MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

Very interesting, and very thorough.  It's evident why you prefer NPU to WC, perhaps as a matter of a recruiting pitch,

If that was a recruiting pitch I gave, it was the worst one in history. I was pretty up-front about where I think that NPU students and alumni have misunderstood Wheaton, and I think that I was candid about the fact that we Parkers have feet of clay, too, when it comes to taking an arrogant stance towards another Christian school.

It wasn't a recruiting pitch. It was an attempt, to the best of my ability, to answer your question thoroughly and fairly, just as I tried to do for Wheaton football alumnus DIIIinVA four years ago.

but I'm not sure where that translates to animosity or would put WC on equal footing with Coach G.  I was expecting something like, "I don't like Wheaton because a group of Wheaton students beat me up when I was 16 and I've never forgiven them."

It doesn't put Wheaton on equal footing with Coach Giovanine. You're taking me much too literally. To me, it seemed like such an obvious attempt at humor to say that I wished Giovanine coached Wheaton that I didn't even bother to put an emoticon on it. My bad, I guess.

I really don't think that you "get" the rivalry. That's OK. You're not the first Wheaton person with whom I've had this conversation who still can't put it together even after it's been spelled out for them. There's no crime in that. Some people are just too nice to truly understand rivalries, and that's not exactly a character flaw.

(That's not a generalization aimed at all Wheaton folks, by the way. Lots and lots of them understand rivalries. Wheaton shares very intense rivalries with NPU on the soccer pitch and with NCC on the football field, for example.)

Sounds like a good old rivalry to me. 
In major doctrine unity, in minor doctrine understanding, and in all things love (just not sports!).

Well said, tooold.

[Gregory Sager]

PS  The whole handshake situation can be seen On Demand as well...

http://client.stretchinternet.com/client/iwu.portal#

1:54:00 or so the final shot sequence starts.  At 1:54:38 Coach Feeney talks to Victor to make sure he apologizes to Coach G...and then you can see what happens from there.

The sequence ends with, it appears, Coach G in an exchange with Coach Feeney.

#cciwdrama

Seriously - what was that?! It didn't look like Coaches G and Feeney were in an exchange... that looked like it was getting heated. Listen... I am sure Coach G yelled in his ear on purpose when he shot it - I see coaches do that kind of thing all the time, much to my surprise (and not necessarily to my approval)... and Victor decided to get one back - so be it. If you can't take it... don't dish it. But to skip a player at the handshakes 30 some-odd-minutes of basketball later... and then have the balls to tell the opposing coach apparently why you didn't shake his hand... well... grow up. I am surprised the school, conference, and even refs haven't had enough. I know they are all used to it... but when you give more leash... the more will be taken. Here is hoping maturity prevails in the end.

Maturity, shmaturity. Dave Feeney should've followed Tim Bernero's example and given Grey a noogie.

[Gregory Sager]

But, what I loved was the camera clearly showing G immediately pleading for a T or some other form of relief for Victor having the audacity to answer G's statement with one of his own. Its like "I'm GG, he can't say anything to me."   

Players shouldn't talk to opposing coaches during live action, no matter what the opposing coach may be yelling about him to his team. They especially shouldn't taunt opposing coaches. Ron Rose and Dave Feeney were entirely correct to instruct Victor Davis to apologize.

[bopol]

But, what I loved was the camera clearly showing G immediately pleading for a T or some other form of relief for Victor having the audacity to answer G's statement with one of his own. Its like "I'm GG, he can't say anything to me."   

Players shouldn't talk to opposing coaches during live action, no matter what the opposing coach may be yelling about him to his team. They especially shouldn't taunt opposing coaches. Ron Rose and Dave Feeney were entirely correct to instruct Victor Davis to apologize.

Is blowing kisses ok?

Let's face it; the guy's a loudmouth.  I don't really understand why it's ok for him act like a clown, but the players are supposed to maintain their composure. 

[Mr. Ypsi]

But, what I loved was the camera clearly showing G immediately pleading for a T or some other form of relief for Victor having the audacity to answer G's statement with one of his own. Its like "I'm GG, he can't say anything to me."   

Players shouldn't talk to opposing coaches during live action, no matter what the opposing coach may be yelling about him to his team. They especially shouldn't taunt opposing coaches. Ron Rose and Dave Feeney were entirely correct to instruct Victor Davis to apologize.

Is blowing kisses ok?

