MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[iwu70]

IWU 76-70 over NPU.  Whew! 

Zimmer 21
Davis career high 20, 9 boards
Rudnicki 11, and again good FT shooting down the stretch

Holmes 23
Crosby 14

NP ended on a great run, getting to within 2, but then fell just short. 

Way too many TOs, for Titans, but plus 20 or so on rebounding, key to the game.  Great board work again by Davis and Reed. 
Poor games by Anderson and Gonzalez.  Dortch played well, made a contribution to the scoring sheet again. 

Scratched out road win in the CCIW.  No apologies, but not the Titans best performance.

Now comes Augie Tuesday night.  From the frying pan into the skillet.

Hope NCC can put a loss on Augie later tonight.

IWU70

[bopol]

Carthage defeated Millikin, 86-50.  Two things of note:

1) Carthage used full-court pressure effectively forcing 21 TOs.
2) No let-down in the 2nd half to let Millikin to start slipping back into the game.
3) Carthage was passing the ball as well as I've seen this year.

Of course, Carthage looked great and Millikin not so much so.  Hard to garner much information on individual from this game as Millikin doesn't seem to be very good.

[TitanPride]

Augie down 30-28 to NCC at half. Looking like this one will go right down to the wire.

[iwu70]

I hope NCC has a shot of putting a loss on Augie.  WC and Elmhurst a close game right now too.

IWU70

[Gregory Sager]

Wheaton came from behind down the stretch and put away Elmhurst, 67-55, at Faganel Hall. Somebody must've dosed Spencer Schultze's Gatorade bottle with some of that 5-Hour juice, because he scored 23 tonight, and I didn't think he was capable of coming anywhere close to scoring an Andy Jackson.

[Titan Q]

Final from Rock Island...

North Central 67
Augustana 62


Wow.

[iwu70]

Wow, good for NCC, taking down Augie.  My wishes coming true.

NCC proving they are coming back.

IWU70

[Gregory Sager]

Final from the QC:

North Central 67
Augie 62

Gotta tip your cap to NCC. The team has basically a two-man bench, and they were pounded on tonight by even more of a bruiseathon from Augie than usual, but they still found a way to beat the Doggies on the road. Fantastic performance by the Cards. They stayed in a zone and dared Augie to beat them from beyond the arc. Augie's shooting numbers say it all: 22-62 (36%) from the field, 8-34 (24%) from downtown, and Augie only got to the free-throw line 15 times.

[TitansIWU]

Wow, good for NCC, taking down Augie.  My wishes coming true.

NCC proving they are coming back.

IWU70

My wishes too, but I just hope this doesn't come back to bite us down the road!!!

[Gregory Sager]

My apologies for the lack of a broadcast from NPU today. This is, what, Rob ... twice now that we've been kept off the air by our new software? Man. Sidearm is supposed to be the gold standard for this sort of thing, but we've had nothing but trouble with their software. I don't know if any other schools have this problem with Sidearm, but North Park has really struggled with it --- and not just in terms of the broadcasting software, at that. According to our live stats input person, we've had trouble with the Sidearm live stats program, too.

The worst part is that we probably would've had a lot of people watching tonight. what with NPU still being on winter break. Five home games in the books now for the Park, and the students were on break for each one of them (two during Thanksgiving break, three during winter break). I've forgotten what college students who don't wear basketball uniforms look like.

[Titan Q]

The league very much has to be considered a 4-team race now - IWU, NCC, Augustana, and Wheaton are all very much "contenders."

[Titan Q]

Since I could not watch the IWU @ NPU game, I don't have much to add.  All I know is that IWU was up 20, and a few minutes later the lead was down to 2.  It was seriously dicey.

Hats off to North Park for the comeback.

Glad to come out of there with a road win.

[augie_superfan]

Final from the QC:

North Central 67
Augie 62

Gotta tip your cap to NCC. The team has basically a two-man bench, and they were pounded on tonight by even more of a bruiseathon from Augie than usual, but they still found a way to beat the Doggies on the road. Fantastic performance by the Cards. They stayed in a zone and dared Augie to beat them from beyond the arc. Augie's shooting numbers say it all: 22-62 (36%) from the field, 8-34 (24%) from downtown, and Augie only got to the free-throw line 15 times.

