MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[ziggy]

Hope was a charter member of D3 as was the rest of the MIAA I believe.

Except Trine(?)

[Titan Q]

This will be officially announced in 24 hours or so, but congratulations to longtime IWU assistant coach David Steinbrueck on being named head coach at Millikin.  Coach Stein has been an integral part of IWU teams that have made deep NCAA Tournament runs under Dennie Bridge, Scott Trost, and Ron Rose.  

Not only is Coach Stein a great X's and O's basketball mind, but he'll be really good on the recruiting trail.  It will take time, but I'm positive he'll have the Big Blue in the mix within 3-4 years.

A big loss for Illinois Wesleyan, but great news for someone who has worked hard to earn an opportunity like this.

(I wanted to post this yesterday, for fear of people assuming this is an April Fool's joke, but was not allowed!)

Judging from the e-mails and texts I have been receiving this morning, it's clear that many wonder if this is indeed an April Fool's joke.  I think this interview with David Steinbrueck from a local TV station on the new job should clear things up...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uTvpsSXmbI

[Gregory Sager]

I knew that Steinbrueck's hiring wasn't a joke, because the NPU coaches were talking about it this morning.

Congrats to Stein. He's a good man, and I'm glad to see him realize his dream of getting a head coaching job. But he's certainly got his work cut out for him down in Decatur. I think Bob's being overly optimistic in saying that Millikin will be competing for a CCIW title three years from now (that's usually what "in the mix" means in Q-speak, so I hope that I'm not misconstruing your intended meaning there, Bob).

To begin with, there's little or nothing in the cupboard at MU at the moment. The Big Blue are losing perhaps their two best players, Kyle Taylor and Justin Thompson, off of a roster that was reduced by the worst form of attrition -- guys simply handing in their uniforms and quitting the team -- to ten warm bodies by season's end. After thirty-two years of following this league I can honestly say that I've never seen a program more down than Millikin is at the moment (and, believe me, having had to endure some really bad basketball teams over the past decade and a half at NPU, I know what a "down" program looks like).

What's more, the clock is already almost at 00:00 in terms of going out and finding prospects for 2011-12, to say nothing of wooing them and landing them; even if Stein hit the ground running this morning, this recruiting season's probably a lost cause for Millikin. Unlike NPU, the other CCIW program that's been in the hunt for a head coach, there haven't been any holdover assistant coaches from the Marc Smith regime to act as caretakers for the MU program (i.e., staff who can keep recruiting, as well as monitoring the current players -- which might involve some hand-holding for anybody thinking of transferring out in the wake of Smith's exit). Athletic director Joe Hakes is the name listed on the MU website as the current men's basketball contact person. While I am a card-carrying member of the Joe Hakes Fan Club (you get a dollar discount on the cheeseburger special at Charcoal Delights if you flash your JHFC card), in addition to his normal AD duties this semester Joe's been trying to hire a head football coach and a head men's basketball coach. For an AD, that's like trying to juggle chainsaws while standing on a tightrope. He'll probably e-mail me and read me the riot act for saying this , but I would imagine that Joe's probably not been available for a lot of chitcat with the parents of prospective Big Blue men's basketball players. You have to wonder if any of the prospects Marc Smith and Anthony Figueroa had been recruiting are still interested in being Big Blue players next year.

And, let's face it, Millikin's a bit of a tough sell. Remember when Dennis Prikkel referred to the Quad Cities as the armpit of America a few weeks ago? Well, as far as CCIW towns are concerned, Decatur makes Rock Island look like the EPCOT Center at Disney World. I'd like to see Millikin and my man Joe Hakes get more competitive across the board, just like I'm looking for my own alma mater to step it up in the CCIW, but, as this league's sports go, men's basketball is a particularly steep hill to climb in terms of going from crash-cart, Code Blue, dead-on-arrival, epically awful to competitive status. CCIW people can live with an unsuccessful volleyball or women's golf or men's swimming team at their alma mater, but everybody clamors for a winning men's basketball team. The football guys may not want to hear me say this, but men's basketball is our league's signature sport. And right now it's as cutthroat as it's been in a long, long time.

