MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Titan Q]

From Ft. Lauderdale, FL...

Carthage 72
Loras 70

http://www.carthage.edu/athleticspages/mens/basketball/loras.htm


Djurickovic: 32 pts, 5 reb, 7 assists, 8-9 FT

[Naperick]

Nice win for Carthage over a good team!

[Titan Q]

IWU and Hanover heading to overtime in southern Indiana.  About 8 lead changes in the final 3 minutes.  IWU led 69-67 on a Koschnitzky FG with :25 to play, but Hanover answered to send it to OT.

[AndOne]

You would think the #15 team in the country would be crushing 2-6 Hanover.

[Titan Q]

You would think the #15 team in the country would be crushing 2-6 Hanover.

Kind of like you would think Augustana would crush 0-9 Chicago?

[Titan Q]

Final:

IWU 76
Hanover 75 (OT)

Down 2, freshman John Koschnitzky hit a 3 with :03 to play for the win.  Koschnitzky also scored the final 4 points of regulation to send the game to OT. 

Sounded like IWU was awful for about 25 minutes tonight (trailing by as much as 12 in the 1st), but the Titans grinded one out on the road to move to 5-2 and 3-1 in-region.

I believe Sean Johnson led IWU with 21.

[sac]

Nice win for Carthage over a good team!

fyi Loras is now 5-4, with one win over a team with a winning record (St. Norbert), and includes a 38 point loss to UW-Platteville, 29 point loss to Wheaton, and a 2OT win vs winless Chicago.  Good might be subjective here.......and yes I realize they were a tournament team last season.

[Mr. Ypsi]

With Carthage barely edging Loras, and IWU going OT to edge Hanover, I'm becoming even more a believer in history DOES count.  By THIS year's results, both games should have been blow-outs, but Q clearly knew his stuff when listing IWU/Hanover as simply 'favored' rather than 'heavily favored'.

I suspect that 0-9 Chicago is gonna bite some 'better' teams - just hope they are at least 0-10 before it happens!

[Titan Q]

I have no idea if IWU is the 15th best team in Division III or the 115th, but I do know the Titans are an extremely young team that had 9 days off after their last game, drove 4 1/2 hours to southern Indiana today, and played a game vs a young Hanover team that has struggled on the season, but has also shown they can play with good teams (Hanover beat Transylvania when Transy was ranked #22 last week).  As an IWU fan, I would have liked to see the Titans go on the road and win comfortably over Hanover, but my gut told me that wasn't going to happen.  I've been in that Hanover gym too many times to think that.

There were a lot of negatives tonight for IWU (rebounding was a huge problem for the Titans in the 1st half, for example) and reasons to wonder just where the Titans fit into the 2009 CCIW picture with all of the talented, upperclass-dominated squads, but there were also a lot of positives.  IWU made a bunch of big plays to get the game to overtime and then did it again at the end of overtime...and a majority of those plays were made by sophomores and freshmen.

I can't see IWU having a blowout win the rest of the way.  Most wins will probably look something like this one - the Titans will have to grind them out. 

[AndOne]

You would think the #15 team in the country would be crushing 2-6 Hanover.

Kind of like you would think Augustana would crush 0-9 Chicago?

I don't think there is any correlation at all. Chicago was supposed to be a good team, AND it was still early in the season. Hanover wasn't supposed to be good, and has had time to live up (or down) to expectations.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Q, better not let Pat catch you saying you have NO idea if IWU is #15 or #115 - I suspect he wants his voters to have SOME idea!

15 vs. 17 (or even 25) is one thing, but 15 vs. 115??

(And you accuse me of hyperbole! )

[Titan Q]

You would think the #15 team in the country would be crushing 2-6 Hanover.

Kind of like you would think Augustana would crush 0-9 Chicago?

I don't think there is any correlation at all. Chicago was supposed to be a good team, AND it was still early in the season. Hanover wasn't supposed to be good, and has had time to live up (or down) to expectations.

Chicago had lost to Edgewood and Illinois Tech at home before that Augie game, and the Vikings were ranked #2 in the nation at the time.  And Augie had to hit a shot in the closing seconds to win by 1.  Whether it is a "correalation" or not, I'd just simply say that most would agree that sometimes a favored team has a tough time winning on the road.  That happens at all levels of basketball.

In the non-conference, there are all kinds of strange results that happen that you can't make heads or tails out of.  IWU took #1 Wash U to the final minutes two games ago...and then struggled to beat Hanover tonight.  Just recently, North Park almost got knocked off by Knox.  You can say Team X is supposed to "crush" Team Y on paper, but then you can also make a list of all kinds of comparative scores that just don't add up.

[AndOne]

Then perhaps its safe to say that Wesleyan played more like the #115 team than the #15 team tonight, with you, yourself indicated was a possibility.

It appears they did what they had to in order to win on the road, but didn't look like the #15 team in so doing.

[gordonmann]

Speaking of what things look like, look at the front page to see someone's photography work...

[Titan Q]

Speaking of what things look like, look at the front page to see someone's photography work...

Gordon, I love the photo credit!  The problem is that it was taken by the Bloomington Pantagraph!

(The Pantagraph/LORI ANN COOK)

Pantagraph 2008-09 IWU gallery