MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Mr. Ypsi]

"Speaking of the little lady to be, I have yet to come up with an acceptable girl name that starts with "Q", as you had suggested."

Titanhammer,

The most comfortable, softest, richest fabric I have EVER worn was 'Qiana' (back in the 60s and 70s - why it went away I have no clue), and, yes, I have taught students by that name!

If that is no help, I'm afraid I can't do much for Q!

[robertgoulet]

kobe bryant had 81 tonight.

81.


he attempted 46 fg's. only had 2 assists. the team, as a whole, only had 16 assists.


i am fighting with myself over this right now. i am not a very big kobe fan. he doesnt make his teammates better, like the "great ones" are supposed to do. he is a great scorer....but not a winner.

81 points is just ridiculous. part of me says, "wow....81....". the other part of me says....."BALL HOG!"

he shot over 50% from the field. over 50% from the 3pt line. and 18-20 from the  FT line.

what do you all think?

[True Basketball Fan]

Who the %#@$ was guarding him!!! 

Wouldn't you send a double team or even a triple team at him after about his 40th or 50th point scored (by the third quarter, I might add)?

[Gregory Sager]

"As the NPU coaches were saying after the game, the lesson that the Vikings needed to take away from that was that for about a minute there they played next year's Wesleyan top-line players -- Gant, Smith, Manus, Harrigan, and Gilmore -- and they handled them."


Oh my goodness.  Talk about the reach of all-time for a moral victory. 

The North Park coaching staff must have done a lot of evaluating during that one minute Mike Harrigan, Tyler Smith, and Andrew Gilmore played and the "0+" by Steve Manus.  All I can remember from that minute is wondering whether or not Charcoal Delights would be open at 9:30pm on a Saturday.

http://campus.northpark.edu/athletics/mbasketball/stats/2006stats/m01-21.htm

IWU fans will be disappointed to know that Zach Freeman, Andrew Freeman, Jordan Morris, Brett Chamernik, Brian Nussbaum, and others are not considered "top-line" players by the NPU coaching staff.

There's no need to make a federal case out of my "moral victory" comment, Bob. I think I made it pretty clear that my tongue was halfway in my cheek when I posted it. Or was my comment about Paul Brenegan wearing a better suit than Scott Trost insufficiently clear? Or my subsequent paragraph beginning with "Seriously, though ..."?

Admittedly, part of the "moral victory" section was sincere -- the hustle part and the not-giving-up part. But, as I think I made pretty clear to Hammer in the follow-up post, the part about what happened in garbage time was, as I put it, "poetic license".

NPU got their butts whipped on Saturday night. Even a semi-serious attempt to find a silver lining in the loss required "poetic license". There just isn't a lot of positive things to take from a game that your team was never really in.

[Gregory Sager]

And the comparisons GS quotes don't have anything to do with how a game this season is going to go, its hypothetical comparisons, something completey different from what you were saying.  

Exactly. My point was that the results of the previous three years would not have an effect upon Saturday's game, not that those games no longer counted. Of course they count -- they're in the history books, and as you insinuated, IWM, I do put a lot of stock in history. I just don't put a lot of stock in it affecting the here-and-now. Just because NPU has played Wesleyan tight in the crackerbox over the past few seasons didn't mean that they would do it again. There's no causative effect from those previous seasons' games. As I said several times before the game, the possibility of NPU making a game of it on Saturday was pretty remote.

Of course, if the Titans were to come out yesterday and say, "Boy, we've really played poorly in the NPU gym over the past three years, let's go out onto the floor tonight and make a statement," I'd reassess what I said earlier. It would surprise me, though, because Wesleyan strikes me as a team that has much bigger fish to fry than making up for past results against a down-at-the-heels program -- and, conversely, everyone knew coming in that there was very little that NPU could do to make this game competitive, anyway.

[Gregory Sager]

I seriously doubt there were 1000 people at North Park last night.  I had it estimated at about 600.  I think the Park is using the IHSA's new multiplier on their attendance figures.  Whatever the number was, it was probably about 65% IWU fans.

That is the first time I've ever been to a North Park game where there was no student presence whatsoever.  No "Yo baby, yo baby, yo baby, yo...you've got to be a Viking or you've got to go."  No "Hail North Park..."  No good themes/costumes.  Nothin'.  I felt cheated.

The 600 figure sounds about right. The scorer's table at NPU hasn't really done very well in estimating attendance over the past few seasons.

I'd also agree that the attendees were about two-thirds Wesleyan fans, which irritated me to no end. In spite of the fact that the programs have gone in opposite directions, I've always taken great pleasure from the fact that, for as many people as Wesleyan brings to the crackerbox every season, there were always more fans of the Park present. That clearly wasn't the case last night. The student section was almost empty until right before game time, and the relatively sparse number of students that did show up as the game was beginning were a lackluster group. There were no Carlson Crazies at all. It's as if they unanimously decided to take the night off. I wasn't at the game vs. Elmhurst on Wednesday, but I'm told that there was a much better student section and that the Crazies were in attendance; in fact, I heard that their halftime ninja battle was one of the Crazies highlights of recent years.

