MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[dansand]

Terrific win over a red hot North Central team last night. Vikes just continue to amaze me with their defense. They shoot .396 from the field, including a combined 7-of-25 by their three leading scorers (for the season), and still beat the second hottest team in the conference by 16 points. North Central was 9 of 33 from the field over the last 30 minutes of play. Augie's allowing 52.2 ppg and .370 field goal shooting in the conference.

Although Kam Norton stood out last night, I thought all four of the sophomore big guys were great. Also, Brian DeSimone has been outstanding since the UW-Whitewater game. He really stepped in to fill the offensive void last night, especially in the second half.

Another huge game at Carver Center on Wednesday.

[CCIWchamps]

Wheaton's M.O. recently seems to be opening up a large lead in the first half, then allowing a large run by the other team to keep the game close in the 2nd.  Any thoughts on this?

[kenoshamark]

Viking Blue,

No need to elaborate....just a great message, thanks!!!!

[Hoosier Titan]

Thanks for a great post, Viking Blue!

You did a nice job on the mike last night.  Wish I could say I enjoyed the game more, but that's not your fault!

[OurHouse]

North Park 65
Illinois Wesleyan 57

Offensively, just a complete nightmare for the Titans in the last 30 minutes or so.  It was honestly hard for me to believe that that was Illinois Wesleyan out there shooting the ball.  

NPU did a great job of taking away IWU's inside game and making the Titans make jump shots.  The Titans shot well from the perimeter in the first 10 minutes or so and opened up an 8-point lead.  But somewhere late in the 2nd half, things just got ugly for IWU on the offensive end.  The Titans were 5 of 22 from beyond the arc in the game and I'd love to know that the % in the 2nd half.  Jordan Zimmer in particular really had a rough night shooting the ball.  He had several great looks from 3, and missed most of them.

Credit North Park for really outplaying IWU tonight.  It was never really close in the final 15 minutes or so.

North Park's Division I transfer Mike Gabriel was a factor in this game...no question about it.  I was very surprised at the # of minutes he played.
____________________________________________________________________________________

You forgot to mention throwing clip boards and not playing defense (the usual) is why this team struggles.
Constantly relying on 3 pointers (live or die) doesn't do it either

[Gregory Sager]

As Viking Blue said, last night was just a fun evening all around in the NPU gymnasium. Great crowd, great game, great outcome. A disappointing and underachieving North Park team finally showed up to play forty minutes of solid basketball and really demonstrate that they do have a personal investment in the outcome of this season. The Vikings outworked the Titans and played with an energy and a toughness that I've only seen from them in flashes this year. To hold a team that was averaging over 77 ppg to twenty points below their season average is really an accomplishment. I said during the broadcast that if the game score was in the 70s or 80s IWU would win, but if the Vikings could hold it down in the 50s or 60s they'd have a chance. And that's exactly what happened. The four guys upon whom Illinois Wesleyan counts for their scoring -- Johnson, Sexauer, Koshnitzky, and Zimmer -- took 44 shots and scored 44 points. IWU had stretches of four minutes and five and a half minutes in the second half in which it could not score a single point. That's just great defense on NPU's part.

D.A. Robinson was the star of the game. He not only made some big late drives to the basket, he also made the free throws down the stretch that sealed the game. Most importantly, he put Titans guard Sean Johnson on lockdown in the second half, as the senior star of the Titans went 0-7 from the field and logged zero points after halftime. Credit Johnson for hitting long-range shots with Robinson's hand in his face in the first half, but in the second half Robinson got even closer in Johnson's grill, to the point where I'd bet Robinson could tell you what flavor gum Johnson was chewing. Johnson was so frustrated that when he ganked those two free throws late in the game you could tell from his facial expression and his gestures that the Vikings had gotten into his head. It's nice to see someone visibly register that kind of frustration who isn't a Viking, for a change.

(And speaking of frustration, mild-mannered Ron Rose went into full Giovanine mode -- minus the salty language, of course -- late in the game during a timeout after NPU had had a couple of putback attempts under the basket before finally getting one to drop. He slammed his clipboard to the floor so hard I thought that he was going to shatter it. He was really screaming at top volume. I've never seen him even one-tenth that irate before.)

Shaun Collins and Emanuel Crosby also had very good defensive efforts for the Park, and Jorge Gonzalez stayed within himself and played under control. He was a big factor at both ends of the floor.

The best thing that NPU showed me last night was its composure, a rare commodity for this team. The visitors battled back after NPU had run out to an eight-point lead with 11:42 to go, cutting it to two -- but the Vikings didn't waver or panic. Instead, they held their ground and went on a slow 7-0 run over that aforementioned five and a half minute stretch, and IWU never got it below a two-possession game again.

