MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[iwu70]

Summer return, IWU update, quickly:

New classroom building on the Quad almost finished, at least the exterior. Now outfitting.  Will be really nice.
Cornerstone laying at Homecomnig this year, in October, finalization and official opening for fall, 2013.  Replaced the old Sheean Library as the anchor building, north side of the Ecklely QUAD.
Quad was torn up for geo-thermal heating/cooling system, so now needs re-sodding, re-seeding.
Football, freshmen, ALANA, and international students all in this weekend, full freshmen orientation starts 8/21
Green / White scrimmage today.  I could not attend.  Exhibition scrimmage with Benedictine next week. 
Titans open on 9/1 at home.  Very soon. 
Soccer is in Costa Rica playing 4 games.  Volleyball, soccer, cross-country, lots of other athletes all back.
Looking forward to another great season and hopefully another national title, Final Fours, top achievements. 
More links with Asian universities, some new faculty and student exchanges.  All good.
Lots of renovations, repairs, street-resurfacing around campus.  Look'in up, look'in good. 
New apartment style housing soon to be constructed, two buildings -- near the Hedding Gate, east on Empire.
To keep more upper classmen on campus, in University housing.
Looks like enrolments will hold up pretty well, perhaps just shy of the overall goal, usually about 2050 students
More women than men.
About 80+ international students -- many of them superb! -- still need about 200 on campus, IMHO.
No big changes in the IWU coaching staff, as far as I've seen, save for Steinbruck's retirement, departure. 
Mia Smith looking good, shorter hair, looking very healthy these days.  Thank God.

I'm sure there's more, but that's a short IWU update . . . a few items as we begin the new academic cycle.

Faculty are really doing lots of good stuff, creating new courses, doing more thematic, inter-disciplinary cooperation, programs, courses.  I have great respect for the academic program at IWU. 

Tenth year anniversary of the Ames Library, one of the finest liberal arts college libraries in the country.  Without doubt.   My home when at IWU.

Let the games begin.

IWU70

[NCF]

I have no problem with a freshman or jc transfer coming in and having the same opportunity to be a starter. One year transfers, however are a different story.

Why? What's the difference? The effect is the same: Newbie shows up, newbie wins the job over a returnee. In terms of next season there's a difference, because the one-year transfer won't be around anymore, whereas the freshman and the multi-year transfer will be back. But you're talking about morale, and I'm talking about winning games with what's on the current roster, and those are both matters of the present, not the future.

Why? Because we don't see this (or the roster issue) in the same light. That's the beauty of the boards, to express our individual opinions without degrading each other. I understand you viewpoint-I just don't agree with it. If we all agreed on every issue the boards would Boring.

I think a difference might be in - communications, commitment, expectations and institutional integrity.  What were your current players told regarding transfer situtations?  Did you  make any commitments or set expectations regarding transfers and/or playing time?  Do you have the support of your athletic director, admissions department and executives? 

If the focus is on winning games in the present, then a coach is short sighted, looking for greener pastures and does not have a program - the coach just has a one season or less approach.  And, if the athletic director and/or  executive management support a one season approach, the institution is not likely to be successful.

Completely agree, great post.

[NCF]

Summer return, IWU update, quickly:

New classroom building on the Quad almost finished, at least the exterior. Now outfitting.  Will be really nice.
Cornerstone laying at Homecomnig this year, in October, finalization and official opening for fall, 2013.  Replaced the old Sheean Library as the anchor building, north side of the Ecklely QUAD.
Quad was torn up for geo-thermal heating/cooling system, so now needs re-sodding, re-seeding.
Football, freshmen, ALANA, and international students all in this weekend, full freshmen orientation starts 8/21
Green / White scrimmage today.  I could not attend.  Exhibition scrimmage with Benedictine next week. 
Titans open on 9/1 at home.  Very soon. 
Soccer is in Costa Rica playing 4 games.  Volleyball, soccer, cross-country, lots of other athletes all back.
Looking forward to another great season and hopefully another national title, Final Fours, top achievements. 
More links with Asian universities, some new faculty and student exchanges.  All good.
Lots of renovations, repairs, street-resurfacing around campus.  Look'in up, look'in good. 
New apartment style housing soon to be constructed, two buildings -- near the Hedding Gate, east on Empire.
To keep more upper classmen on campus, in University housing.
Looks like enrolments will hold up pretty well, perhaps just shy of the overall goal, usually about 2050 students
More women than men.
About 80+ international students -- many of them superb! -- still need about 200 on campus, IMHO.
No big changes in the IWU coaching staff, as far as I've seen, save for Steinbruck's retirement, departure. 
Mia Smith looking good, shorter hair, looking very healthy these days.  Thank God.

I'm sure there's more, but that's a short IWU update . . . a few items as we begin the new academic cycle.

Faculty are really doing lots of good stuff, creating new courses, doing more thematic, inter-disciplinary cooperation, programs, courses.  I have great respect for the academic program at IWU. 

Tenth year anniversary of the Ames Library, one of the finest liberal arts college libraries in the country.  Without doubt.   My home when at IWU.

Let the games begin.

IWU70

Lots happening down in Bloomington this summer. Nice update.

[Gregory Sager]

I have no problem with a freshman or jc transfer coming in and having the same opportunity to be a starter. One year transfers, however are a different story.

Why? What's the difference? The effect is the same: Newbie shows up, newbie wins the job over a returnee. In terms of next season there's a difference, because the one-year transfer won't be around anymore, whereas the freshman and the multi-year transfer will be back. But you're talking about morale, and I'm talking about winning games with what's on the current roster, and those are both matters of the present, not the future.

Why? Because we don't see this (or the roster issue) in the same light. That's the beauty of the boards, to express our individual opinions without degrading each other. I understand you viewpoint-I just don't agree with it. If we all agreed on every issue the boards would Boring.

