MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[cardinalpride]

If you're remembering great Cardinals post players of yore, you have to include Mike Bohannon on that list. He only played one season for North Central, 1986-87, but he was phenomenal.

GS, I knew you would come through.  Bohannon is whom I speak of.  I forgot Mcfadden graduated before Bohannon got to campus.  I believe it was 84 or 85.  Obviously, I wasn't there to see those battles between the Park and NCC during their mid to late eighties, but I hear many of them were classics.  Who was NP biggest rival during those days?  Was it NCC, IWU, Augie...?

CP

I was fortunate enough to be around for the Bohannon team and the very strong 89 and 90 teams.  I remember an all out brawl almost broke out after one game against North Park.

CP,

You left Drew Hunter out of your post when talking about the great NCC team of 1990.  He could do it all.  Daryl Thomas was incredibly overrated.  He tried hard but couldn't catch a pass to save his life and couldn't shoot anything outside of 3 feet!

You know CA I couldn't remember if Drew was a starter on that team!  However, he was very good also. 

[cardinalpride]

Gentlemen, I predict North Central will upset IWU at their place!  Bringing back memories of 1990 when the great Robert Brown, Mike Roy, Alonzo Alexander, Mike Patterson, and Daryl Thompson roamed the Cardinal campus!!  That was the last year NCC was in the big dance and IWU returned the favor at our place after we blew a 10-0 lead to start the game!  Those were the good ole days!!!

CP Keep dreamin of those good ole days.  You can join Sager and the king comparing to the NP national championship teams.  As Hiker Jim posted, "It's not gonna happen this year"

We'll see IWM,  that's why the games are played out.  I'm predicting a win for NCC!!  Go Cards!!:)

[cardinalpride]

OK, I'll be your huckleberry, Carninalpride.  I don't think your '90 cardinal team could beat the '05 - '06 Titans.  They were a good team, but I think this year's Titans have too many weapons for that team to stop.  I've done the match ups before for the '90 Titans vs this year's team, and I think this years has the advantage.  If this year's Titans played the '90 Cardinals ten times, I would say the Titans would come out on top 7 of those ten times.

Speaking of that '90 Cardinal team, Ron Brown was a great player.  However, he shouldn't have been the MOP:  it should have been Jeff Kuehl.  JK had an incredible year...with a broken hand.  What he did while he had that injury was incredible.  I'm sure that you and I could argue forever on this one.  I would be interested to see what some non-partisan folks have to say.

Early on, doesn't sound like the Titans are having much trouble with IC:  25 - 4 Titans.

Titan Hammer, from warm Naples, Fl.  

Yes TH we would debate that, because I believe NCC has the advantage in 3 of those 5 match ups out of the starters.  Here's how I see it:

Brown vs Dauksas--even
Hunter/Roy vs Fisher--NCC
Alexander vs Amelianovich--NCC
Patterson vs Jones--NCC
Thomas vs Freeman--IWU

[clu]

Rose Hulman loses to Hanocer by 15 and a 6 point win by Augie is good? Elmhurst and WIU both beat Hanover 11. I don't see Augie being as tough as rank or board makes them out to be!!!!! The fun all begins with conference schedule. 

[John Gleich]

You can't simply compare scores like that... they don't correlate in that way.

I think people have said that this Augie team will be one that grinds it out and gets wins of the "not so pretty" variety.

[augiedad]

The CCIW has 4 primetime matchups next week --

Wednesday:

North Central (7-0) @ Franklin (8-1)

Thursday:

#1 IWU (8-0) vs #5 Puget Sound (7-1) (at Westmont Coll.)
#13 Augustana (9-0) @ #11 UW-Stout (9-1)*
#16 Elmhurst (7-2) @ #6 Albion (7-1)*

* matchup is probable in a tourney

[augiefan]

Those 4 prime time games will be big challenges for the CCIW teams, as 3 of them are road games and the 4th essentially favors a Puget Sound team that's at least in the same time zone. 3 out 4 victories would be a major accomplishment and 2-2 would be respectable.