You're exactly right, they dared they to beat them from the arc.  Augie had a ton of open looks on those 3's and many of them weren't even close.  That is always going to be a worry with this team, where will the consistent scoring come from?

[Titan Q]

Illinois Wesleyan 2-0
North Central 2-0
Augustana 1-1
Carthage 1-1
Elmhurst 1-1
Wheaton 1-1
Millikin 0-2
North Park 0-2


Tuesday, Jan 10
Augustana @ Illinois Wesleyan
North Park @ Carthage
Elmhurst @ North Central
Millikin @ Wheaton

[Gregory Sager]

This afternoon's game at the crackerbox was truly bizarre. I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out how a team that can't shoot and can't rebound somehow almost made it all the way back from what had been a 20-point deficit with under ten minutes to go in the game. The best I can figure out is that NPU simply played with an energy and a desire that the Vikings just haven't shown much thus far this season. It wasn't as though Wesleyan got complacent, because the Titans kept doing all the little things well that they had done all day: Rebounding, setting screens, knocking down FTs. The difference is that NPU just seemed to play with a reckless abandon that somehow didn't lead to the turnovers and/or dumb shots that usually seem to occur when the Vikes flip the "reckless abandon" switch.

The Vikings chopped the 20-point lead down to two with two and a half minutes left on a trey by, of all people, Kendell Greer, a guy who really looked for most of the game as though there was someplace else he'd rather be. Greer has struggled mightily with his shot all season long, and when he hit that triple to bring what had been a 57-37 Wesleyan lead to 64-62, I thought that this might be the day that the basketball gods smiled on North Park. Unfortunately, the basketball gods help those who help themselves, and at that point NPU stopped helping itself. On their next three possessions the Vikings threw the ball out of bounds on a post entry pass; missed a wide-open trey from the right corner by Greer that was (naturally) rebounded by Wesleyan; and had a trey attempt from the top of the key by Mark Holmes roll all the way around the inside of the rim and then pop out. Meanwhile, IWU had hit a jumper and made four three throws while all this was going on to bump its lead back up to eight. Although the Vikings did manage to get the deficit back down to three in the final minute, IWU was good enough at the FT line to put it away. Kudos to the Titans for showing some composure down the stretch and staving off what would've been a crusher of a loss for them.

NPU's rebounding situation is a nightmare. I can't figure out how a team that has three very good big men consistently gets beat on the boards the way they do. Elmhurst outrebounded NPU by 13 the other nght, and today Wesleyan outrebounded NPU by 18. Give credit to Victor Davis, who did a great job on the boards for Wesleyan, but it sure would've been nice if the Vikings had ... oh, I don't know, maybe put a body on him a time or two? The rebounding fundamentals of the Vikings are terrible.

But the Vikings did some things well, too. Their 14:15 A:TO ratio was much better than Wesleyan's 9:18. Ro Russell (6 asts, 0 TOs) outplayed Eliud Gonzalez, even though he didn't score a single point. (Gonzalez didn't, either). Josh McNaughton (3 asts, 0 TO) again provided good energy off the bench, as did freshman Mike Rice. Mark Holmes (23 pts, 4-6 treys) was the star of the show down the stretch during the comeback attempt, and Mike Gabriel (17 pts, 5 rebs) was generally solid. Emanuel Crosby (14 pts) came to play tonight, unlike his there-in-name-only game on Wednesday at Elmhurst. The problem is, the Vikes just aren't getting the boards from these three guys that they need to get to stay competitive for forty minutes.

It was a very disappointing outcome, and in some senses it was even more disappointing because the Vikings fought back so hard and looked so determined after spending 30 minutes looking like a rec league team. If they could only take that 7 1/2 minute stretch when they whittled the 20-point deficit down to two and bottle it ...