It was a far from perfect performance by North Park -- the Vikings turned the ball over 19 times and didn't really shoot all that well -- but the hard defensive work and outstanding effort on the boards was a lot of fun to watch. As I've said before, I'm not going to get excited about the Vikings until they demonstrate that they can crank out this kind of effort for more than one game, or even one half, in a row. But it's a nice start, and it's great to see them perform that well in front of a big crowd against a team that was a pretty big favorite coming into the contest.

North Park's Division I transfer Mike Gabriel was a factor in this game...no question about it.  I was very surprised at the # of minutes he played.

The NPU coaches alerted me before the game that they'd play Gabriel as much as they thought they could get away with, which turned out to be 21 minutes. He was probably limited as much by foul trouble as by anything else. No doubt about it that he was a significant factor in the game, and it had to do with more than just the nine points and five rebounds that he acquired. He was directing traffic on defense -- astonishing for an 18-year-old freshman who has only been a part of the team for less than a week -- making hustle plays, making the IWU defense stay honest on Emanuel Crosby, playing good help defense, and he just generally raised the overall game of the team while he was out there. And that's exactly what North Park has needed. Quite frankly, for most of the year the Vikings have looked like five guys who accidentally happened to be wearing the same colors. Last night they looked like a team, and that was in no small part due to Gabriel's presence on the floor. It was exciting and gratifying to watch. The coaching staff couldn't say enough afterwards about the presence and savvy that Gabriel brings to the floor. I'm going to really enjoy watching him play basketball for North Park.

And then NP beats IWU while I stay away from Foster and Kedzie.  Sucks for me.  I'd like more infor about this transfer, Mr. Gabriel.

Show up at the NPU gym a week from Saturday, Mark, and I'll tell you everything you need to know.

One more thing....

For anyone looking to find Mike Gabriel's stat line from last night, he is listed as #44--Nate Rummell--in the box score.

http://resources.northpark.edu/athletics/MensBasketball/2011/1-22mbb.htm

That's a bit of a head-scratcher, as I got a printout of the box score and PBP from the scorer's table after the game, and Mike Gabriel was listed on it as #44. I expect it be changed back from Rummell to Gabriel within the next day or so.

Great win by North Park tonight, but that was a really tough game for IWU to lose. They are going to be hard for Augie to beat on Wednesday, because they are going to have an opportunity to get back into the thick of the race with a win.

I honestly don't think that IWU will be that hard for Augie to beat on Wednesday, especially at Carver. I don't think that the Titans match up well with Augie at all. I will be absolutely shocked if Augustana is not 7-0 heading into the second round-robin.

[augiefan]

Congrats to Augie on their record winning streak. It is also great to read that Carver had a full house for this game. It's good to see the students and locals supporting Augie BB. The team has certainly earned their support.

[Gregory Sager]

www.cciw.org might help.

I looked under Men's Tennis and only North Central and no North Park.  You guys are messing with me.

North Park has not sponsored tennis for several years now.  They also dropped wrestling in the early 80s, so no need to check that link, either.

You guys don't get much sarcasm here, do you?

Sorry about the whole NC/NP thing.

Against North Park, they didn't get any rebounding out of Malcom Kelly or Nick Bauch, who have been the two hitting the boards the hardest.  I'm impressed with Bauch's play of late; more so than I was early in the year, but he only had 2 boards last night.  Kelly does crash the boards, but didn't do as much (maybe because of the foul trouble) and didn't have many against North Park.

I guess we missed the sarcasm in the posting that prompted the discussion.

Ok, at the risk of getting even lower karma, I'll explain it to you.  I was embarassed that I confused North Central and North Park, so I made a joke (albeit subtle, so I guess you didn't realize it was a joke) that I thought they were the same school and I wondered why Carthage would play the same school 4 times.  Now, someone didn't realize it was a joke and figured that I was dumb and pointed me to CCIW.org.  I decided to take my joke further and looked for a sport where both North (somethings) didn't play.  Men's tennis. Bingo.  

So I make a comment playing incredibly stupid and you proceed to explain to me that one of the North Somethings dropped men's tennis in the 80s.  

Realizing that no one is getting the subtlety of the humor I was attempting, I then said I was being sarcastic.  You didn't get the sarcasm part, probably because you figured I am not very bright.  Now, I'm not saying you're wrong, but I was being sarcastic when I said that

a) I was surprised that North Central and North Park are two different schools.
b) I didn't understand why Carthage was playing the same school 4 times this year.
c) That there was only one North Something playing men's tennis, hence the other one didn't exist.

I will refrain from sarcasm in the future.  

It's one thing to accidentally mix up North Park and North Central. Things like that happen if you're not a partisan of either school, and, truth be told, it used to happen to Carthage and Carroll on occasion as well when both schools were members of the CCIW. But it's quite another to play it up for laughs. You're stepping on people's toes, bopol. We don't like being mixed up with them, and I would imagine that they don't like being mixed up with us, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that nobody from either NPU or NCC cares much for the term "North Somethings."

