MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Naperick]

Congrats to Wheaton for making the 59 team field.  I must admit that I am surprised.  Best of luck to the Thunder.

[Greek Tragedy]

I see a very good matchup with Wash. U. on Saturday for the Vikings.

Augie has a game Friday first. 

[April]

Here is my best guess as to what happened...
(snip)

None-the-less, I can't come up with any other explanation than that IWU remained unranked.

One word explanation for y'all: cookies.

Also, Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! 8)

I honestly have thought all season that the Wheaton coaches put together a genius schedule for regional ranking perspectives, with regional teams that are usually pretty good (but beatable) from varied conferences in Benedictine, Wartburg, Loras, Chicago and Hope. I would have hoped for a slightly better SCIAC team than La Verne, but other than that, it was golden. I was surprised to see people insulting it the other day. Yeah the CA trip was nonsensical basketball-wise, but when traveling that far and doing lots of sightseeing, it's not always smart to play good teams.

Yay! The playoffs! I am shocked as all get out but very happy. Good luck to my boys!

[Naperick]

I see a very good matchup with Wash. U. on Saturday for the Vikings.

Augie has a game Friday first. 

True!  And Wooster could beat Wash. U.

[TitansIWU]

I hope Wheaton wins it all!

Then IWU can say... "hey, we beat the national champions three times this year!"

[Jim Matson]

Congrats to the Thunder!  What a nice surprise.

Bob, remember back about 6 years ago when Wheaton was weirdly overlooked for the Tourney?  That was the year that Wheaton lost the final game of the season to Wesleyan in the Shirk and we all thought Wheaton was a slam dunk for post-season play.  Not that this year offers Wheaton the opportunity to go as far into the field as back then, but at least I feel a little bit of vindication.

Wheaton last saw the Tourney 2 years ago when they lost to Calvin, one of the better teams in the bracket, by a single point at the buzzer.  How about a better start to the Tourney this year with a convincing win against Lawrence on Friday?!  After all, it's only been 83 years since the last meeting between these 2 teams and I'm sure Wheaton is pumped up for the rematch.

[Gregory Sager]

Well, color me surprised that Wheaton got in -- although I doubt that anyone in the country was more surprised than Bill Harris, given his hilarious "Lazarus" quote. He's become fairly cynical about the selection process in the wake of what happened several years ago when he was on the regional committee and Wheaton still got excluded from the tourney. I would guess that his faith in the process has now been restored.

It would probably be the right assumption, that IWU was not ranked in the final invisible Midwest Poll, thus Wheaton's 0-3 mark vs IWU was not a factor in the Pool C process.

After I got over the shock of seeing Wheaton's name on the NCAA's bracket page, this was my first thought as well. Bob's done a good job of explaining how the process probably played out. I don't see it as a conspiracy theory, either. As Bob said, everyone at the bottom of the last published Midwest Region ranking lost last week, so the Midwest Region committee probably didn't have to distort the criteria in order to maintain the status quo, a status quo that favored Wheaton because it didn't include Illinois Wesleyan. Also, it's always struck me (and a lot of other observers) that regional winning percentage seems to be a very highly-valued primary criterion among committee members -- perhaps the first among equals of the five primary criteria. If that's so, it's easy to see how the regional committee could've justified keeping IWU out, because that .625 regional winning percentage of the Titans wasn't even in the same ballpark as the other teams that were up for discussion (including Wheaton).

Anyway, congrats to Wheaton for getting in and for giving the CCIW that all-important second team in the dance.

I honestly have thought all season that the Wheaton coaches put together a genius schedule for regional ranking perspectives, with regional teams that are usually pretty good (but beatable) from varied conferences in Benedictine, Wartburg, Loras, Chicago and Hope. I would have hoped for a slightly better SCIAC team than La Verne, but other than that, it was golden. I was surprised to see people insulting it the other day. Yeah the CA trip was nonsensical basketball-wise, but when traveling that far and doing lots of sightseeing, it's not always smart to play good teams.

