MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

Anyone know why Matt Rogers has only played 21 minutes in 2 games so far this season for North Central?  Is he recovering from an injury?  I apologize if this has already been mentioned.

Yes he is just getting back in the swing of things after suffering a couple of injuries in the off season.  Hopefully it doesn't take him to long to work his way back into playing shape.

I'm sure that the metaphysical workouts he got during his off-season studies at Maharishi International University are helping the healing process quite nicely.

For Carroll, that would be a return to the CCIW, wouldn't it?

Carroll was a member of the CCIW from 1956 to 1991. As Dennis said, there were a lot of hard feelings around the CCIW when Carroll left, because that school's president made a public statement that he viewed the move as a step up in academic status for Carroll. Dennis is also right that President Campbell of Carthage (whose school was Carroll's travel partner and biggest rival within the CCIW) took that dis from his Carroll counterpart particularly hard. It worked out for the CCIW, though, since scheduling for eight schools is a lot easier than scheduling for nine. Plus, Carroll wasn't exactly a force in terms of competition within the CCIW. The Pioneers were fairly good in football (although not good enough to win a CCIW title after 1976), but that was about it.

Would there be any conference advantages to adding schools?

None that I can see, aside from the incremental and trivial advantage of gaining two extra votes in NCAA meetings. This wouldn't even be a useful move in terms of solving the geography problem of those long Carthage/Augustana and Carthage/Millikin road trips, because you can't really split up the ten schools into two coherent divisions. The four Chicagoland schools are so close to each other that it makes no sense to split them up between two divisions, which is how it would have to work if St. Norbert and Carroll were to join the league and a divisional setup was implemented.

In recent years St. Norbert and Carroll have been two of the three dominant schools in the MWC in terms of women's sports. In men's sports, St. Norbert has usually been a top-three MWC school, while Carroll has come up from the cellar and has been middle-of-the-pack in recent years. So, competition-wise, they're two of the better schools in that league in terms of all-sports standings. However, athletic prowess tends to be a fluid thing; there's no guarantee that a school that's dominant now won't be in the doldrums twenty years from now, and vice-versa. It's therefore a valid reason, but not the best reason, to accept a school into the league. I'm sure that the presidents of the CCIW schools are much more concerned with academics, facilities, financial status, travel, philosophy, etc., when it comes to examining potential expansion members.

Would it change the conference in the eyes of the NCAA for tournament purposes?

No. The CCIW would have to add six more schools in order to gain a second AQ, rather than add a mere two.

Could the CCIW ever figure out what to do with their end-of-season conference tournament with two additions to their stable?    It took long enough to come up with the present format.....

Exactly. And who knows how long that particular consensus will last.

TQ - when i was associated with the CCIW the chatter was all about Benedictine.  At that time it was understood that North Central was against it.

Yup. NCC is dead set against having its neighbor across the border in Lisle join the CCIW fold. The fact that Benedictine is Catholic, and would therefore presumably have a leg up on recruiting in Chicagoland (which has an unusually high percentage of Catholics; about two out of every five people in the metro Chicago area are Catholic) over other CCIW schools, has also been cited as a reason why the CCIW is reluctant to add BU to the league.

Aurora and DePauw have also expressed interest in joining the CCIW at one time or another. Rose-Hulman is an associate member of the CCIW in men's and women's swimming, but I don't know if RHIT has ever sought full membership status in this league.

Has Carroll changed presidents.  The one who had Carroll leave the CCIW said he was doing it mainly because he thought the MWC had better academic schools, which got President Campbell at Carthage very disturbed.

Carroll's current president took the position in 2006 (he had previously been the chancellor at UW-LaCrosse), so, yeah, it's not the same guy who busted the CCIW's chops back in the early '90s.

St. Norbert's would be a hike for all three southern schools - and isn't it a Catholic school?  That might bring up some negatives as well.