There's been five really good turnarounds made by new men's basketball coaches in my years of following the league, and by "really good turnaround" I mean a new coach inheriting a losing or .500 team and taking the program to either a first- or second-place finish within his first four years there: Bill Warden at North Central in the early '80s; Steve Yount at Augie in the early '90s; Bill Harris at Wheaton a couple of years after Yount; Bosko Djurickovic at Carthage in the late '90s; and Todd Raridon at North Central in the middle of the last decade. Out of those five, however, only Bosko took over a program that had finished last the season before.

However, as magnificent a job as Bosko performed in building the Carthage program, he had some things going for him. One was the fact that he was operating in a vacuum. When he was hired prior to the 1996-97 season the CCIW was at a low ebb; it was IWU, Wheaton, and the Six Dwarves in those days, which made it a whole lot easier to climb the ladder quickly than was the case for Warden, Yount, Harris, or Raridon. Although Carthage had finished last under Tim Miller (who quit in mid-season) and interim coach Gary Rudd in 1995-96, it was a three-way tie for last, and the Redmen had only finished a game out of fifth. Plus, Bosko inherited a really good All-CCIW player in Aaron Hoenisch, and another future All-CCIW player in Ian Whittington who took it upon himself to try out for the team and lose fifty pounds (shades of Pierce and Guzman, perhaps?) after spending two years at Carthage as a non-playing student before Bosko arrived. In fact, the only coach out of the five I named above who built his first really outstanding team without using any good players inherited from his predecessor was Harris, and it took him one bad year and two mediocre years of weeding out his predecessor Bill Harbeck's players before he was finally able to win big with his own crew of Crusaders.

In short, none of the five coaches who turned their programs around within three or four years had to do so under conditions nearly as bad as what David Steinbrueck faces now. Not only is his roster more empty in terms of quantity and quality than had been the case for Warden, Yount, Harris, et al, there's a bigger gap between his team and the next-lowest team on the CCIW totem pole in terms of roster size and talent than any of those other guys had to face ... and he has to accomplish a turnaround in an era in which the CCIW is not lacking for overall competitiveness and quality, last season's dip notwithstanding ... and he's getting started much too late for his first off-season to likely be very productive in terms of recruiting.

I think that a more realistic goal for David Steinbrueck three years hence is for him to have a Millikin team that's good enough to win most of its non-conference games (i.e., beat up on the SLIAC and go at least .500 against everybody else outside the circuit) and to win a few league games while at least forcing each of the other seven teams in the CCIW to take the Big Blue seriously, particularly in the Griz.

[Dennis_Prikkel]

yes rock island is the armpit of illinois and decatur is no disney world either - in fact in the 46 years i've been following the league and going to decatur - it never been the garden spot of illinois.

on the other hand the big blue do have the original site of the illinois high school basketball championship.

[Gregory Sager]

The Michigan conference's ban on post-season play came about because one-time conference member Hillsdale used to run up the scores in football in order to get nationally ranked.

... which is odd, since Hillsdale dropped out of the MIAA as far as men's sports were concerned in 1961, and then dropped out on the women's side in 1963. The wheels must turn pretty slowly over on the snowy side of the lake for the MIAA to hold fast to a rule designed to hamper the shenanigans of a school that left the league 14 years before the rule was finally dropped.

[Gregory Sager]

Is Steinbrueck to Millikin legit?  I'm new to the board and don't pick up all on all of the humor.

If it is an April Fool's joke, then the North Park coaching staff is in on it with Bob.

[Gregory Sager]

Thanks.

Any word on the Millikin football coaching search?

Bob sent me this clip of Joe Hakes being asked about the Millikin football coaching job during the Steinbrueck announcement. Judge for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0

[Mr. Ypsi]

Now, Greg, I thought Dennis and Joe were in a contest for 'most chins'?!

[Titan Q]

I knew that Steinbrueck's hiring wasn't a joke, because the NPU coaches were talking about it this morning.

