MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[REDMENFAN]

Here's the articles from Carthage's two games this past weekend.  Bosko's comments after the loss pretty straight forward about how poor they are defensively and how other teams view them as soft and if things continue, they may just end up being a 15-10 team, which obviously is not the Redmen's goal this season.

http://journaltimes.com/sports/article_f926b196-059c-11e0-ab8f-001cc4c03286.html

http://journaltimes.com/sports/article_bf34e43c-067b-11e0-bb8e-001cc4c002e0.html

[Gregory Sager]

It's interesting that Steve D. tied his career low with eight points yesterday, with a "mere" six assists to go with it, and yet the Red Men came away with a win over Cardinal Stritch -- as opposed to the day before, when he exploded for 40 points and yet his team lost to Albion. If this doesn't send a message to his teammates that they have to step up and be something more than just the stagehands on the set of The Steve Djurickovic Show, I suspect that nothing will.

Mr Ypsi,

I grew up swimming at the NPC pool, which went away a few years back (must have been because it wasn't grand enough for a University).  Way back when, that was just a great community tool.  Guess things do change.

Just wondering tonight (after getting home from the Bears game - ouch) if Greg's statement that NP is playing UW Milwaukee Monday is correct or is it Q's schedule that has that game happening 12/30?  My current plan for tomorrow involves no cold that is not unavoidable, but you never know.

xxx

Just realized that Q's sheet has the 12/30 game betweem two games much earlier than that, so let's call that one a typo and move on.

Ron, the game against Milwaukee Engineering is tonight. Put Tom Brady out of your mind, brave the elements, walk that one block from your condo to the gym, and enjoy the game.

[markerickson]

What an odd game tonite in Chicago.  NP couldn't hit a bucket and had nine points after ten minutes and nineteen at the half.  Yes, MSOE led by double digits at halftime, relying heavily on the trey against the taller Vikings.  Why Greer starts ahead of Hoekstra completely baffles me.  NP exploded for 47points in the second half to win by 11, 66-55.   MSOE had no inside game whatsoever and flaunted NP's weakness at defending the trey all night long.  I'd wager MSOE score more from beyond the arc than from the stripe and two point land.  Or so it seems.  There were a total of five fouls in the first half.  Brenegan must have lit a spark at halftime.  I think the refs called more travels than any college game I've seen in over 20 years.  NP had plenty steals, but nothing spectacular about the game comes to mind.

[Titan Q]

CCIW in-region report (through 12/13)...

(records below are in-region only...not overall)

Augustana (5-0) - 10 scheduled
11/16, @ Simpson  W
11/22, vs Washington U W
11/27, vs Anderson  W
12/1, @ Monmouth  W
12/11, vs Buena Vista  W
12/15, vs UW-Whitewater
12/20, @ MacMurray
12/29, vs UW-Stout, at St. Norbert
12/30, @ St. Norbert or vs Lakeland, at St. Norbert
1/2, vs Chicago

Out of region:
12/8, vs St. Ambrose  W

Carthage (2-1) - 4 scheduled
11/19, vs Bethany Lutheran  W
11/24, vs Whitworth (in Hawaii) L
11/26, vs Pacific (in Hawaii)  W
1/2, @ Transylvania

Out of region:
11/16, vs Calumet-St. Joseph  W  
11/20, vs John Carroll  L
12/3 vs Hope  W
12/4, vs Calvin  W
12/7, vs Silver Lake  W
12/11, vs Albion  L
12/12, vs Cardinal Stritch  W

Elmhurst (3-4) - 11 scheduled
11/16, @ Cornell  L
11/20, vs Hamline L
11/23, @ St. Norbert  L
12/1, @ Olivet  L
12/5, @ Westminster (Mo)  W
12/9, vs Kalamazoo  W
12/11, vs Loras  W
12/20, vs Aurora, in Las Vegas
12/21, vs UW-Oshkosh, in Las Vegas
12/29, vs DePauw
12/30, vs Calvin or Benedictine

Illinois Wesleyan (7-1) -  9 or 10 scheduled
11/15, @ Benedictine  W
11/19, vs Aurora  W
11/20, vs Ripon  W
11/23, @ Monmouth  W
11/27, vs Dominican W
11/29, @ Webster  W
12/4, vs Chicago L
12/11, vs MacMurray  W
12/18, @ Washington U
(12/30, @ Cal Lutheran)

