MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

I love how there is more McKendree-Washington University talk in the CCIW thread than in the UAA thread which had only two or three posts.  I do understand, of course.  The two schools feature heavily in the CCIW non-conference schedule.  It makes sense.

Only Wash U "features heavily in the CCIW non-conference schedule," WUH. I can't remember the last time McKendree played a CCIW team, and I've followed this league for thirty years. The Bearcats get mentioned in this room from time to time mostly because legendary McKendree coach Harry Statham is the uncle of one of our regular posters, Titan Hammer.

We don't talk much NAIA ball in here, and that's in spite of the fact that we have a very large NAIA league (spanning both of that organization's divisions) within our geographic midst, the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference. The MIAAers talk about their NAIA neighbors much more than we do, basically because, like the NWC, ASC, and SCIAC, the geographic isolation of our Michigander friends over there in their mitten-shaped peninsula leads their teams to play local NAIA opponents much more than do most D3 leagues.

it looks like a rough day in michigan for the CCIW...  however, wheaton looks way in worse shape than carthage. at least we only lost to ripon by 3. it's apparent that without brent caveman, wheaton are struggling. i anticipate steve d to win it all

This is the funniest post I have read on CCIW Chat in a long, long time. I can't stop chuckling over this!

[Gregory Sager]

Interesting score from the region.  Illinois College defeated Carroll last night in Jacksonville, 74-59...

http://www.ic.edu/athletics/teams/Mens/Basketball/ICMB_09/12-4cu.htm

What a terrible night for Carroll's preseason All-American PG John Hoch. Sure, he scored 21 points, but on 7-21 shooting (a lot of his game is predicated upon his ability to get to the rim off the dribble), and he only distributed two assists.

As I said over in the MIAA room last night, it appears that Calvin did an outstanding job of guarding Steve Djurickovic. He was held to two assists tonight, and the last time that he dished out so few dimes was December 30 of last year. He came into tonight's contest averaging 8 apg after six games. The number of games in which he's had a negative a:to ratio (he turned over the ball four times tonight) in his Carthage career can be counted on one hand.

The Knights also kept him from getting to the free throw line, which is his specialty. According to the box score, he went 2-2 from the line tonight. The only other time in his career in which he had only shot two free throws over the course of a game came in a contest against Illinois Tech in the middle of his freshman season. Last year he went 14-14 from the stripe against Calvin; the year before he went 8-8 from the line against the Knights.

The only one of the Midwest Region's three premier point guards who had a good night was Wash U's Sean Wallis. He scored 20 points on 7-12 shooting and had a 5:2 a:to ratio against a pretty good McKendree team.

[Gregory Sager]

Wheaton got up off the mat after being routed by Hope last night and defeated Calvin this afternoon, 74-69. Both teams shot 50% from the field, and free throws were close to being identical as well. Calvin enjoyed a 31-24 advantage on the boards and gave up two fewer turnovers, which in combination should've made the difference in a tight game, but Wheaton was torrid from downtown: 11-21 (.524) to Calvin's 4-10. That appears to have been the difference.

Ben Panner paced Wheaton with 29 points and 6 rebounds, while Andrew Jahns scored 19, including 6-8 from beyond the arc. Tim McCrary had 14 and 5. The six other Wheaton players who saw tick had twelve points and six rebounds between them, although Stephen Pierotti's two free throws in the last half-minute were huge. Calvin center John Mantel, who ate up Carthage yesterday, had a 21 and 5 game, while Danny Rodts scored 12.

Given the fact that Hope is in-region and Calvin isn't, I'm sure that Mike Schauer would rather have had the win last night than this afternoon. But Calvin's still a solid W, especially on the other side of the lake.

[WUPHF]

Only Wash U "features heavily in the CCIW non-conference schedule," WUH. I can't remember the last time McKendree played a CCIW team, and I've followed this league for thirty years. The Bearcats get mentioned in this room from time to time mostly because legendary McKendree coach Harry Statham is the uncle of one of our regular posters, Titan Hammer.

Thanks for the clarification.  I used to work at a Chicago-area NAIA school and so I used to pay more attention to McKendree until I moved back home to the St. Louis area, but now I only use only watch them play when the play Lindenwood.

If I had to guess, I would bet that McKendree is headed your way as athletic department budgets decline.

It does seem to me that the CCIW (and the WIAC for that matter) has some of the most passionate and knowledgeable Division III fans.  It is easier, of course, when you have a number of schools with strong athletic traditions.

[Titan Q]

Final from Holland...

Carthage 83
Hope 77 (OT)

[WLCALUM83]

Only the 6th loss for Hope at the DeVoss all time!

[Titan Q]

What an impressive win for Carthage in one of the toughest places to play in Division III.  Looks like freshmen Pierce and Guzman had terrific games...and Djurickovic led the way, of course.

