MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[dansand]

It's been quite a while since a CCIW team upended a D1 opponent. In fact, aside from Illinois Wesleyan's 67-64 win over Arizona in 1982-83 and North Park's 79-69 win over Jacksonville in 1978-79, I don't recall any CCIW wins over D1 opponents. Perhaps Dennis P. can think of some others.

Augie won at Western Illinois 76-71 in 2000-01...I know...it's Western Illinois...but they are D1.

[coebball70]

Wow!  Millikin's win is the best 'one-night news' for the Big Blue since I saw Drew Gensler scored 36 or 38 points on the Bluejays in his first CCIW game a few years ago.  The most exciting race this year may be who stays out of the conference cellar!  I can't wait for the season to commence.  Tonight's doubleheader of Carthage/Hope and Wheaton/Calvin should be entertaining basketball.  Go CCIW!

[markerickson]

Kudos, Big Blue!  Great things happen when your team shoots >50% from behind the arc and you make your free throws.

Does Wheaton have a curfew?

[augiefan]

Maybe some Millikin fans will start visting here again, It would be good to have a few new faces supporting the Big Blue. They seem to be the most under represented team on this board.

[thundermike11]

Does Wheaton have a curfew?

No

Sorry, but none of those reasons wash, Mike. Wheaton doesn't travel well under any circumstances for basketball, no matter how good the team may be, and that's especially true of the students. They haven't followed the team on the road at all throughout every single one of the thirty years that I've followed this league. Soccer? Yes. Football? OK. Basketball? No. One of the reasons why April became such a notorious fan during her student days (besides the freshly-baked cookies, of course ) was because, as a Wheaton student who actually attended road games, she was looked upon by the CCIW faithful as the bleacher equivalent of a unicorn.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- it's a shame, because Wheaton's men's basketball program certainly deserves much, much better. And Wheaton students are missing out on one of the great joys of college days, which is following an excellent basketball team that they can call their own.

If we could put your program together with NPU's student fan support, we'd really have something. It's too bizarre to imagine, of course, but it'd still really be something.

Well, this Wheaton student isn't going to miss out, that's for sure. Watching this team play has been one of the highlights of my two years at Wheaton so far.

You've been to far more Wheaton games than I, so I will take your word for it. I was just trying to think of reasons specific to Wednesday, but if the program historically has not traveled well then that is a better explanation.

[aceon2]

Thanks, Pete. Seriously, I saw Millikin struggle to beat Concordia (IL) by a dozen two weeks ago during the River Forest Classic, and I drew much the same conclusion as Pete about the Big Blue. There was obviously some playing down to the level of the opponent by SIUE, and some fired-up, David-vs-Goliath intensity from the Big Blue that helps explain tonight's outcome. But aceon2 is right about the fact that SIUE looks every bit like a team that is in its first transitional season from D2 to D1; the Cougars start two juniors, a sophomore, and two freshmen (and the two freshmen, Mark Yelovich and Aaron Garriott, were the only two Cougars to score in double figures against Millikin), and two of the four players who came off the bench tonight are freshmen as well. Let's not forget that this same SIUE team lost a preseason scrimmage to Westminster (MO) of the lowly SLIAC last month. Yeah, it was only a scrimmage, but in retrospect it highlighted the fact that this isn't exactly Duke that we're talking about. Aside from the mystifying win over Western Michigan and the romp over Blackburn, SIUE has performed exactly like a very young team that is way in over its head at the D1 level should be expected to perform (e.g., a 30-point loss to Wisconsin, and a 31-point loss to Evansville).

OK, that's enough wet-blankethood for one evening. No matter where SIUE falls on the college basketball spectrum, this was still a very big win for the Big Blue and the CCIW. No asterisks for Jimmy Millikin, just lots of kudos from me.
[/quote]

Greg, I think you summed it up pretty well by saying there way some playing down to their opponent and extra fire from Millikin last night.  That being said, I think that if those two teams play 10 times, Millikin wins 3 or 4 out of the 10.  SIUE is obviously in a transition phase and to be honest, I dont know that they would finish ahead of any one of Wheaton, Elmhurst, or Augie in the CCIW.  I do, however think that the Millikin team I saw last night will not finish 8th in the conference.  Having seen IWU, Carthage, and Millikin play thus far this year, I would give a slight edge to IWU, followed by Millikin, and then Carthage.  Now those were just one game each, but I wouldnt be surprised if Millikin finished 5th or 6th this year in the league.

[wheels81]

Went to the Wheaton/UC game Wed.  (Had about 2 doz donuts just in case) One possible reason, but I doubt it, for Wheaton students not coming was that directions to the game on Wheaton's website were dated.  They sent me to the old field house (cavern).   New gym is much improved but they must not anticipate any crowds as it seats maybe 1000.  Attendance figure given at 285 was generous.  UC fans did not even clap when their team made free throws in 2nd half during one stretch.  OF course it may have caught them by surprise since they did not have the best night at the line.
McCrary was the impact player  for Wheaton that didn't really show up in the stats.  He was listed to have only 3 steals but he had that many in the first half alone plus he deflected a ton of passes and scrummed for a lot of loose balls that either kept possession or resulted in steals.  UC looked bad period.  
How in the heck did they lose to Augustana by only 1 (59-58) Did augie's baskets only count for 1 pt. and the Maroons shot and made all their 3's.  
Tonight's tournament at Wheaton has $10 seats behind both benches so gotta sit in the cheap seats tonight..

[dansand]

How in the heck did they lose to Augustana by only 1 (59-58) Did augie's baskets only count for 1 pt. and the Maroons shot and made all their 3's.  

The Maroons killed Augie on the boards in that game (33-22) that's a huge margin in such a slow-paced game (about 60 possessions ea.). Thankfully, the Vikes have shored up that area in the three games since (+6.7 per game).