True, although I think that the CCIW braintrust is less apt to look at the Catholic affiliation of St. Norbert as an obstacle than it is for Benedictine, since St. Norbert is so far away from Chicagoland. SNC currently draws about 85% of its athletes from Cheeseistan rather than Illinois.

What's that line from blazing saddles... "We'll take the n******, but we don't want no damn Irish."

It's twuwe, it's twuwe!

Personally, I see no upside in playing in DePere, Wisconsin.

I see no upside to DePere, Wisconsin, period, but then again I don't like the Packers.

[Gregory Sager]

1. Carroll was in and then left. Why would the Presidents and ADs let them back in? Why are they a good fit now when they weren't at the time they left?

Carroll fit just fine in the league at the time that it decided to leave the fold. Remember, the Pioneers weren't pushed; they jumped. If there's any lingering feeling around the CCIW regarding the legacy of Carroll's prior membership, it'd be along the lines of, "You were one of the brotherhood ... and then you not only abandoned us, you slapped us in the face while doing so," rather than, "You guys weren't a good fit then, and you're not a good fit now."

3. May have been just two fans of two different MWC teams ripping other schools in the conference, but this summer I was advised by fans of 2 separate MWC schools that St. Norbert, Ripon, and Monmouth sometimes have a tendency to admit good athletes who would not have otherwise qualified academically. I have no way to know if this is true or not. I guess this could be proven by an internal audit of applied/admitted students but, if true, why would the current CCIW member institutions consider admitting schools engaged in this behavior?

I put little or no stock in such scuttlebutt. People in the stands will pass along any half-baked rumor or sneaky lie or half-truth that they overhear about a rival school out of bad blood.

[Gregory Sager]

Carthage @ Cal Lutheran box:

http://www.clusports.com/stats/mens_basketball/2008_2009/1124cart.htm

Sounds like a very rough night in hostile territory for the Red Men, as Carthage was whistled for 30 fouls and had three players foul out and a fourth player ejected. Down by 16 points with eight and a half minutes left, Carthage stormed back and had the CLU lead cut to seven at 71-64, when with 4:22 left Sean Fendley got into it at midcourt with one of the Kingsmen and was thrown out of the game. After the exchange of free throws (the CLU player was also T'ed up), the margin remained at seven. Carthage never got closer than that, until a pair of Steve Djurickovic free throws with sixteen seconds left brought the final margin to 84-78.

Steve D. scored 38, but he didn't get much help; freshman Max Cary was the only other Red Man in double figures, as he had 10 points, and the team as a whole shot less than 40% from the field and less than 31% from beyond the arc for the game. No Carthage player had more than five rebounds (CLU won the battle of the boards, 37-30), and Steve D.'s four assists were twice as many as any of his teammates and almost half of the team's total of nine. Djurickovic's 21-24 performance from the free throw line was the second-best in school history in both the FTs made and FTs attempted categories. The all-time Carthage best in both categories was his 23-27 night at the charity stripe in Carthage's 83-73 win over North Central last January.

Cary seemed to do well in limited minutes, but overall this is the kind of night that you dread if you're a Carthage fan: Steve D. does everything but hand out the water bottles during timeouts, and none of his teammates seem to step up and help him out.

[Dennis_Prikkel]

GS - thanks for remembering the DePauw thing.

There was some downstate push for DePauw when Carroll was talking about leaving, it was not met with any approval from the northern schools.

Divisions:

The original CCI had three divisions for basketball

IWU, Millikin and Illinois College

Lake Forest, Wheaton, North Central

Carthage, Augustana, Elmhurst

Each team played home and home in their division and then played one game against each of the teams in the other divisions.  It made for a ten-game schedule (but that was back in the late forties, early fifties, when teams only played 15 to 20 games.

A ten team league would almost require divisions -

North Park, Carroll, Carthage, Elmhurst and St. Norbert.

Millikin, Augiestana, IWU, North Central, Wheaton

No wonder North Park doesn't like the scenario - Wheaton would not be in their division of the conference and the four Chicagoland schools would have to be split up.