Out of region:

12/29, vs Gettysburg, at Cal Lutheran
(12/30, vs Hobart, at Cal Lutheran)

Millikin (0-4) -  6 or 7 scheduled
11/19, vs Nebraska Wesleyan  L
11/23, vs Franklin L
11/28, @ Rose-Hulman L
12/4, @ Aurora  L
12/20, @ Transyvania
12/29, @ St. Mary's (MN)
(12/30, @ Illinois College)

Out of region:
12/1, vs Robert Morris-Springfield  W
12/18, @ Adrian
12/21, vs Piedmont (GA) or Westminster (PA), at Transylvania
(12/30, vs Clarke at Illinois College)

North Central (2-4) - 8 scheduled
11/19, vs Bluffton L
11/20 vs Edgewood  L
11/23, vs Aurora  L
11/27, @ Illinois College  L
11/28, @ Manchester W
12/7, vs Lake Forest  W
12/22, @ Benedictine
12/27, @ Rockford

Out of region:
12/1, vs Albion  W
12/17, @ Hawaii-Hilo
12/30, @ Adrian

North Park (5-2) - 9 scheduled
11/17, vs Concordia  L
11/23, vs Edgewood  W
11/27, @ Fontbonne  W
11/30, @ Carroll W
12/4, vs Trine L
12/11, @ Spalding  W
12/13, vs Milwaukee Engineering  W
12/19, @ Coe
12/20, @ Loras

Out of region:
12/28, vs Williams, at Salem State
12/29, vs Regis, at Salem State

Wheaton (4-2) -  6 scheduled
11/16, vs Manchester  L
11/19, vs UW-Whitewater  W
11,23, vs Loras  W
12/1, @ Chicago  W
12/4, vs Hope L
12/11, vs Washington U  W

Out of region:
11/19, vs Covenant  W
12/3, vs Calvin  W
12/9, vs Trinity Intl  W
12/30, vs Messiah, in Phoenix
12/31, vs Husson, in Phoenix

CCIW non-conference totals (88 games)
In-region games: 64 (73%)
Out-of-region games: 24 (27%)

(Assumes 1 of the 2 TBD games end up in-region)

CCIW in-region, non-conference record (through 12/13)
28-18 (.609)

Q's Projected Final in-region, non-conference record
37-27 (.578)

Next in-region games
12/15, Augustana vs UW-Whitewater
12/18, Illinois Wesleyan @ Wash U
12/19, North Park @ Coe

[usee]

Q, your projection has gotten better, obviously because the CCIW won some of your "swing games". If CCIW finishes at or above your projection, how do you think this impacts our league come selection Sunday?

[Mugsy]

And now for the completely random... an interesting college basketball tradition:

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/blog/the_dagger/post/Never-heard-of-Taylor-University-s-Silent-Night-?urn=ncaab-295229

[Gregory Sager]

What an odd game tonite in Chicago.  NP couldn't hit a bucket and had nine points after ten minutes and nineteen at the half.  Yes, MSOE led by double digits at halftime, relying heavily on the trey against the taller Vikings.  Why Greer starts ahead of Hoekstra completely baffles me.  NP exploded for 47points in the second half to win by 11, 66-55.   MSOE had no inside game whatsoever and flaunted NP's weakness at defending the trey all night long.  I'd wager MSOE score more from beyond the arc than from the stripe and two point land.  Or so it seems.  There were a total of five fouls in the first half.  Brenegan must have lit a spark at halftime.  I think the refs called more travels than any college game I've seen in over 20 years.  NP had plenty steals, but nothing spectacular about the game comes to mind.

Holy cow, Mark, did you even watch the game last night, or did you just hang out at the Pit and get updates from someone?

First of all, Kendell Greer played a phenomenal game. Austin Meier, who is one of the better forwards that the NPU gym is going to see this season, came into the game averaging 15 points per game and over 12 rebounds per game. Greer guarded him for 18 of the 36 minutes that Meier was on the floor, with minimal help from his fellow Vikings, and was thus in large part responsible for holding the MSOE star to only eight points and nine rebounds on the night. Meier was so frustrated that he started a shoving match with Emanuel Crosby late in the second half. Greer played one of the best defensive games I've seen all season by anybody, anywhere, and he knocked down all three of his trey attempts at the other end of the floor, to boot. Rob and I gave out the mythical "Charcoal Delights Player of the Game" award to Jorge Gonzalez, but in retrospect I'd have to say that Greer should've at least been the co-winner.

