MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[iwu70]

My mistake, Q, my confusion.  You are quite right.  Parker Musselman got the 31.  My apologies to both gentlemen.  Just shows you how old class of '70 members' minds, such as they are, really are!  My 93 year old Mother calls these moments my "premature senility."  Glad you young guys can catch the error of my ways . . . and straighten me out from time to time.  I'll do better in future as I get to know all these newbies, JV players better.

Sure am feeling optimistic about the season for both Varsity and JV squads.

All best,  IWU70

[AndOne]

Great start for the Titans last night.  Varsity played very well, shot it well, defended, and seemed to be running very smoothly deep into the rotation.  I like the vibe, too, Q, -- seems to be coming together earlier than one would expect.

On the JV, I watched the 112--85 explosion . . . and what can you say? . . these guys have learned the up-speed, get out and run system mighty fast.  Obviously, some work on defense may be in order.  The JV is:  Overstreet, Azuogu, Heyen, Wheeler, Musselman, Mayberger, and Wiggs.  All freshmen, save Mayberger.  This is a very talented group of players.  As Q mentioned, Musselman was most impressive -- scoring 31.  He's a deceptively fast big man, light on his feet for 6-8, 245, with an excellent shooting range.  His body type is more like Ziemnik.   He hit at least 5 treys, with relaxed ease, and playing with a gentle smile, even a smirk on his face.  Great fun.  But, he also had assists, with an excellent ability providing good entry passes to Heyen and Wiggs.  Yes, Musselman has a great future with the Titan program.  He's a ton down low, rebouding well, blocking out, blocking shots, taking charges, but also has this shooting range where he can move far away from the basket and score.  Both Heyen and Wiggs had strong games as well, good movement, slashing, strong finishing.  Heyen reminds me of Chris Bosch, very quick, and long long body type, long arms beyond belief.  He got many tips, blocks, quick moves to the hoop, scored about 18.  Wiggs, is just a fundamentally solid player, strong, with good court sense, offensive rebounding, excellent passing and vision on the court -- at 6-8, 200.  Will get stronger, better.  This JV front court is strong.  Mayberger had a good game, used his smarts and vision to make excellent contributions, though he's still struggling with the knees and has more trouble on defense.  Hope his knees get better as, at times, he didn't look very comfortable physically, especially on defense.  Still, he played well.  The two guards, Wheeler and Overstreet, are little motors, pushing the ball, defending well, with very few mis-judgements, mistakes or turnovers.  Both have great potential to be very worthy successors to Eliud Gonzales. Similar styles of play, perhaps even better ball handlers.   Both played very well.  Azuogu had his moments, but also seemed the least familiar with the IWU system and with the speed of the CCIW game, even at the JV level.  He made a few shots, worked very hard during his minutes, but didn't look entirely like he was in total game shape as yet.  Stay tuned.  All the JV Titans got lots of minutes in many different rotational combinations.  This is a very strong, talented group of players -- I'm especially impressed by Musselman, Wiggs, Heyen and Overstreet. 

If Ron Rose has to go deeper than his already deep 11-12 player rotation, I wouldn't be at all surprised for him to call on these talented freshmen at points in the latter part of the season.  We can see how freshman Molinari is fitting into the Varsity rotation very well already, but these JV guys are just as talented in many ways.   Should the Titans have trouble with illness or injuries down the road (knock on wood!), these JV guys are very well suited to fit into the Varsity scheme of things quite well, quite soon.  IMHO.

Enjoyed the game greatly -- not often you see any Titan team score 112.  But, there you have it. 

On the Varsity game, we got pretty much what we knew, what we expected from Zimmer, Davis, Kman, Eliud, the entire cast of characters.  Best outcomes, in my view, were the contributions, strengths of the role players.  Great to see Kevin Reed play so well, so confidently making a good contribution.  Also, Nick Anderson, had an excellent game during his minutes.  He just needs to, for wont of a better word, "uncoil" himself and truly utilize all his size and potential athleticism.  Perhaps watch some tapes of John Lipic, or Zach Freeman.  A thought.  And, gotta love Dan Oswald, coming in for just a few minutes, making shots, playing his heart out, hitting two quick treys, with all the bench cheering him on.  Seems the box score keepers surely don't catch everything, as Nick Anderson had several good blocks, played hard -- with a key block of Green on the final possession of the first half to finish off that nice 17-5 run the Titans had to basically put the game out of reach before the intermission. 