CCIW presidents usually meet in the late fall (if they haven't had their fall meeting already it is probably very soon), so this matter should have already been voted up or down, or soon will be.

dgp

[Ralph Turner]

Concerning the addition of schools to the CCIW...

I agree with Mr Ypsi

I have no particular feelings one way or the other about Carroll (afterall, they were a member when I was in school ), but St. Norbs would be ridiculous.  It would either add lodging costs for Augie, IWU, and Millikin, or one hellacious day of travel.

Personally, I think eight is the perfect size for a conference.  Everyone plays each date (with any even number); but with 6 there is no AQ, with 10 there's a terrible imbalance between conference and non-con games.  And I say NO to divisions, if that would be the plan.

The ASC has 15-teams in two divisions.  We only get one AQ bid for the entire conference.

As it stands now, for the ASC to get two bids, we would need to split in half, like the MAC, and form 2 separate conferences (MAC-Freedom and MAC-Commonwealth), with separate governances.

The CCIW may be the perfect conference in D-III in configuration.

--eight schools
--The conference sponsors all sports.
--The conference is geographically concentrated within a day's drive.

Don't mess with it! 

[OxyBob]

From someone who was there...

Sounds like a very rough night in hostile territory for the Red Men, as Carthage was whistled for 30 fouls and had three players foul out and a fourth player ejected.

The game was called very close, many ticky-tack fouls. CLU had 25 fouls and 2 players fouled out.

Down by 16 points with eight and a half minutes left, Carthage stormed back and had the CLU lead cut to seven at 71-64, when with 4:22 left

Carthage didn't exactly storm back. With about 11:00 to go Carthage was 17 down, and they pecked away and got it down to 5 at around 4:30, but about a minute and a half later it was back to 11.

Steve D. scored 38, but he didn't get much help

Quietest 38 points ever scored.

OxyBob

[Scots4]

I wish I would have quietly scored 38 more often. 

[Naperick]

Anyone know why Matt Rogers has only played 21 minutes in 2 games so far this season for North Central?  Is he recovering from an injury?  I apologize if this has already been mentioned.

Yes he is just getting back in the swing of things after suffering a couple of injuries in the off season.  Hopefully it doesn't take him to long to work his way back into playing shape.

Thanks for the info.  He will make the Cardinals a better team when he gets into playing shape.

[wheatonfanaddict]

wheaton 81
loras 52

[augiefan]

Augie beats UW Oshkosh 82-56. Everyone got in good minutes in this surprising rout of a WIAC team, admittedly a bad one.

[augiefan]

NCC won big tonight, and Millikin remained undefeated with a come from behind 62-60 win in the final seconds.

[augiefan]

North Park beat Edgewood 90-79 to make it a clean sweep for the CCIW tonight. Is the conference good enough to get 3 teams in tourney this year? Time will tell but promising so far.

Happy Thanksgiving to all who visit here.

[dansand]

Augie beats UW Oshkosh 82-56. Everyone got in good minutes in this surprising rout of a WIAC team, admittedly a bad one.

Don't dismiss Oshkosh as "bad" so easily. They finished fourth in the WIAC last year and were picked for fourth again this year. The three teams ahead of them (Whitewater, Stevens Point, and Platteville) were all ranked in the top seven in the pre-season national poll. They also return three All-WIAC starters off a team that went 17-9 and they came into tonight's game off a win over 19th-ranked Lawrence (although they lost their opener to St. Norbert).

That said, Augie made them look very bad tonight. That was as complete a game as Chris and I have seen the Vikings play in the year+ that we've been covering them. They just dominated every aspect. Rebounding and scoring from the free throw line were two huge strengths of last year's team. So far this year both had been big question marks (-4.0 rpg and outscored by 12 at the line coming in). Tonight they were strengths again as Augie won the rebounding battle 34-23 (against a team that had been +22 in its first two games) and outscored the Titans 14-5 at the line.