Congrats to Stein. He's a good man, and I'm glad to see him realize his dream of getting a head coaching job. But he's certainly got his work cut out for him down in Decatur. I think Bob's being overly optimistic in saying that Millikin will be competing for a CCIW title three years from now (that's usually what "in the mix" means in Q-speak, so I hope that I'm not misconstruing your intended meaning there, Bob).

To begin with, there's little or nothing in the cupboard at MU at the moment. The Big Blue are losing perhaps their two best players, Kyle Taylor and Justin Thompson, off of a roster that was reduced by the worst form of attrition -- guys simply handing in their uniforms and quitting the team -- to ten warm bodies by season's end. After thirty-two years of following this league I can honestly say that I've never seen a program more down than Millikin is at the moment (and, believe me, having had to endure some really bad basketball teams over the past decade and a half at NPU, I know what a "down" program looks like).

What's more, the clock is already almost at 00:00 in terms of going out and finding prospects for 2011-12, to say nothing of wooing them and landing them; even if Stein hit the ground running this morning, this recruiting season's probably a lost cause for Millikin. Unlike NPU, the other CCIW program that's been in the hunt for a head coach, there haven't been any holdover assistant coaches from the Marc Smith regime to act as caretakers for the MU program (i.e., staff who can keep recruiting, as well as monitoring the current players -- which might involve some hand-holding for anybody thinking of transferring out in the wake of Smith's exit). Athletic director Joe Hakes is the name listed on the MU website as the current men's basketball contact person. While I am a card-carrying member of the Joe Hakes Fan Club (you get a dollar discount on the cheeseburger special at Charcoal Delights if you flash your JHFC card), in addition to his normal AD duties this semester Joe's been trying to hire a head football coach and a head men's basketball coach. For an AD, that's like trying to juggle chainsaws while standing on a tightrope. He'll probably e-mail me and read me the riot act for saying this , but I would imagine that Joe's probably not been available for a lot of chitcat with the parents of prospective Big Blue men's basketball players. You have to wonder if any of the prospects Marc Smith and Anthony Figueroa had been recruiting are still interested in being Big Blue players next year.

And, let's face it, Millikin's a bit of a tough sell. Remember when Dennis Prikkel referred to the Quad Cities as the armpit of America a few weeks ago? Well, as far as CCIW towns are concerned, Decatur makes Rock Island look like the EPCOT Center at Disney World. I'd like to see Millikin and my man Joe Hakes get more competitive across the board, just like I'm looking for my own alma mater to step it up in the CCIW, but, as this league's sports go, men's basketball is a particularly steep hill to climb in terms of going from crash-cart, Code Blue, dead-on-arrival, epically awful to competitive status. CCIW people can live with an unsuccessful volleyball or women's golf or men's swimming team at their alma mater, but everybody clamors for a winning men's basketball team. The football guys may not want to hear me say this, but men's basketball is our league's signature sport. And right now it's as cutthroat as it's been in a long, long time.

There's been five really good turnarounds made by new men's basketball coaches in my years of following the league, and by "really good turnaround" I mean a new coach inheriting a losing or .500 team and taking the program to either a first- or second-place finish within his first four years there: Bill Warden at North Central in the early '80s; Steve Yount at Augie in the early '90s; Bill Harris at Wheaton a couple of years after Yount; Bosko Djurickovic at Carthage in the late '90s; and Todd Raridon at North Central in the middle of the last decade. Out of those five, however, only Bosko took over a program that had finished last the season before.

However, as magnificent a job as Bosko performed in building the Carthage program, he had some things going for him. One was the fact that he was operating in a vacuum. When he was hired prior to the 1996-97 season the CCIW was at a low ebb; it was IWU, Wheaton, and the Six Dwarves in those days, which made it a whole lot easier to climb the ladder quickly than was the case for Warden, Yount, Harris, or Raridon. Although Carthage had finished last under Tim Miller (who quit in mid-season) and interim coach Gary Rudd in 1995-96, it was a three-way tie for last, and the Redmen had only finished a game out of fifth. Plus, Bosko inherited a really good All-CCIW player in Aaron Hoenisch, and another future All-CCIW player in Ian Whittington who took it upon himself to try out for the team and lose fifty pounds (shades of Pierce and Guzman, perhaps?) after spending two years at Carthage as a non-playing student before Bosko arrived. In fact, the only coach out of the five I named above who built his first really outstanding team without using any good players inherited from his predecessor was Harris, and it took him one bad year and two mediocre years of weeding out his predecessor Bill Harbeck's players before he was finally able to win big with his own crew of Crusaders.

