, and I damned well guarantee you that there is nobody outside of the coaches and players who is more galled about that than me. There are some missing pieces to the puzzle here, and it'll take at least another recruiting class for Brenegan to have all the material by which he'll ultimately be judged. Nevertheless, the cupboard is not bare. There is some very good young talent on the Vikings. The operative word there is "young", unfortunately. This is a team that is still figuring out the basics. Other programs have the luxury of teaching their kids the basics on the JV level. NPU doesn't, at least not with Sargent, Whitaker, Woodside, et. al.

[Gregory Sager]

I did a study of the relative experience of the eight CCIW teams in a manner similar to that used by Q a couple of years ago. I went down the rosters of each team, assigned a number by class (4-senior; 3-junior; 2-sophomore; 1-freshman) to each of the eight players who've seen the most court time for that team thus far this season, and added up the totals.

Here they are:

Augustana -- 23
Carthage -- 23
Elmhurst -- 24
Ill. Wesleyan -- 31
Millikin -- 21
North Central -- 27
North Park -- 17
Wheaton -- 20

Injuries, demotions, and promotions will obviously change these totals slightly as the year goes on. And these number values don't exactly correspond to experience in terms of actual varsity minutes; Chris Martin and Adam Dauksas have been starters from day one as freshmen, f'rinstance, while their fellow senior Bjorn Berg is only now getting his first real chance at some varsity playing time. And Ed Whitaker, although a sophomore by eligibility, is actually in his first year as a college basketball player (IIRC, he spent two years as a non-athlete student at Northern Illinois).

Experience isn't the be-all and end-all of basketball. The lack of it is not a sufficient excuse for failure. But the presence, or absence, of experience on a roster does explain a lot of things.

[Knightstalker]

rknuppel,

No problem.  I'm just bitter because the WIAC has a hard enough time getting two in, and you're talking three!  There have been several times in recent years where the WIAC regular season champion got to watch the tourney champion go to the big dance.  In fact, the first year Point won the national championship, they didn't even win the WIAC that year.  River Falls, with national player of the year Rich Melzer won it, but only finished 20-7 overall. 

Old School, the NJAC has the same problem, I think I agree to some extent what someone posted earlier.  They said it almost seemed better to belong to a conference that has a couple of strong teams rather than a conference where even the cellar dwellers could beat the best teams.

I think the only way a conference gets three in most years would be to have two really outstanding teams that finish the regular season with two or three loses and they both lose in their conference tournament.

[robberki]

Ladies, ladies, ladies, can't we just agree that figure skating is evil and should be wiped from the earth? I don't want to get in to that age old argument about which is worse: murder or figure skating, let's just all band together and make sure figure skating doesn't spread.

BTW Dennis, I think you're doing a disservice to Paul by lumping him in with Coach Johnson. They are both their own coaches with their own philosophies and it's kind of insulting to treat them as some sort of two headed monster.

[mactitan]

I was a student at IWU during the two final four teams, and remember watching some amazing basketball.  I was also at the game in St. Louis, and can't help but feel like that was the most complete team I have ever seen.  I know its early, but the Titans impressed the hell out of me.  While I was watching Dauksas, Amelianovich, Freeman and Jones, I could not help but think of Coon, Crabtree, Niebrugge and Hoder.  IWU's perimeter defense was absolutely stiffling.  They made Wash U's guards look like they were in junior high.  And inside they were no less dominant.  I really hope I'll be able to get to another game, this is really a special team.

[iwumichigander]

Hiker Jim -  Quote "And who in the conference might have trouble with either of these two?  Certainly not Elmhurst or Wesleyan..."

Hiker, I don't think any IWU fan will forget these poor results at the Crackerbox
Feb 19, 2003  at North Park * +   W 98-97 2OT  
Jan 21, 2004  at North Park * +   L 77-74  
; nor, will the fans take North Park lightly regardless of current record.  

Nor will Titan fans forget these two losses to Wheaton.
Jan 17, 2004  at Wheaton (Ill.) * +   L 88-64  
Feb 9, 2005  Wheaton (Ill.) * +   L 86-74  

or Bluejay fans these losses -
Jan 21, 2003  Wheaton (Ill.) * +   L 78-73  
Feb 22, 2003  at Wheaton (Ill.) * +   L 72-61  
Feb 4, 2004  Wheaton (Ill.) * +   L 69-65  
Feb 21, 2004  at Wheaton (Ill.) * +   L 83-50  
Jan 22, 2005  at Wheaton (Ill.) * +   L 84-75  

Teams get better; and, on any given night in the CCIW, even ranked teams drop one they should win.  Titan Nation never forgets that.  We hope our team does not forget either.

[augie22]

Does anyone know when/if a team has ran the table in CCIW play?  I would be curious to know that.

Black Ops

[bluejaybacker1]

IWUMICH-

I totally agree with you with IWU and Elmhurst struggling at these places. You cannot take a night off in this league especially on the road. I can add some more proof to recent struggles, Elmhurst at the crackerbox last year was a squeaker, a 67-66 win for us so we struggle there too.

[CardinalAlum]

Does anyone know when/if a team has ran the table in CCIW play?  I would be curious to know that.

Black Ops

These are the undefeated teams in conference play history:
1953 Wheaton     9-0
1956 Wheaton   14-0
1957 Wheaton   14-0
1958 Wheaton   14-0
1959 Wheaton   14-0
1965 IWU          12-0
1970 IWU          16-0
1973 Augie        16-0