A very good start.  Good to see.  This team is very exciting to watch, so I hope more fans from the Titan nation will come out to Shirk and to road games and give them loud support.  Given the new defensive intensity, I think this team could really well feed off of good fan support. 

Good luck to the football Titans this weekend vs. Air Monmouth.  Will be tough to top the win against Wabash in OT two years ago. 

IWU70

iwu70---

I must say that this is the most detailed report on a JV game that I've seen in 5 years of being  on here.
I think you need to send your resume to the Pantagraph!   

[Titan Q]

Final from the Illinois College tournament in Jacksonville, IL...

IWU 102
MacMurray 62

The Titans led 51-20 at the half, and then went on a 16-4 run in the first 4 minutes of the 2nd to go up 43 with 16:00 to play.  IWU's JV team played the final 12:00 or so. 

It's safe to say MacMurray (picked to finish 2nd in the SLIAC) was overmatched talent-wise coming in, but IWU must have played awfully well this evening.  It's great to see this completely new nucleus, with so many players who were not on the floor last year, come together so quickly.

Dan Oswald, who scored 16 points in a 10-minute stretch during mop-up time, was IWU's leading scorer.  Before the regulars left, it was another balanced scoring effort from the Titans - Kevin Reed, Andrew Ziemnik, Stephen Rudnicki, Eric Dortch, and Victor Davis all seemed to have their names called multiple times on the WJBC broadcast.

It's still hard to know what to make of this IWU team, but one thing is certain - the Titans are really deep.  The last few years you knew exactly where the offense was going to come from, and how the offense was going to flow (into Sexauer, out to Johnson and Zimmer) - this year, listening to the radio, you hear a random assortment of guys putting points on the board from a random assortment of places on the floor.

The Titans get the winner of Illinois College vs Manchester tomorrow.  (My money is on Manchester in that one.)

[iwu70]

AndOne, thanks for your kind words.  IWU JV looks very good, fun to watch.  And the JV squad got to play tonight in the Varsity game at MacMurray, for about 12 minutes too!  Musselman played well again tonight.   Overstreet too.

Not much mystery to the varsity outcome -- 102-62.  And to think we thought the Titans would have difficulty finding offense.  Lots of talent . . . Dan Oswald gets 16 pts. in 15 minutes.  Leading scorer.  "New level of intensity" as Oswald put it in the post-game interview.  Good energy.

Manchester will be a greater challenge.  2-0 -- good start.

IWU70

[hickory_cornhusker]

Carthage dominates Martin Luther in the first game of Carroll's Johnson Bank Tip Off Tournament 82-51. They play the winner of the Carroll and Marian game tomorrow at 3.

[WheatonFanChris]

Was excited to watch Wheaton v. Beloit online only to find that women's soccer (wash u v. st. benedict) has replaced it on wetn. Ugh. Having moved out of state this year, I'm really hoping the new team of Wheaton announcers comes together quickly to bring us the action all year long.

For those wondering, Jon Demoss has suffered a high ankle sprain, not sure about a timetable for his return.

[augiefan]

North Park bounced back with a 54-52 win over UW Eau Claire tonight. Not one of the top WIAC teams, but still a good win given the competition between the CCIW and the WIAC over which conference is the best in DIII basketball.

The Wheaton-Beloit game is on Gametracker. The CCIW site also ondicates there is a video feed for the game.

[MoEv27]

Which is preferred...a team that knows where their offensive production is going to come from...or a team that has random guys step up from game to game?

[augiefan]

Wheaton 34 Beloit 18 late in the first half.

[Titan Q]

The Titans get the winner of Illinois College vs Manchester tomorrow.  (My money is on Manchester in that one.)

Glad I did not bet.  Illinois College handed it to Manchester, 66-43...

http://www.sidearmstats.com/illinois/mbball/index.htm

This surprises me - MC won the HCAC last year (a league that is better than the MWC) and has some key players back, including HCAC Player of the Year Jordan Moss and 6-10 center Jason Spindler.  The Spartans have good size and balance...I did not see them getting handled like this by the Blueboys.

Illinois College was led by 6-4 So F Brandon Berry (18 pts, 8 reb), 6-4 Sr F Craig Bals (17 pts, 7 reb), and 6-0 So G Zeke Light (14 pts, 4 assists).