It was not exactly a "genius schedule". Hope, Calvin, and Chicago are annual opponents for Wheaton, so they're no-brainers, and next-door-neighbor Benedictine, which is a frequent Wheaton opponent anyway, makes for a convenient Pfund participant because including a team like Benedictine or Aurora in the Pfund keeps the cost down for the Wheaton athletic department. In a typical year, in fact, Wittenberg rather than Benedictine would have played Wheaton in the Pfund championship (I'm sure that Bill Harris was counting on that when Witt signed on), and that assumed championship game against the Tigers would not have counted in Wheaton's favor as a regional game. Wheaton, in other words, got lucky that Witt was so awful at the beginning of the season -- awful enough to lose to the Bennies on opening night. Loras and Wartburg were certainly good additions to the Wheaton sked, though.

On the bad side, the game against IIT (5-25) was a complete waste of time -- although it may have been a fill-in game to replace a late cancellation (I'm not sure why it was there, and I didn't dare ask Coach Harris) similar to North Park's game against Cardinal Stritch. Nevertheless, Wheaton's contest against IIT neither counted as a regional game nor provided the Sonic Atmospheric Disturbance with a quality non-D3 opponent, a la Olivet Nazarene or Judson. And the two games against East Coast teams in the Caltech Holiday Classic were also useless, although I know that Bill Harris was very disappointed in the two opponents that Caltech head coach Roy Dow procured for him. You usually have to take potluck when you agree to be a part of someone else's tournament, but if you're a midwestern team going to California you ought to feel fairly secure that your host will provide you with at least one D3 opponent who will qualify as a regional opponent. Nobody expects to go to the West Coast to play two East Coast teams.

[Gregory Sager]

I hope Wheaton wins it all!

Then IWU can say... "hey, we beat the national champions three times this year!"

That's why those of us who root for North Park have two teams to follow in the postseason: Augie, with whom NPU split this season, and Judson (19-8), whom NPU beat in December and which won the CCAC and is going to the NAIA-2 national tournament in Branson (way down there in Quillmanistan).

[tjcummingsfan]

I was actually just in Branson and saw the signs for the NAIA tourney all over

[shepherd]

Wheaton's in the big dance!!!    Wheaton's in the big dance!!! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w4B7QxL_n4

[petemcb]

?

[Late nite]

First chance to get a good look at the brackets---Wow!---6 of the top 22 teams in the country in the Augie 8 team bracket---Better bring your A game

[knarocky22]

I'm not really sure why, but I'm feeling kind of uneasy about that first round matchup with Aurora.  I just don't know if Augie has anyone to match up with Welton.  Also, Aurora is one of those teams that if their 3s are falling, it's just going to be one of those days, and there isn't a whole lot the defense can do about it.  I just think that the type of game Aurora plays coupled with the fact that Welton provides big matchup problems for the Vikings makes me feel, let's just say not incredibly confident.  Hopefully I'll be able to make it out to the QCA for the games this weekend.

[petemcb]

OK.  Roll call.  Who's going to Augie this weekend?  Who's going to Whitewater?

[Greek Tragedy]

I'm not really sure why, but I'm feeling kind of uneasy about that first round matchup with Aurora.  I just don't know if Augie has anyone to match up with Welton.  Also, Aurora is one of those teams that if their 3s are falling, it's just going to be one of those days, and there isn't a whole lot the defense can do about it.  I just think that the type of game Aurora plays coupled with the fact that Welton provides big matchup problems for the Vikings makes me feel, let's just say not incredibly confident.  Hopefully I'll be able to make it out to the QCA for the games this weekend.

If an Augie fan is willing to pay for gas, ticket and room, I'll come to Rock Island.  I saw Aurora twice last year and they lost both times.  I think Larry Welton is scared of me because he didn't show up for either game! lol...I saw Wisconsin Lutheran College, of all teams, upset the Mighty Aurora team in Milwaukee and then saw Aurora, as the "top seed" got beat by CALVIN by one in last year's regional in Aurora. 

EDIT:  OK, they didn't get crushed, now that I remember it.  Hope crushed Chicago