As usual, everything started with the defense. They had 15 steals (5 for Wessels and 4 for Pelton) which led to numerous transition buckets. They also shut out DJ Marsh, who was a first team All-WIAC pick last year and came in averaging 21.5 in their first two games. It was Washington and Wessels on him most of the night. Just a real nice win by a Viking team that doesn't often blow anyone out.

North Park beat Edgewood 90-79 to make it a clean sweep for the CCIW tonight. Is the conference good enough to get 3 teams in tourney this year? Time will tell but promising so far.

Happy Thanksgiving to all who visit here.

The conference is always good enough to get three teams in, unfortunately it just doesn't always happen.

[Mr. Ypsi]

North Park beat Edgewood 90-79 to make it a clean sweep for the CCIW tonight. Is the conference good enough to get 3 teams in tourney this year? Time will tell but promising so far.

Happy Thanksgiving to all who visit here.

Hey, we've got four teams in the pre-season top 18 - why stop dreaming at three?!

By the time we finish cannibalizing each other, who knows?  But as you say, looks good so far - I especially like that Millikin (who may struggle to win more than 1 game in conference) is still undefeated.

[Gregory Sager]

I wish I would have quietly scored 38 more often. 

If Nick Williams would like to quietly score 38, Rob Berki and I will personally shush every person in the NPU gym for him.

Boxes from tonight's games:

Augustana 82, UW-Oshkosh 58

Kyle Nelson came off the bench to lead the Doggies with 11 points, while Chandlor Collins had 10 points and 14 rebounds. Alex Washington, Matt Pelton, and Justin Bertrand all had ten points apiece as well, as Augie must've run a layup drill tonight (.552 from the field).

http://www.cciw.org/winter_bball_m/GameHTML_0809/09MBB04.HTM

Millikin 62, Franklin 60

The Big Blue win yet another nailbiter, this time in spite of being outrebounded, 26-21. Like Augie, MU didn't take a lot of three-point attempts but must've made a lot of layups (.550 from the field). Tunde Ogunleye led the way with 21, while Corey Mitchell chipped in 17 and Robert Burton added 13.

http://www.cciw.org/winter_bball_m/GameHTML_0809/MIL04.HTM

North Central 83, Aurora 65

Aurora continues to find it rough sledding in the post-Welton era, as NCC romps in the airplane hangar. Although North Central didn't shoot that well overall for the night, the Cards blistered the nets from downtown (12-23, .522) as Mitch Raridon (20 pts) went 5-9 and Reid Barringer (19 pts) went 4-9 from behind the arc. Chris Drennan added 14 and was the leading NCC rebounder with six, while Matt Rogers came off the bench to score 11.

http://www.cciw.org/winter_bball_m/GameHTML_0809/MBK03.HTM

North Park 90, Edgewood 79

NPU parlayed a solid shooting night (.491 from the field, .533 from long range, .757 from the line) into a win up in Madison, as the Vikings broke even on the boards (35-35) against a much taller Eagles team. Roshawn Russell led the way for the Vikings with 18, while Clayton Cahill (who is attempting to play through his injury and is being held out of practices at this point) and Ryan Beigie each scored 17 and Nick Williams added 16.

http://www.cciw.org/winter_bball_m/GameHTML_0809/MB09-04.HTM

Wheaton 81, Loras 52

Wheaton romps in an impressive win over a well-regarded Duhawks squad, as Kent Raymond scored 23, Andy Wiele posted an 18 and 14 double-double, Tim McCrary added 12, and Jeremy Pflederer scored 11 off the bench. Wheaton gets the award for the best shooting night of all, notching a .569 mark from the field, .455 from downtown, and a perfect 10-10 score from the line, while outrebounding the Duhawks, 35-27.

http://athletics.wheaton.edu/sports/mbball/mbbstats/mwhe3.htm