NPU and NCC have a few things in common. F'rinstance, they're both coed liberal-arts colleges, they're both located in greater Chicagoland, they both have the word "North" in their names, and they're both members of the CCIW. But they're extremely different institutions with regard to a wide range of things, from mission to graduate programming to recruiting targets to constituencies to belief system. Your school has just as much in common with North Central as we do. After all, you both wear red.

[Gregory Sager]

So I haven't posted in a long, long time, which may make me appear to be a front-runner, but just hear me out (I have my reasons):

1.  (Let's start with the easy one):  Some posters know that I am NP's PA announcer.  Suffice it to say that, with a wife and baby at home in the western suburbs and a full-time commitment as a high school teacher and coach, I don't do this for the money.  However, as I told several people after the game, games like tonight's are the reason I still do this 13 years after doing my first game as a NP student.  Great crowd, very involved, outstanding team effort, beautiful result.  I wish they could all be like that.

2.  (The reason I've stayed away):  It should first be stated that I played baseball at North Park, so I have a very good understanding of what it's like to be an athlete at the D3 level.  Over the course of this season, I've been thinking a lot about the purpose/effects that a site like this may have on the actual athletes and coaches that are involved with these programs, and I've started to feel the need to back away.  This became a much easier decision for me after reading the debacle regarding comments from a poster about ACT scores and disciplinary records.  I'd just like to remind everyone....these are KIDS.  99.9% of them are playing without any hope of playing at the next level.  They are balancing academics with the rigors of playing in the best D3 conference in the nation, and are receiving NO financial support for doing so.  As for the coaches....I have no specific knowledge about individual salaries, but I have a feeling that most of these CCIW coaches would be better off if they were teaching at a middle school and coaching the 7th grade girls team.  They, also, are truly doing this for the love of the game.  So, for the moral of my preaching:

Take a step back and just enjoy what you're watching.  I'm not saying this site is bad.  Not at all.  But I get worried when we are so critical of the players and coaches involved.  Save that criticism for pro sports and they multi-million dollar athletes involved.  As for the CCIW, it's one of the best-kept secrets in the nation, and I think it would be best (as I'm sure most of my fellow CCIW former athletes would agree) if we kept it as it is:  a conference that is about developing good human beings first, and winning games second.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a sermon to write for tomorrow morning   Go Vikings!

Great post, TD!

[augiefan]

Most of us who venture here are graduates of DIII colleges and many of us participated in intercollegiate athletics at our respective schools and/or have children who attended DIII schools and participated in sports. Our one common bond is our love of DIII sports, which makes this board special. Thanks Viking Blue for reminding us that occasionally our zeal and passion for DIII sports brings out negative posts that are not worthy of the true student athletes that give their all for our favorite teams.

[bopol]

It's one thing to accidentally mix up North Park and North Central. Things like that happen if you're not a partisan of either school, and, truth be told, it used to happen to Carthage and Carroll on occasion as well when both schools were members of the CCIW. But it's quite another to play it up for laughs. You're stepping on people's toes, bopol. We don't like being mixed up with them, and I would imagine that they don't like being mixed up with us, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that nobody from either NPU or NCC cares much for the term "North Somethings."

NPU and NCC have a few things in common. F'rinstance, they're both coed liberal-arts colleges, they're both located in greater Chicagoland, they both have the word "North" in their names, and they're both members of the CCIW. But they're extremely different institutions with regard to a wide range of things, from mission to graduate programming to recruiting targets to constituencies to belief system. Your school has just as much in common with North Central as we do. After all, you both wear red.
[/quote]

Greg, I enjoy your posts, but understand me clearly on this: it was a joke.  I won't make jokes on this board in the future when I make a mistake by trying to make light of it.  Next time, I'll just ask for everyone's forgiveness.

[iwu70]

From the Wheaton game to the NPU game, the Titans seem to be Jeykll and Hyde?  Sure seems the Titans are not a strong on-the-road team this year . . . and I agree with you, Q, that rebounding seems to be a big issue, strangely.  Against Augie next, Q, do you expect to see the Sexauer-Connolly duo on the floor together, given the size and rebounding abilities of the Augie team this year?

Augie clearly in the driver's seat now.  Titans need a few good road wins, in the second half of the season, to be sure.

[Gregory Sager]

Congrats to North Park's D.A. Robinson upon being named CCIW Player of the Week, the first NPU player to win the award this season. I tend to think that this might be the first time that a player has won the award primarily due to his defense, since Robinson's numbers were fairly modest this past week. At least, it's the first time that I can remember that the award has seemed to have been handed out for primarily defensive contributions.

[markerickson]

I've noticed that Mr. Robinson is a strong, effective, and tenacious defender who consistently drives to his right when handling the ball.  Congrats!

[Hoosier Titan]

I've noticed that Mr. Robinson is a strong, effective, and tenacious defender who consistently drives to his right when handling the ball.  Congrats!

The IWU coaching staff pointed that out to defenders more than once on Saturday night, to little avail!