[petemcb]

How in the heck did they lose to Augustana by only 1 (59-58) Did augie's baskets only count for 1 pt. and the Maroons shot and made all their 3's.  

The Maroons killed Augie on the boards in that game (33-22) that's a huge margin in such a slow-paced game (about 60 possessions ea.). Thankfully, the Vikes have shored up that area in the three games since (+6.7 per game).

Didn't Wessels miss that game?  If he did, that would be a significant factor too.

[Drake Palmer]

Frequent lurker, random poster from primarily the MIAC board where Greg Sager stops by to grace us with his presence & wit on occasion.

Greg - line of the week:

One of the reasons why April became such a notorious fan during her student days (besides the freshly-baked cookies, of course ) was because, as a Wheaton student who actually attended road games, she was looked upon by the CCIW faithful as the bleacher equivalent of a unicorn.

[Dennis_Prikkel]

one of the detriments to old age is the passing of old friends

Lee Umbles' obituary was in today's Chicago Tribune.

Umbles was the coach at Harlan High School in Chicago that sent North Park some pretty good players in the seventies:

Keith McDonald, 1973
Earl Dorsey, 1974
Modzel Greer, 1980

dgp

[April]

Did someone just say unicorn??

Wheaties, wake up you silly sleepy heads.... We're going on an adveeeenture, Wheaties, to the Raatner Center, Wheaties... It's a maaaagical place of joy, and joyness, and ugly exposed air flow systemsss.

First off, the University of Chicago is more like an hour without traffic by car. It's like 2.5 hours by train/bus, which I remember doing once almost exclusively to prove Greg that I could do it despite being a "suburbs" chick, haha....

To a small degree, Mike's reasons hold some water. Wheaton students always study far too much and often don't allow themselves as much fun as they should, and therefore we will never travel as well as we should. However, I do think there are very few people who do anything but study (and go to those late night snack sessions) during the final weeks of the semester.

Here's some of the factors I see. The funny thing is, despite the fact that I'm remembered for travelling well, that's really not the case if you take my whole time in college into perspective. My memory is kinda getting fuzzy in my old age, but I didn't have a car until sometime during my Junior year of college. It's not terribly easy to get a parking permit before then and there's the whole I couldn't afford a car factor on my huge salary as a part time Geology Lab TA. I missed almost all of my brother's own away football games his freshman year because I couldn't figure out how to get to games that I REALLY wanted to go to. There's a really big difference between my ability to follow games in the two years I did go to basically every single away game becaue one of the two years was my 5th year senior year when I was only in school part time and working like 20hrs a week.

Even as a diehard fan (haha, just reading that makes me laugh), I occasionally wouldn't go to games I knew were going to be blowouts. There was one time I specifically remember going to an awesome Elmhurst-IWU game instead of a blowout Wheaton @ Millikin game (true free fact: I have probably been to like 100 D3 schools, but I have never been to Millikin). Not saying that played a factor though, since Chicago made a decent showing against Augie and I wouldn't have assumed a blowout.

I actually think one reason is that our Football and Women's soccer teams are still in it. It's not really Winter sports season to most people. We frequently have decent attendance at NCC and Elmhurst, and sometimes even Carthage... any more than that is really unlikely to ever change, even though I agree they're definitely missing out. I am almost as sentimental about my drives to other CCIW schools and their gyms as ours.

The one place Wheaton could really use support is in Rock Island, and they never get it, and they always lose. I don't think we've won there in the last 10 years. I seriously hate that gym as much as Dave Wrath loves stats and Coach G likes to stomp his foot. Thundermike, you should start recruiting people to that game now. You're going to need some seriously charm though since it's on a Thursday.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- it's a shame, because Wheaton's men's basketball program certainly deserves much, much better. And Wheaton students are missing out on one of the great joys of college days, which is following an excellent basketball team that they can call their own.

If we could put your program together with NPU's student fan support, we'd really have something. It's too bizarre to imagine, of course, but it'd still really be something.

NEWS FLASH: Did Greg just suggest that NPU and Wheaton combine forces??? Did I just miss the rapture? On a more serious note, minus one game at Wheaton when their behavior was less classy than normal, I've always loved and respected the NPU's student fans for their humor, creativity, and dedication. If they have good enough grades they can feel free to transfer to Wheaton. 8)

[andrewmp]

There is one occasion that I know of where the Wheaton students travelled well, and that was the Northwestern game 2 years ago.  That was almost a significant win vs. a D1 opponent.  Andy Weile's 3 rimmed out at the buzzer.
The reason why the students travelled so well that night was a combination that is very unlikely to happen again.  First, it was a Big Ten school close to Wheaton being played.  Second, the Wheaton team was a good team, so they had a chance to put up a fight (though most of the people I talked to before the game thought that they could only keep it close for a half).  Third, it was the night of the last finals, so all the students still on campus were completely free.  
Unfortunately, we can't get that size of a student crowd out for home games usually, and with a team with such potential this year, it is sad that there isn't more support.  There will be a lesser number of students this weekend due to the football game...not that a whole lot are travelling, but that the football players will (obviously) be absent.
I doubt that Wheaton will continue its almost 30pt win margin this weekend.  However, how they do will be a better indication of the rest of the season than any of the other games they have played so far, I think.

[sac]

Livestats from Wheaton tonight

http://livestats.internetconsult.com/wheaton/wbball/

you can find links to the MIAA schools broadcasts on the MIAA board.  I don't have a Wheaton or Carthage link.  Feel free to provide one if anyone has them.

[wheatonfanaddict]

http://www.wheaton.edu/wetn/

to listen or watch Wheaton vs Calvin