[augiedad]

Based on what I know about returning players, here's how I see the 2006 race at this early stage...


1 Illinois Wesleyan
2 Augustana
3 Elmhurst
4 North Central
5 Carthage
6 Millikin
7 Wheaton
8 North Park


I think Augustana is going to be very good this year.  The Vikes return 1st Teamer Jay McAdams-Thorton (post), Rick Harrigan (2-guard), and Drew Wessel (point).  These three give them very good, experienced balance...then you add in guys with a lot of potential to be solid contributors like 6-9/235 Joe Caricato, 6-5 Oliver Rorer, the Swetella brothers, Jordan Delp, and freshman Mike Kolze.  You know what you are going to get with McAdams-Thorton - he is very consistent.  If Harrigan has a big year (which he should), if Wessels continues to improve as a CCIW point-guard, and if one (or more) of the guys with "potential" steps up and has a big year, I think Augie is not only a contender, but a tournament team.  My only knock on the Vikes is that their non-conference schedule seems very weak to me - @ Clarke, @ Beloit, St. Ambrose, Simpson, @ Rockford, @ Coe, @Concordia (River Forest), Lake Forest, Rose-Hulman, and vs Marian and UW-Stout or St. Scholastica at the UW-Stout tournament.  Augie could be 11-0 or 10-1 heading into conference play and still not really know much about themselves as a basketball team.

I view Elmhurst as the second legimate challenger to IWU.  Chris Martin is as good of an all-around Division III player as you'll find.  At 6-6/210 he is very big for his position (small forward) - he has a great feel for the game and just seems to always be in the right spot on the floor to make something happen.  The question is, does Elmhurst have enough surrounding their All-American candidate at the right positions to win 11 or 12 games in the CCIW?  6-10/230 junior Nick Michael improved as much as anyone in the league last year.  Towards the end of the season, he was starting to look comfortable playing with his back to the basket.  If he continues to improve and becomes a force inside, he gives Elmhurst a very tough 1-2 punch.  Where I am not sold on the Bluejays yet is at point-guard - seems like they have been struggling at the point for a few years now.  They may have a new face on the roster that I am not familiar with yet, but they really do need a good point-guard to contend.  Elmhurst also needs shooting guard David Gershenzon to have a better year this year - he didn't seem to do much last season.  Looks like Adam Abdul-Haqq is not on the roster this season, after he suffered the season-ending knee injury last year.  On the flip side of Augie, Elmhurst plays some very tough non-conference games - @ Hope, @ UW-Platteville, vs Hanover, and possibly vs Albion in their tournament.  Those are the kinds of games you need to play to be ready for CCIW play.

North Central is clearly headed in the right direction - it won't be long until their basketball program is knocking on the door like the Cardinal football team is.  Again, I do not know about any new impact players, but their returnees are solid - 6-6/225 Anthony Simmons is one of the best big guys in the Midwest Region and 6-5/180 Daniel Walton really impressed me last year.  He reminds me of former CCIW M.O.P. Brent Niebrugge (IWU '98).  The Ray Vicario/Adam Teising point-guard combo is pretty steady - they combined to shoot 44-88 from 3-pt range last year.  6-7/220 Adam Kruntinger is a big body and a nice role player.  With Mike Wilson leaving, it seems that NCC's biggest hole is at the 2-guard position.  They will need the person that fills that spot to be very good and give them an outside presence.  Otherwise, I think the Cardinals will be somewhat one dimensional. 