Let's face it; the guy's a loudmouth.  I don't really understand why it's ok for him act like a clown, but the players are supposed to maintain their composure.

Because the players are expected to act like adults!  Can you imagine how quickly a player would be T'ed up for flinging his sport coat?!

[D-3 watcher]

Since I started this yesterday, let me say there are 2 sides to every story. There is no question, coach g did in fact yell when victor was getting ready to shoot. No question!
Before that play occurred, g also was calling out to the refs that #32 was a dirty payer and they need to keep an eye on him. G didn't call the ref over and talk to him, he yelled it so as to make sure Victor heard all this, trying to get into his head.
Nothing new here, that's g.
While Victor is a very physical player, I do not think he is dirty. Most teams have a player that gets under the skin of opposing teams fans, there are quite a few in the CCIW, but while you might not like them, you wouldn't mind them on your team.
I don't know what if anything Victor said, there was a gesture for sure, maybe he shouldn't have done anything, I'm not going to judge him, hopefully next time he will just give him a wink and a smile.

[augiefan]

I think we can all agree Coach G is a good coach, who is also a real jerk in his courtside demeanor in the great tradition of Bob Knight and Gene Keady.  He does embarass himself and to a certain extent the program at some point every year. Not shaking hands with Victor is inexcusable for the supposed adult in the room.

All I can say is I am unapologetic in my loyalty to the players that represent Augie, as I have not seen any of them demonstrate bad sportmanship, and despite Coach G's spoiled child behavior, there is no other program in the once proud Augie athletic department that comes close to the success of the MBB team since G arrived in Rock Island. The rest of the underachieving sports at Augie, particularly the FB team,  could learn some lessons in winning attitude from the MBB program.

[CCIWchamps]

It doesn't put Wheaton on equal footing with Coach Giovanine. You're taking me much too literally. To me, it seemed like such an obvious attempt at humor to say that I wished Giovanine coached Wheaton that I didn't even bother to put an emoticon on it. My bad, I guess.

I really don't think that you "get" the rivalry. That's OK. You're not the first Wheaton person with whom I've had this conversation who still can't put it together even after it's been spelled out for them. There's no crime in that. Some people are just too nice to truly understand rivalries, and that's not exactly a character flaw.

(That's not a generalization aimed at all Wheaton folks, by the way. Lots and lots of them understand rivalries. Wheaton shares very intense rivalries with NPU on the soccer pitch and with NCC on the football field, for example.)

Intensely disliking a rival makes sense.  I thought you were taking the long route PAST rivalry and you hated Wheaton on other actual reasons and I got confused.  Saying you hate 'em because they are in the CCIW is all the explanation I need. 

The bigger question is... does Wheaton consider NPU a rival in basketball?  I mean, NCC or IWU or Wash U maybe....   

[Mr. Ypsi]

It doesn't put Wheaton on equal footing with Coach Giovanine. You're taking me much too literally. To me, it seemed like such an obvious attempt at humor to say that I wished Giovanine coached Wheaton that I didn't even bother to put an emoticon on it. My bad, I guess.

I really don't think that you "get" the rivalry. That's OK. You're not the first Wheaton person with whom I've had this conversation who still can't put it together even after it's been spelled out for them. There's no crime in that. Some people are just too nice to truly understand rivalries, and that's not exactly a character flaw.

(That's not a generalization aimed at all Wheaton folks, by the way. Lots and lots of them understand rivalries. Wheaton shares very intense rivalries with NPU on the soccer pitch and with NCC on the football field, for example.)

Intensely disliking a rival makes sense.  I thought you were taking the long route PAST rivalry and you hated Wheaton on other actual reasons and I got confused.  Saying you hate 'em because they are in the CCIW is all the explanation I need. 

The bigger question is... does Wheaton consider NPU a rival in basketball?  I mean, NCC or IWU or Wash U maybe....   

Probably not anymore (aside from from very recently in soccer, they mostly seem to pretend that NPU doesn't exist, which I think is a real reason NPU resents Wheaton), but historically they probably once did.  Never forget the history: Wheaton was so overwhelmingly dominant in both football and men's basketball in the 50s that they were 'invited' to leave the conference.  Then in roughly the 80s, NPU won 5 of the 6 national (D3) titles that conference teams have ever won - since THEY were not 'invited to leave', that may have irked a bit.  But the recent non-contender status of NPU basketball (and the lack of EVER being a contender in football) has probably dropped them back to 'Who?' status in the perception of many from Wheaton.