It's a troubling sign when the student support begins to taper off, but in one sense it's inevitable. NPU has been very lucky in that the students have continued to faithfully support the team through a whole bunch of lean years, even as the alumni have completely drifted away. But that luck can't hold out forever. You can't expect students to keep showing up if the program goes through multiple seasons without ever getting up off of the canvas. Sooner or later, even the most ardent basketball school will lose its student fan support if the team keeps losing year after year. And when you're located in a place like Chicago where there's millions of things to do, and it's a Saturday night ....

I've resigned myself to the undeniable truth that NPU is now a ... sigh ... soccer school rather than a basketball school. The student support, both in numbers and enthusiasm, for the soccer team and for the basketball team are like night and day. 

It also bugged me that the Viking Cafe was closed. A number of people wearing green were hovering around it at halftime, wondering where they could go to get food. As I told Dave Kunka, the least we could do for all of those nice people from Bloomington was take their money. 

[bluejaybacker1]

Yeah the student section was much better at the game Wed vs. the Jays'. The half time battle was quite amusing. They are an interesting and entertaining bunch. I give them lots of credit for sticking by their team.

[Gregory Sager]

Yeah the student section was much better at the game Wed vs. the Jays'. The half time battle was quite amusing. They are an interesting and entertaining bunch. I give them lots of credit for sticking by their team.

Me too, BJB. Alas, after Saturday night's no-show by the students and by the Crazies in particular I have to start wondering if the credit we've been giving them should strictly be past tense.

[dansand]

kobe bryant had 81 tonight.

81.


he attempted 46 fg's. only had 2 assists. the team, as a whole, only had 16 assists.


i am fighting with myself over this right now. i am not a very big kobe fan. he doesnt make his teammates better, like the "great ones" are supposed to do. he is a great scorer....but not a winner.

81 points is just ridiculous. part of me says, "wow....81....". the other part of me says....."BALL HOG!"

he shot over 50% from the field. over 50% from the 3pt line. and 18-20 from the  FT line.

what do you all think?

Actually, that's pretty good for Kobe. He usually needs almost that many shots (46) to score his normal 35 points.

Seriously, although I don't care much for the NBA anymore, that's pretty amazing considering how efficient it was. I would have figured he had jacked it up 60-65 times.

[79jaybird]

"I'm not crazy about the CCIW Tournament"
Hiker- I agree.  I have feelings for both sides in this debate.  I think I have more feelings siding with the "no" to a CCIW Tournament, and the school which has endured the most  ending up on top after ther regular season should go.  To me, the 14 game CCIW slate is a season long tournament... why do we need 2 more games?

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I think Kobe beat Toronto.  If they were playing any of about 25 other teams, his 81 would not have been enough.  I think he's a fantastic scorer, but you can't do well in the NBA with one guy lighting it up like that.  81 is impressive, but the rest of the team just stood around and watched; not good.

[markerickson]

GS said "It's a troubling sign when the student support begins to taper off, but in one sense it's inevitable."

Student support HAS declined.  The northwest section never fills and the southwest section (where football players congregated) doesn't get many bodies.

[BigPoppa]

Titanhammer,
Speaking of the little lady to be, I have yet to come up with an acceptable girl name that starts with "Q", as you had suggested

There is always Quillimina.

How about Quinn??

[thunderwearer]

Speaking of traveling student bodies.  I am pretty sure that Wheaton fans outnumbered Elmhurst, which I find very interesting, due to the fact that when Wheaton was good there were some games that no one attended, but now that we get spanked, the team  has support.  I was also impressed that the majority of the fans stayed in their seat and were cheering more at the end of the game than Elmhurst was.

Now to the actual Game.  Wheaton looked sharp for the first 5 minutes of the game, then it got away from them.  Wheaton was too conscious of Martin or Elmhurst's inside presence that their defenders got sucked into the paint and then couldn't get out in time to defend the three.  Also, Wheaton tried the dribble and dish too much for very negative results (22 steals for Elmhurst).  There were too many times where the dribbler would find himself in no mans land or just try to force a pass that was intercepted or deflected and such.

I would also like to give Elmhurst a ton of credit.  They played their game perfectly.  Their offense was working flawlessly with open shooters comming off of passes, double picks, rebounds; it was all working for Elmhurst.  Their D was also amazing saturday.  They had great help defense, and really closed down the lane when Wheaton drove the ball, and tried to dish it out.  Andy Wiele could never get an opening, nor for that fact could most of the Wheaton team.

I would like to congradulate both teams on not allowing this game to get chippy near the end of it.  I thought that there were a couple of times where tensions could have flaired and escalated to inappropriate leves especially after the Martin elbow to Jordan Kempers neck.

Lastly, I was very depressed by John Mohans reactions ingame.  I could tell that after each Elmhusrt bucket he was demoralized.  Mohan was not the only player or coach for that matter to display frustration, but to me he had given up in the first half.  

My two cents for now.

[albcard]

kobe bryant had 81 tonight.

81.


he attempted 46 fg's. only had 2 assists. the team, as a whole, only had 16 assists.


i am fighting with myself over this right now. i am not a very big kobe fan. he doesnt make his teammates better, like the "great ones" are supposed to do. he is a great scorer....but not a winner.

81 points is just ridiculous. part of me says, "wow....81....". the other part of me says....."BALL HOG!"

he shot over 50% from the field. over 50% from the 3pt line. and 18-20 from the  FT line.

what do you all think?