Carthage has had two mediocre seasons (7-7 in 2004 and 6-8 last year) since the departure of Antoine McDaniel and Rob Garnes.  I think the 2005-06 Redmen have a lot of talented pieces to the puzzle...whether they all fit together or not is the big question.  After seeing him play at the end of 2005, it seems like 6-9/200 junior Mike Wood is poised for a breakout year.  It wouldn't surprise me if he is viewed as one of the top post players in the conference by season's end.  We should finally get to see last year's much-hyped guard Trey Bowens for a full season - definitely a big X-factor for the Redmen.  6-6/225 sophomore Kyle Jeffery impressed the heck out of me in the CCIW debut @ Elmhurst, but seemed to fizzle a bit as the season went on and as teams figured out how to guard him - definitely a big boy though.  6-7/235 junior Brian Schlemm has potential to be a good CCIW player, although I must strongly disagree with Bosko's comment: "from a skill level, there's nobody on our team, and perhaps no one in the league, who's better than Brian..." (I can name a bunch of CCIW players more skilled than Schlemm).  Another X-factor for Carthage is probably 6-6/230 Mark Morrison who was so badly out of shape last year that he was a negative on the floor.  His profile says he is in "excellent condition" - maybe he'll be that perimeter threat we all thought he'd be after his freshman year.  Carthage is the hardest team for me to gauge at this point - the Redmen could go 9-5 or 5-9 for all I know.   


It seems to me that Millikin, Wheaton, and North Park will comprise the bottom 3.  If Kent Raymond really isn't playing, I just can't see Wheaton being competitive unless there are some bigtime newcomers we don't know about it yet.

Just reading some old predictions and chatter.  That from TQ way back on Oct. 20.  Still sounds pretty good to me.  I especially still like the line:

"Augie could be 11-0 or 10-1 heading into conference play and still not really know much about themselves as a basketball team."

[dansand]

Rose Hulman loses to Hanocer by 15 and a 6 point win by Augie is good? Elmhurst and WIU both beat Hanover 11. I don't see Augie being as tough as rank or board makes them out to be!!!!! The fun all begins with conference schedule. 

Did I miss something? There were only two commentaries on Thursday's game and neither I nor Augiefan had too much good to say. Certainly neither of us said it was was a "good" win. As far as comparing them to Wesleyan and Elmhurst, I predicted Augie behind both of them in the preseason:

I agree, excellent review Q. I'd probably have Elmhurst and Augie flip-flopped at 2 & 3, given that the Bluejays were the only team that swept the Vikings last year.

Actually, I agree they're probably not a Top 25 team right now; especially without Dain Swetalla. If he comes back at full strength they may be, but right now they're sure not playing like it.

[Titan Q]

A nice article in today's Chicago Tribune by Barry Temkin about IWU sophomore Darius Gant's mom...

http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/columnists/cs-0512230232dec23,1,3601028.column?coll=cs-columnists&ctrack=1&cset=true


Have a merry and safe Christmas, CCIW and Division III fans.

[Jim Matson]

This is my 5th season on the board.  It is a great place for CCIW basketball, CCIW athletics, religion, academic standards, proper use of english, history, latin, french, and good poetry...and the list goes on.  I've enjoyed the 5 years and am thankful to Pat for starting the whole D3 sports thing.

Greg and Bob, good work on leading this board over the past years.  The basketball knowledge on this board beats all - and is always mixed in with enough gumption to make it all very interesting.

To all the rest of you posters, the Augie guys and the Augie gal in Texas, the Carthage fans (Stat, etc.), Parkers (clearly, the posters with the most character - or more acurately, the characters with the most posts...), the few Cards fans, the Millikin fan, the Titan nation, Jaybird and the limited number of Elmhurst posters, and the very dwindling  group of Wheaton posters, have a great holiday season and a wonderful New Year!

Merry Christmas everyone!

[bluejaybacker1]

To all the posters and the lurkers out there:
Happy Holidays!

The CCIW has some huge games after the break good luck to all.

[iwu70]

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone on the board.  And, may the Year of the Dog upcoming give you happiness, prosperity and good health.

[iwumichigander]

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone on the board and lurking on the board!

GO TITANS!

[cardinalpride]

Happy Holidays!!!   
Cardinal pride starts with me! 
Go Cards!