Really nice bounce back performance by both CCIW teams today.

[Titan Q]

Final...

Chicago 67
IWU 60

The Titans looked absolutely awful today (I watched the video stream).  Chicago led the whole way, and by a comfortable margin most of the time (8-10 points).  IWU shot 4-24 from 3-point range - let me say that again, 4 of 24 - and that was pretty much the story of their day offensively.  I don't think more than about 3 or 4 of the 20 3's they missed were all that heavily guarded by the Maroons.  It was brutal to watch...20 missed 3's.

IWU has been in a 3-point shooting funk for a few games now.  For the Titans balanced inside/outside game to flow, they have to knock down the open 3's the defense gives them.  Jordan Zimmer is too good to go 2-11 from 3 (on open looks).

Hats off to U. of Chicago.  They played well today. 

This was a big in-region loss for the Titans.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Some additional observations.

For the first half, it was all Sexauer - he had 12 of IWU's 24 at the break.

IWU trailed by 16 early in the second, cut it all the way to 5 at the 4:44 mark, but apparently ran out of gas after that.

One thing that totally mystifies me: Connolly played 11 minutes, had 7 pts and 3 rbs.  O'Callaghan played 25 minutes, had 4 pts and 4 rbs.  This is not the first time Ryan has had better stats in far fewer minutes - what's going on?  Is Connolly not in shape to play more?  Does Ed bring something to the game that doesn't register on the stat sheet?

I tried to watch the game, but just as with the women's game earlier, my connection was so jumpy I couldn't continue.

[John Gleich]

Wash U looks like they could march right through the CCIW.......at least tonight.

Wash U would not have much trouble in the CCIW this year...13-1 or 12-2.

Because it's that tough to go undefeated in the CCIW in any given year, or because you really see two likely losses on their fictitious CCIW schedule?  They seem to be a notch above everyone this year.

They only beat IWU by 5 - chances are someone would beat them sometime.

IWU's national title team didn't go undefeated.  None of NPU's 5 title teams went undefeated.  No one since Augie (1973) or IWU (1970) has ever gone undefeated in the CCIW.  Even WashU would have lost to someone were they to play a full season here.

Yes, that is exactly what I was thinking -- no one ever goes undefeated in the CCIW.   It's just too hard to get through all 14 games without tripping up once or twice.  I think back to IWU's 1997 national championship team (Bryan Crabtree, Brent Niebrugge, Korey Coon, etc), which was way better than any other team in the CCIW that year.  They lost on the road to North Central, a team they beat by about 20 at home.  The Wiertel/Garnes/McDaniel group at Carthage never went 14-0, neither did Dauksas/Amelianovich/Freeman at IWU, Simich/Crabtree/Litwiller at IWU, North Park's 5 national champs, Jack Sikma's teams, etc.

Wash U plays in a great league too, and the national championship Bears weren't able to run the table in the UAA last season.  After beating Rochester by 31 at Rochester, they fell to the Yellowjackets at home by 1.  Wash U's first national championship team (2007-08) didn't even win the UAA...they went 10-4 and finished second to Chicago.  I'd guess they will fall somewhere along the way this year in UAA play too.

The other thing, too, is the travel.  And these kids aren't the D-III equivalent of communications or "general education" majors.  They're at tough schools (not to say they're necessarily any tougher than other top tier schools like those in the CCIW, MWC, etc, but...)

And basketball has so many intangibles.  A team can absolutely be on fire one night and not the next.  That's what makes it so great... you've gotta figure out how, as a team, you're going to grind out points even if your shots aren't falling.  It isn't like football where, if you're bigger, stronger, and faster, you'll win almost every time.

[Gregory Sager]

Just got back from the Ratner Center, where I saw Chicago cruise to a 68-60 win over Illinois Wesleyan, and based upon what I saw I have a hard time understanding how IWU managed to play Wash U to a five-point final margin two weeks ago. Sure, it's one game, and one game can be an outlier. But the Titans didn't look anything like a Top 25 team today. Even though IWU cut the lead to four points with eight minutes to go I never really doubted that Chicago was going to win this game. If the Maroons hadn't bonked six of the eight free throws they attempted in the final three minutes, we'd be talking about a double-digit Chicago win rather than an eight-point final margin.

Bob dwelt upon IWU's awful shooting from outside, and that was a big factor. But what really stuck out like a sore thumb was just how badly the Titans defended in this game. They suffered the death of a thousand cuts, especially in the first half: Give-and-go's, screen releases, backdoors. Chicago ran its offense with textbook efficiency, but IWU certainly did what it could to help the Maroons look good in the process. And Chicago's trey attempts -- the Maroons made eight of their 14 tries from downtown, compared to 4-24 for Wesleyan -- were just as wide open as were those of the Titans. Most noticeably, the IWU big men didn't get out to guard the Chicago big men on the perimeter at all, and Tom Williams and Steve Stefanou have shown in the past that they can shoot from outside.