As for the Raiders having "no inside game whatsoever," see the above paragraph. The Raiders had no inside game last night because NPU took it away from them, not because they didn't have one to begin with. You may not have noticed, but MSOE came into the game last night with a 7-1 record -- and the Raiders didn't earn that record on good looks and their facility with protractors and slide rules.

The Raiders "flaunted NPU's weakness at defending the trey all night long"? Good grief, Mark. MSOE scored only 23 points in the second half. Twenty-three freaking points! Perhaps that number means nothing to you, but in college basketball, a 23-point half is the very definition of a team being absolutely bottled up on offense. NPU played shutdown defense in every phase of the game in the second half; the Raiders shot under 28% from the field in the second half (they came in averaging about 43% from the field) and 30% from three-point land (they came into the game hitting about 36% of their treys). The Vikings outrebounded MSOE almost two-to-one in the second stanza (23-12), which is close to matching the two-to-one scoring in the second half (47-23). If that's a weak defense that's being flaunted, then I pray to all the gods on basketball Olympus that NPU's defense gets "flaunted" by opponents in that fashion every single game from now until eternity.

The reason why MSOE scored most of its points on treys is simple: The Raiders were forced to jack up the long balls because NPU took their best weapon, Austin Meier, away from them. And that was in large part because of that player whom you don't like, Kendell Greer. (Incidentally, when Gonzalez stepped in and covered Meier while Greer was out of the game, he did a great job as well.)

NPU played an absolutely dominant half of basketball (admittedly, following up a first half in which on the broadcast I described the Vikings' 19-point offensive -- in both senses of the word -- performance as "raw sewage"). They scored a season-high 47 points in the second half, held the visitors to an NPU-opponent season low of 23 points, played with an energy and a fervor that I haven't seen from a Vikings team in I don't know how long, and all of it came against the best team that North Park has played this season ... and yet "nothing spectacular about the game comes to mind" for you?

Geez, Mark, I know the NPU gym is small, but perhaps you need to find a better seat.

[Gregory Sager]

Seriously, I came out of the crackerbox last night thinking to myself that the second-half Vikings of that night-and-day performance could beat anyone in the CCIW in any gym in the CCIW on any given night. Here's the problem: It's only one of fourteen halves that NPU has played this season, and it was immediately preceded by a pretty poor one in which the Vikings only scored 19 and shot a miserable 33% from the field.

Mathematics and common sense dictate that the second half of last night's game was an aberration, and that North Park isn't as good as it looked. (Of course, it also means that the Vikings aren't as bad on offense as they looked in the first half.) But, being a glass-half-full kinda guy, I choose to think that, since that second half last night is the team's latest performance to date, it's also the truest indication as to where the Vikings are now. At the very least, it certainly gives them something to shoot for every time that they're on the floor.

[thunder38]

And now for the completely random... an interesting college basketball tradition:

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/blog/the_dagger/post/Never-heard-of-Taylor-University-s-Silent-Night-?urn=ncaab-295229

that's fantastic stuff!  i know Santa made an appearance at King Arena during the Wash U game but kudos to Taylor!

[usee]

Greg- I subscribe to the "you aren't as bad as you think you are" and the "you aren't as good as you think you are" theory as much as anyone. But I'll also remind you a great football coach, Bill Walsh, used to say "If I see them do it once, it means they are capable of doing it all the time". Its under this theory of evaluation that he drafted Joe Montana in round 2 of the 1979 draft and later acquired Steve Youg, Jerry Rice, etc, when no one else thought that highly of those guys.

[Titan Q]

Big transfer to Loras...

http://www.gobison.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=2400&ATCLID=205054587

[Gregory Sager]

Greg- I subscribe to the "you aren't as bad as you think you are" and the "you aren't as good as you think you are" theory as much as anyone. But I'll also remind you a great football coach, Bill Walsh, used to say "If I see them do it once, it means they are capable of doing it all the time". Its under this theory of evaluation that he drafted Joe Montana in round 2 of the 1979 draft and later acquired Steve Youg, Jerry Rice, etc, when no one else thought that highly of those guys.