This was IC's first real game.  They lost by 8 to Division I Western Illinois in exhibition play on Nov 9. 

[WheatonFanChris]

Wheaton 81
Beloit 44

This one was never close. The Thunder were up by 10 within the first five minutes and never looked back. McCrary had his way all game long and Schauer was able to sit him for a large chunk of the 2nd half. I haven't seen Tyler Peters in person this year, but according to the announcers, he threw down a monster dunk demonstrating his growth both in height and athleticism. Hard to take too much from this one, but the first real challenge of the year appears to be tomorrow night against Wilmington, which Coach Schauer reported to be much more athletic than his side.

Wheaton shot 60% from the field, and McCrary led with 19 (8-11 fg), 6 boards and 6 assists in 28 minutes followed by Peters, Garriott and Schultze in double figures.

One stat which is a change from last year is that Wheaton won the rebounding battle 44-23. Hopefully that is a sign of some more toughness, etc for when the Landon Gambles of the world appear on the other end of the court.

[tjcummingsfan]

I was shocked to look this morning and see that NP had won, they were down 19-34 at the half and I was expecting it to be ugly.  Glad to see they bounced back against a team from a significant conference, even if it isn't one of the best the WIAC has. 

[tomt4525]

North Park bounced back with a 54-52 win over UW Eau Claire tonight. Not one of the top WIAC teams, but still a good win given the competition between the CCIW and the WIAC over which conference is the best in DIII basketball.

The Wheaton-Beloit game is on Gametracker. The CCIW site also ondicates there is a video feed for the game.

Not a knock on North Park at all as it is a win against a WIAC team like you say, but Eau Claire is awful this year.  They were bad last year and lost their best players from that squad.

[AndOne]

North Central's offense and defense both sputtered out of the gate last night in the Cardinals 2011-2012 season opener against Blackburn College in Naperville, allowing the visitors to run out to an early 13-4 advantage. After a pit stop and some adjustments, Derek Raridon hit a pair of jumpers, followed by a CJ Goldthree 3 to cut into the deficit. NCC eventually took a 21-20 lead on freshman Mike Boyd's first shot of his collegiate career, a 3 pointer from downtown. Two Goldthree free throws and a Landon Gamble layup and one resulted in a 26-20 advantage, the Cardinals having completed a 22-7 run over a seven minute span.  NCC eventually carried a 50-43 advantage into the locker room at the half.

Blackburn came out firing to begin the 2nd stanza and took there lead at 56-53 after 3 straight 3 pointers. They bumped their advantage up to 62-55 at the 14:17 mark after 2 more threes. Aaron Tiknis followed with a 3 of his own and Charlie Rosenberg's tip-in brought the Cards back to within 2 points at 62-60, but the visitors bumped their lead back up to 68-63 with 8:48 left. A Gamble FT, another Boyd 3, and two Raridon FTs gave NCC the lead at 69-68. After Blackburn tied things at 68, Tiknis and Boyd drilled consecutive threes to give the Cards a 75-69 edge. They then tacked on another 7 points including 4 straight  Derek Raridon FTs to run out to a 82-69 lead with only 2:43 left. The Cardinals then maintained at least a 9 point lead the rest of the way, ending with 91-78 victory after a Blackburn 3 at the final buzzer.

For the night, the Cardinals had 5 men in double figures. They were led by Derek Raridon's 22 and CJ Goldthree's 19. Landon Gamble had 16 points and registered a double-double with 14 rebounds. Aaron Tiknis, a new starter for the Cardinals this year, added 13 with a line of 4/6 (3/4), and 2/2, and Mike Boyd began his college career with a perfect evening by hitting all three of his 3 point attempts and banking both of his charity tosses for an 11 point total.

NCC really won this game on the boards and at the line. They won the battle on the boards by a whopping 44-27 margin, and hit more FTs than Blackburn attempted (22), making 34 of 43, highlighted by a perfect 14 of 14 by Derek Raridon who tied the all time NCC record for FT accuracy in a single game. Also noteworthy was his 4 assists as opposed to 0 TOs, an achievement not lost on the head coach or a certain assistant. 

[hopefan]

Andone, IllWes posters... any input on why Steve White of Blackburn didn't play (was he present on the bench?  he is a good big man and would have helped vs the NC rebounding advantage),  or why Dylan Burton got only 4 minutes for Mac (was there an obvious injury or attitude problem?)    Thanks