The Titans picked it up at both ends in the second half, and for about a four-minute stretch in the middle of the second half they actually outplayed the Maroons and went on a 12-3 run that cut a thirteen-point Chicago lead down to four. But Chicago rallied and headed off the run, and gradually built the lead back up to a dozen with three minutes to go, at which point the Hyde Parkers went on their aforementioned clankfest from the charity stripe. Actually, Wesleyan went into a full-court trapping press in the last ninety seconds or so that was really effective. Given his team's depth and its difficulty with halfcourt defense, I wonder why Ron Rose doesn't use that press more often.

Doug Sexauer continues to impress me with the way he gets off good left-handed shots even though every opposing player is well aware that he is a decisively one-handed threat. Heck, I bet every opposing player's mother knows that by now; it's entered into the realm of conventional wisdom. Actually, to be fair, he did score the first right-handed basket I've ever seen him make, a nifty little six-foot scoop shot in the first half. His other righty attempt was a layup from the right block that he shot over the basket late in the game. I think it was a tossup as to which big man played better, Sexauer or Stefanou.

Sean Johnson, as Bob said, is indeed driving now. However, he doesn't seem inclined to take his drives to the rim, or at least he didn't today. Only once did he actually penetrate and attempt a layup; every other time he either pulled up and shot or stopped and looked to pass. Chicago figured out that he was just trying to sucker off-ball defenders rather than go to the rack and they stayed home, and Johnson didn't always make good decisions with the ball when that happened. He was also a defensive liability.

Jordan Zimmer impressed me with his energy and all-around involvement in the game. Ironically, the one thing that he didn't do was the one thing he could do last year, which is shoot the ball well. And it's always fun to watch Sean Dwyer play. He has a toughness and an attitude that the rest of the team seems to lack, especially on the defensive end.

As I said, it's only one game -- and it's very easy to draw the wrong conclusion about a team from a contest in which it may play well above its true level or well below it. But, having said that, what I saw today against a decent but by no means great Chicago team was a Wesleyan outfit that looked really overrated.

One thing that totally mystifies me: Connolly played 11 minutes, had 7 pts and 3 rbs.  O'Callaghan played 25 minutes, had 4 pts and 4 rbs.  This is not the first time Ryan has had better stats in far fewer minutes - what's going on?  Is Connolly not in shape to play more?  Does Ed bring something to the game that doesn't register on the stat sheet?

Connolly can't run the floor at all, Chuck, even when he's fresh. He chugs up the floor a good twenty feet behind Rosenkrantz or Dwyer after every IWU defensive rebound. And in terms of his work down in the blocks, he'll give you two good minutes or so before he's so gassed that he becomes a liability.

[John Gleich]

Geez... Wash U has started this game off 4/5 from deep again today.

[Gregory Sager]

Elmhurst topped winless Kalamazoo in the Hornets' nest, 60-57, after erasing a 12-point first-half deficit. Zach Boyd scored a career-high 20 points and had eight rebounds, while Aaron Schroeder had an 11 and 6 game and Dustin Bainter collected eight caroms of his own. the 'jays shot less than 40% and went only 1-12 from downtown, but they won the rebounding battle by four  () and forced 19 Hornets turnovers.

Kazoo actually had a chance to win this one, but the Hornets missed a shot with six seconds left while trailing by one at 58-57. Boyd made two free throws with two seconds left after Joe Acosta's defensive rebound to complete the scoring.

[Gregory Sager]

No box available yet, but host Eureka beat Millikin by 14.

Carthage 83, Hope 77 (OT)
Elmhurst 60, Kalamazoo 57
Chicago 68, Illinois Wesleyan 60
Eureka 71, Millikin 57
Wheaton 74, Calvin 69

[Titan Q]

Just got back from the Ratner Center, where I saw Chicago cruise to a 68-60 win over Illinois Wesleyan, and based upon what I saw I have a hard time understanding how IWU managed to play Wash U to a five-point final margin two weeks ago. Sure, it's one game, and one game can be an outlier. But the Titans didn't look anything like a Top 25 team today.

And against Wash U the Titans looked like a Top 10 team, battling the Bears in a game where there was very little separation.

It happens.  Wheaton laid an egg last night vs Hope, then came out and played great vs Calvin.  Carthage lost to Calvin, then played great in beating Hope.  It's amazing how good a team can look when it's making shots, and how bad when it can't throw it in the ocean.

So the reality it that the Titans are somewhere between very good (as they were vs Wash U) and terrible (which they were today).