But Greg is vastly more qualified (obviously) to respond, so not quite sure why I did!   Just thought I'd share what I think I've learned from many years of CCIW Chat (as this board will ALWAYS be known to me).

[Gregory Sager]

Intensely disliking a rival makes sense.  I thought you were taking the long route PAST rivalry and you hated Wheaton on other actual reasons and I got confused.  Saying you hate 'em because they are in the CCIW is all the explanation I need. 

The bigger question is... does Wheaton consider NPU a rival in basketball?  I mean, NCC or IWU or Wash U maybe....   

I think it'd be a stretch to say that I hate Wheaton. This is just me, of course, but I think that the word "hate" has a really serious side to it that I'd rather avoid. Yeah, the word gets trivialized just as much as does "love"; e.g., "I hate having to go out in the rain," or "I hate it when my favorite TV show gets pre-empted by a special news bulletin." But I'm content to say that I have strong but ambivalent feelings towards the institution itself ("respect" being one of those feelings), an intense, white-hot dislike for its' sports teams, and a generally open-minded and neutral feeling towards its' students, alumni, and fans.

I don't think that Wheaton considers NPU a rival in anything other than soccer. Baseball, perhaps, but Wheaton's so indifferent towards its' own baseball team (on more than one level) that any such rivalry would only be felt by the Wheaton baseball players and coaches themselves ... and they might be more inclined to point in the direction of, say, Carthage or Illinois Wesleyan than North Park. Those two baseball programs have been good for longer and more consistent periods of time than has NPU, although the Vikings have managed to get under a lot of CCIW baseball people's skins over the past few seasons.

But there's two types of rivalry: Program rivalry and institutional rivalry. As far as Wheaton folks are concerned, Wheaton's rivalries (soccer vs. NPU, football vs. NCC, basketball vs. NCC and IWU, etc.) are program rivalries. They're entirely dependent upon the ongoing success of the respective programs in order to foster the antipathy that's a necessary condition for a rivalry (although the football rivalry is helped out by the fact that Wheaton and NCC play for a traveling trophy every fall). NPU's feelings towards Wheaton are those of an institutional rivalry. Calvin's feelings towards Hope, and vice-versa, are those of an institutional rivalry. There doesn't need to be an athletic event on the docket for people's hackles to be raised by the other school in question. I don't get the impression that Wheaton people feel that they have an institutional rivalry with any other school. That's partly what sets off Parkers; they want their ire towards Wheaton to be reciprocated, and, except where soccer is concerned, it isn't.

As far as basketball is concerned, there's never been a basketball rivalry in Wheaton's eyes. The two programs have never been good at the same time. When North Park's been up on the hardwood, Wheaton's been down, and vice-versa. Of course, from NPU's point of view, basketball games are just another good excuse to yell unpleasant stuff at athletes from that orange-colored school in DuPage County.

[John Gleich]

Is it now safe to say, that there will not be a team go thru the conference undefeated.

Bosko mentioned this on the Carthage postgame last night.  He said something like, "There is a very good chance this will be the 40th consecutive season without an undefeated CCIW team.  There just isn't another league that can say that."

I've heard Bosko reference this stat a lot of times over the years.  It's obvious that this is one of the things about the CCIW he appreciates and respects the most.

Bosko's like one of the '72 Miami Dolphins. I swear that he breaks out a bottle of champagne every season when the last remaining undefeated CCIW team loses.

I wonder how true this is of other leagues that historically aren't top-heavy, though.

Take, for instance, the SLIAC. There hasn't been a dominant team since... ever? I'm no SLIAC historian, so maybe I'm just too modernist to be useful here...

Or the NathCon. The history is so short that shouldn't be too difficult to find... and neither of those leagues have been particularly successful in Non-con action or in the NCAA tournament. I bothered to check this one, and, FWIW, Concordia of Mequon went undefeated in the north division in 2010-11 but every other division champ has had at least 2 losses.

For lack of a desire to have to think too hard, I'm not going to try to decide which leagues are most like the CCIW, at least in terms of parity...

For other "local" leagues, I know that St Thomas has gone undefeated in the MIAC (08-09, also 94/95... they went 20-0 and 24-0 overall, but didn't win the national title, Platteville did... sounds like there's more of a story there, perhaps? -- it looks like the story is that their overall record is just wrong: http://d3hoops.com/archives/men/1995). St Johns also went undefeated in 78-79, as did UST in '65-66. So, once a decade or so.