In short, none of the five coaches who turned their programs around within three or four years had to do so under conditions nearly as bad as what David Steinbrueck faces now. Not only is his roster more empty in terms of quantity and quality than had been the case for Warden, Yount, Harris, et al, there's a bigger gap between his team and the next-lowest team on the CCIW totem pole in terms of roster size and talent than any of those other guys had to face ... and he has to accomplish a turnaround in an era in which the CCIW is not lacking for overall competitiveness and quality, last season's dip notwithstanding ... and he's getting started much too late for his first off-season to likely be very productive in terms of recruiting.

I think that a more realistic goal for David Steinbrueck three years hence is for him to have a Millikin team that's good enough to win most of its non-conference games (i.e., beat up on the SLIAC and go at least .500 against everybody else outside the circuit) and to win a few league games while at least forcing each of the other seven teams in the CCIW to take the Big Blue seriously, particularly in the Griz.

This was the assist of the year.  Wow...nicely played, Greg!

[Titan Q]

For clarification, the Millikin job has yet to be filled (as far as I know).

My favorite part about the fallout from this - among many things - was the text message from IWU freshman Jordan Steinbrueck to her mom, Mary Liz, saying, "Did dad take a job at Millikin?" 

[Dennis_Prikkel]

Now, Greg, I thought Dennis and Joe were in a contest for 'most chins'?!

my one-time brother Joe has more chins than a Chinese phonebook.  but while my hair has turned gray, Joe's has turned out.  Last time I saw him he was going with the Bosko look.

[markerickson]

And Chicago isn't an armpit?

Half a year ago I wondered what constituted points in the paint.  If I can rely on tonight's UConn rout, stats flashed across the screen were 22 pts for UConn and zero for BU despite Howard hitting at least two treys.  Thus, points in the paint pertains to pops within the perimeter.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Not just the perimeter - 'points in the paint' (as I understand it) is points scored within the area you could be called for a 3-second violation.

That was the worst championship game I can ever recall.  Both teams were good on defense, but absolutely sucked on offense.  Butler in particular - their 18.8% shooting was partly UConn defense, but mainly 'cause they missed wide-open after wide-open shot.  (They also shot only 57% from the line - does UConn have good FT defense?!)

It was a good reminder to not put TOO much faith in any one game.  Based solely on tonight's game, I'm not sure either team should have even BEEN in the tournament!

[mactitan]

And Chicago isn't an armpit?

Half a year ago I wondered what constituted points in the paint.  If I can rely on tonight's UConn rout, stats flashed across the screen were 22 pts for UConn and zero for BU despite Howard hitting at least two treys.  Thus, points in the paint pertains to pops within the perimeter.

1. I would not consider Chicago an "armpit."  Yes, there are areas of blight, but parts of Chicago are among the most beautiful, exciting, and "magnificent" places in the world.  The view of the city from the Lake is, in my opinion, breathtaking. 
2. "Points in the Pain" refers points scored from within the free throw lane.  The stat became popular when many free throw lanes were, indeed, painted.  Three pointers would not count.  Neither would 15-foot jumpers (not that you see any in the college game anyway). 

[robertgoulet]

I see former Schaumburg HS standout Cully Payne is transferring from Iowa. I wonder if he will give any CCIW teams a look as a place to finish his college career (2 seasons of eligibility left) so he doesn't have to sit out a year?

Obviously going from full ride at a major (can you call what Iowa fielded the last 2 years "major"?) college basketball school to paying your own way at a D3 school is a big change, but you never know.

I personally think he should transfer to NCC