That makes sense, USee. Then again, if like Walsh you're a coach who has his bust in Canton, making sense was probably a big part of your professional m.o.

Incidentally, here's today's tally in terms of ratings and polls and such:

d3hoops.com Top 25
Augustana #10
Illinois Wesleyan #12
Carthage ORV (#26)
Wheaton ORV (#28)

Massey Ratings
Augustana #7
Wheaton #15
Illinois Wesleyan #22
Carthage #23
North Park #59
North Central #109
Elmhurst #157
Millikiin #304

As an FYI, keep in mind that there are 412 D3 men's basketball teams this season.

Massey also has the CCIW as the fourth-rated conference in the nation this year. However, the MIAC (#2) always seems to rate higher on Massey than it actually deserves, because it plays so many crossover games with the dreaded 'sconnies on the other side of the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers (i.e., the WIAC) and so comparatively few non-conference games overall. And the third-rated league, the NWC, can be written off to some degree as a geographic outlier (although the CCIW still has to answer for the fact that our preseason #1 lost to their preseason #1).

[dansand]

Big transfer to Loras...

http://www.gobison.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=2400&ATCLID=205054587

They could use him...2-7. I'm assuming he'll play this year?

[dansand]

An interesting (at least to me) tidbit from Augie's win over Buena Vista the other night.

26 minutes with Chris Anderson on the floor: Augie 62, BV 33
14 minutes with Anderson on the bench: BV 30, Augie 9.

Despite their 3-6 record, I think BV's pretty good. I expect them to do well in the IIAC.

[Titan Q]

Q, your projection has gotten better, obviously because the CCIW won some of your "swing games". If CCIW finishes at or above your projection, how do you think this impacts our league come selection Sunday?

Looking at things from the perspective of a given CCIW team, the games that go into Opponents' Winning Percentage (OWP) are:

A) Conference games played by your 7 CCIW opponents (all are obviously considered in-region)
B) In-region, non-conference games played by your 7 CCIW opponents
C) In-region games played by your non-conference, in-region opponents (excluding your game vs that team)

Just an estimation, but there are about 300 total games that go into the OWP calculation for the avg CCIW team:

A) 84 (28%) - your 7 CCIW opponents each play 12 CCIW games (excludes games vs you)
B) 56 (19%) - your 7 CCIW opponents each play about 8 in-region, non-conf games
C) 160 (53%) - your 8 in-region, non-conf opponents each play about 20 total in-region games

When you start looking at records in each category then...

A) Guaranteed to be 42-42 - so about 28% of your OWP is locked into .500
B) This is what I have been tracking throughout the non-conf season and what your question is really about.
C) Let's just use 80-80 (.500) as an illustration...each of your 8 in-region, non-conf opponents goes 10-10 in-region.

So let's assume A+C games = 122-122 (.500).  The impact of various B records then is...

* 28-28 (.500) = 150-150 (.500)
* 34-22 (.607) = 156-144 (.520)
* 39-17 (.696) = 161-139 (.536)
* 45-11 (.803) = 167-133 (.557)

Regarding Selection Sunday OWP, relative to teams across the country I'd say...

.450 - .499 = Poor
.500 - .549 = Decent
.550 - .599 = Good
.600+ = Excellent


So a CCIW team that plays a non-conference schedule in which its in-region opponents go .500 ("C" above) needs its 7 CCIW opponents to win at about a .800 clip to get to a final OWP of .550+.  (Right now the league is at .609.)

Obviously, playing a strong in-region, non-conference schedule - in other words, playing "C" opponents who will finish at, say, .600 instead of .500 - makes a huge difference since 53% of the typical OWP calculation is derived from these games.  Just for perspective, current in-region records of the opponents of 3 select CCIW teams:

* IWU: 22-21 (.512)  
Benedictine (3-2), Aurora (3-4), Ripon (5-0), Monmouth (1-4), Dominican (5-3), Webster (2-1), Chicago (1-6), MacMurray (2-1)

* Augustana: 16-16 (.500)  
Simpson (3-3), Wash U (4-3), Anderson (5-1), Monmouth (1-4), Buena Vista (3-5)

* Wheaton: 15-17 (.469)
Manchester (3-2), UWW (4-2), Loras (2-5), Chicago (2-5), Hope (0-0), Wash U (4-3)