I think a difference might be in - communications, commitment, expectations and institutional integrity.  What were your current players told regarding transfer situtations?

Why should they need to be told anything? We're not talking about kindergarteners here. Nobody ought to have to hold the hand of a returning player. It should always be understood by a student-athlete that he or she has no foresworn right to a starting position or to playing time, and that such things are completely at the disposal of the head coach. Every returning player should automatically take it on faith that the coaches will be bringing in newbies who can displace him or her next season.

Did you  make any commitments or set expectations regarding transfers and/or playing time?

The coach has nobody to blame but him- or herself if he or she is foolish enough to make an explicit promise to a returning player that the coach later fails to uphold, causing the returnee to leave the program due to the broken promise. As I said, it should always be a given in sports that a player can lose his position or his minutes to a newbie if the newbie proves good enough to take it away from the returnee. That's the sensible position for any coach to take. Does this mean that an All-CCIW player's job is in jeopardy next year? Probably not. Does this mean that a coach can't discuss "next year's team" with a returning player in the speculative sense? Of course he can. The implication that things can change between now and then should always be mutually understood. But any explicit promise made by a coach in this regard that ties his hands later on, even a promise made to a returning All-CCIW player, is foolish. It should always be a given in every program that nobody's job is guaranteed next year. Complacency is the enemy of success. And every coach needs to constantly seek to improve his lineup in whatever way he can.

Do you have the support of your athletic director, admissions department and executives?

I don't get your point. The newbie wouldn't even be there if it wasn't for the admissions department, right? And the AD and whomever ranks higher on the institutional chain of command should have given the coach in question a definite set of parameters and expectations regarding recruiting when the coach was hired.

If the focus is on winning games in the present, then a coach is short sighted, looking for greener pastures and does not have a program - the coach just has a one season or less approach.

Nope. I completely disagree.

Read what I wrote yesterday, '70. There has never been a CCIW team that had more than a single one-year transfer on the roster for as long as I've followed this league, and I go back as far as the late 1970s. We're not talking about a sea change in coaching methodology from a program-building mindset, or a program-maintaining mindset, to a win-once-and-get-another-job mindset. We're talking about one freakin' player here. Your diagnosis does not match the reality of the past thirty years of CCIW basketball.

And, if the athletic director and/or  executive management support a one season approach, the institution is not likely to be successful.

A moot point, since no CCIW coach to my knowledge has ever rolled the dice on a one-season approach while simultaneously saying, "To hell with next year and the year after that."

[AndOne]

Article on the North Central Cardinals recent 10 day trip to Italy.
Exceptionally great trip with the opportunity to experience a multitude of historical sites.
Wound up playing only one game in Rome as the opponents did not show up for the scheduled game in Florence.
Evidently, the Florence team had received a communique from Rome prior to the scheduled tipoff warning of Cardinal Power!     

http://www.northcentralcardinals.com/news/2012/8/21/MBB_0821124842.aspx

[Gregory Sager]

It's Italy, Mark. They've been dealing with cardinals for a thousand years over there.

I do hope that the NCC players got a lot out of that trip, even though they were only able to play one game. Italy is one of those places that everyone should get a chance to see at least once in his or her lifetime, particularly Florence and Rome.

[NCF]

It's Italy, Mark. They've been dealing with cardinals for a thousand years over there.

I do hope that the NCC players got a lot out of that trip, even though they were only able to play one game. Italy is one of those places that everyone should get a chance to see at least once in his or her lifetime, particularly Florence and Rome.

Yea, but those Cardinals can't play basketball!

[D-3 watcher]

Sweet sixteen

[Gregory Sager]

It's Italy, Mark. They've been dealing with cardinals for a thousand years over there.

I do hope that the NCC players got a lot out of that trip, even though they were only able to play one game. Italy is one of those places that everyone should get a chance to see at least once in his or her lifetime, particularly Florence and Rome.

Yea, but those Cardinals can't play basketball!

... and Todd Raridon can't excommunicate anybody or launch an inquisition.

[NCF]

It's Italy, Mark. They've been dealing with cardinals for a thousand years over there.

I do hope that the NCC players got a lot out of that trip, even though they were only able to play one game. Italy is one of those places that everyone should get a chance to see at least once in his or her lifetime, particularly Florence and Rome.

Yea, but those Cardinals can't play basketball!

... and Todd Raridon can't excommunicate anybody or launch an inquisition.

Well, he could excommunicate someone but only the NCAA could launch an inquisition:)

[NCF]

Here we are less than TWO weeks from kick-off and the basketball board STILL see more action than the football board!?

[matblake]

Wheaton announces Matt Nadelhoffer to be inducted into Hall of Honor.
http://athletics.wheaton.edu/news/2012/8/24/GEN_12hoh.aspx?path=gen

[Gregory Sager]

MB, you forgot to mention that Bill Harris is going in with him.

[Dennis_Prikkel]

nice visit with new NPU coach Tom Slyder this afternoon.  I wish him a lot of luck - he'll need it.

[AndOne]

NORTH CENTRAL 2012-2013 NON-CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

11/16 vs ?*
11/17---Hope (27-2)*
11/20---Aurora (13-13)
11/24---Carroll (17-10)
12/1 @ Trine (15-11)
12/2 @ Kalamazoo (8-17)
12/8---Simpson (12-14)
12/11---UW-Platteville (14-12)
12/15 @ Benedictine (13-14)
12/28 vs Ramapo (18-9)#
12/29 vs UW-LaCrosse (17-10)#

* NCC/Mariott Tip-Off Tournament
# D3Hoops.com Classic in Las Vegas

The listed teams went a combined 154-112 last season (57.9%).