Aside - I never knew that Hamline was such an NAIA powerhouse.

In the MWC, Larry U went undefeated in 05-06, as did St Norbert in 01-02, Ripon went undefeated in the north division in 97-98, Monmouth in the south divion in 89-90, Beloit in the east division in 80-81, Coe in 75-76 and also earlier in the 70's (forgot the year, closed the window and you can't make me go back to look!    ).

The WIAC has won 10 national titles and two of those had undefeated champs (Bo Ryan's '94-'95 National Champs and the '97-'98 champs). Prior to that, you have to go back to the early 70's. Eau Claire went 16-0 in back-to-back years and they made it to the Elite 8 and were national runners up of the NAIA tournament in those years.


I suppose I could go look at the IIAC, actually look at the SLIAC, maybe the UAA, other notable conferences (ODAC, NESCAC - though they only play single round-robin... not apples-to-apples, the MIAA, the OAC) etc etc etc...


But I'm not sure what, if anything, it would actually show.


Perhaps it would show that the CCIW really IS unique.

But what is the uniqueness? Is it just the parity? It likely can't be quality in and of itself... because, as Platteville showed, one team can just be just a little bit better than everyone else while there was still lots of parity elsewhere (they won the league by 4 and 5 games those two years, so everybody was beating each other up).

And furthermore, a really bad league can have lots of parity but just because the teams aren't good... and can't finish out games that they should win. I'm not sure that this would be something to be celebrated... and I understand that's not Bosko's point... But just trying to get behind the real depth of the conversation.


One more thing... there was something weird about the early 70's. In my light research, lots of conferences had teams that went undefeated at least once between 70-74. Strange!

[Titan Q]

Massey has 4 CCIW teams in the top 20 right now...

http://masseyratings.com/rate.php?lg=cb&yr=2013&sub=11620

#7 North Central
#8 Augustana
#15 Illinois Wesleyan
#18 Wheaton

#74 Carthage
#181 Millikin
#257 North Park
#262 Elmhurst

[Gregory Sager]

One more thing... there was something weird about the early 70's. In my light research, lots of conferences had teams that went undefeated at least once between 70-74. Strange!

The 1971-72 school year was when the NCAA first allowed freshmen to participate on varsity basketball teams after decades of ruling them ineligible. A connection, perhaps?

[sac]

Millikin>North Park>UW LaCrosse>UW Eau Claire>Ashford>Warner>Rio Grande>Campbell>UNC-Wilmington> Wofford>Xavier>Butler>Indiana

[Gregory Sager]

I think we can all agree Coach G is a good coach, who is also a real jerk in his courtside demeanor in the great tradition of Bob Knight and Gene Keady.  He does embarass himself and to a certain extent the program at some point every year. Not shaking hands with Victor is inexcusable for the supposed adult in the room.

All I can say is I am unapologetic in my loyalty to the players that represent Augie, as I have not seen any of them demonstrate bad sportmanship, and despite Coach G's spoiled child behavior, there is no other program in the once proud Augie athletic department that comes close to the success of the MBB team since G arrived in Rock Island. The rest of the underachieving sports at Augie, particularly the FB team,  could learn some lessons in winning attitude from the MBB program.

This brings up an interesting question: Has the Augustana administration chosen to overlook Grey Giovanine's behavior because of his success? There is no question that he has been a resoundingly successful coach at Augie in terms of wins and losses; his teams have won seven more games in conference play and won two more titles than has any other CCIW program during his tenure. (Augie's also won more CCIW tourney games and CCIW tourney titles than anyone else, and it's the only program that has appeared in all seven CCIW tourneys.) This past twelve seasons, starting with Giovanine's second year at the helm, Augie's finished with a CCIW mark of 9-5 or better every season. That matches Illinois Wesleyan's mark of twelve straight seasons with four or more CCIW wins than losses (1990-2001), and ranks only behind North Park's fifteen-year streak (1978-92). Although his postseason record (6-4) is not what Augie fans would like it to be, during Januarys and Februarys he's been the league's premier coach over the past dozen seasons.

Or perhaps a better question is this: Has the Augustana administration chosen to overlook his behavior because his success is in stark contrast to the results posted by his AC athletic department colleagues during a down period in Augie's illustrious sports history?