MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[iwu70]

Q's assessment of the AC vs. NCC contest tonight sounds about right to me.

Hope the Titans play well, get to 4-0 in the league tonight.   Seems CC comes in with alot of confidence.

Strange move for Luke Johnson?  I thought he was headed for DI or DII?

Augie's Tayvian Johnson will be a very good CCIW player in time, IMHO.  Freshmen issues for sure and the better players around him so far, but I think he develops and becomes a very good CCIW player in the several years to come, especially if AC stays more uptempo, runs the floor more and shoots a higher percentage, as they are this year, from the perimeter.  He will have rough games this year, but much better later on . . .

Go Titans  . . . let's get to 4-0 early on here!!!

IWU70

[AndOne]

"Luke Johnson is a talented basketball player like so many kids of today who lives in a different world," Djurickovic said. "Luke Johnson sees himself as an NBA player. He sees himself as a Division I player. He thinks this is his best way to achieve those goals."

I'm told that former Carthage player Luke Johnson, a 6-9 forward, has enrolled at D3 Benedictine (in Lisle) and is expected to play today vs Edgewood.

So future NBA player Luke Johnson is now at Benedictine. Interesting. 

[Titan Q]

Luke Johnson now on the BU roster...

http://athletics.ben.edu/roster.aspx?path=mbb&;

[petemcb]

No chatter about it so far, but a really big game in Naperville tonight between #17 Augustana (2-1) and #1 North Central (2-1).  I've watched both teams several times now online.  If NCC is healthy I'd say the Cards are about a 9-point favorite at home. 

The last two Augie/NCC games at Gregory Arena have been incredibly physical (by all accounts), halfcourt grind-it-out type games:

2/9/11: NCC 50 Augustana 46
2/4/12: NCC 43 Augustana 41

This year I don't think the Vikings want that kind of game.  Augie doesn't really have the horses down low this year to win that kind of battle with the Cardinals.  I'm pretty sure Augie will try hard to speed the game up and make it less of a halfcourt grind type of game...which sounds strange to say.

This is a very different Augustana team, and not just because they're young.  This is a much more offensively skilled group than a lot of Coach G's teams.  After shooting .455 from the field in 2010-11 and .440 in 2011-12, the Vikings are .478 this year through 14 games.  Brandon Kunz is shooting an impressive .613 from the field from the 5 spot...Ben Ryan, who is a future 1st Team all-CCIW player, is at .556 and can score in a lot of different ways...starting guards Danielius Jurgutis and Brandon Thompson are knocking down 3's at a .405 and .538 clip respectively.

I'm not sure what to make of Augie's 6-6 freshman forward Tayvian Johnson yet.  Everytime I watch the Vikings, including Wednesday vs IWU, Johnson really struggles in shooting the basketball.  He doesn't seem to be a very good 15-18 foot jumpshooter, but those are the shots he seems to primarily take.  I never see him do much around the basket, or going to the basket from the perimeter.  Where fellow freshman forward Ben Ryan is a very polished, "CCIW ready" player, Johnson is much more raw at this point.  I'm guessing NCC is going to give Johnson plenty of chances to shoot the basketball tonight from the mid-range - he could be a key for Augie, a wildcard of sorts.

I see NCC winning this one fairly comfortably.  I think there is some pretty significant separation between these two teams, and in Naperville I'd be surprised if there's an upset.  In Rock Island I'd have the line at about NCC -3.

It will be interesting to see if Johnson and Rose shake hands after the game...... 

[mr_b]

Congratulations to the Vikings for their 76-68 win over Elmhurst!

[iwu70]

IWU over CC at the half, 43-28.  Sodemann with 16 first half points.

IWU70

[Mr. Ypsi]

Final in B'town: IWU 82, Carthage 65.

[magicman]

North Central wins 59-46 over Augustana.

[magicman]

Wheaton over Millikin 91-71.

[Titan Q]

IWU 82
Carthage 65

Box: http://www.iwusports.com/boxscore.aspx?id=1816&path=mbball

Pantagraph: http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/college/illinois-wesleyan/illinois-wesleyan-men-get-conference-victory-over-carthage/article_183eab40-5d36-11e2-9367-0019bb2963f4.html

Ron Rose WJBC postgame: http://www.stationcaster.com/player_skinned.php?s=711&c=3911&f=968111

* Pat Sodemann: 20 pts, 2 reb, 1 assists
* Brady Zimmer: 10 pts, 3 reb, 2 assists
* Victor Davis: 9 pts, 7 reb
* Dylan Overstreet: 8 pts, 8 assists

* Tyler Pierce: 22 pts, 3 reb

- FT: IWU 27-30
- Rebounds: IWU 39 Carthage 28


The Titans took care of business tonight against a severely over-matched Carthage team.  Pat Sodemann led the way in the first with 16 points. At 43-28 at the break it felt like IWU was in firm command and would have no trouble with the Red Men.  This easily could have been a 30+ point IWU win had the Titans not had a couple sloppy stretches in both halves.

I think the story for IWU continues to be the development of the backcourt.  The Titans played several non-conference games without Pat Sodemann and Brady Zimmer. Sophomore PG Dylan Overstreet was just setting into being a varsity player in the non-conference, let alone learning how to play the PG position full-time...which is not his natural position.  Tonight that trio combined for 38 points, 7 rebounds, and 11 assists.  They shot 6-10 from 3 cumulatively and 14-14 from the FT line.  With these three healthy and playing like this, IWU is a very good team.  This is a completely different IWU team than the one that lost to UW-Whitewater, Wash U, and Franklin in the non-conference.

Huge props to Carthage senior Tyler Pierce.  When he packed on all those pounds the last two years I was very critical of him.  It looks like he lost 25 or so heading into his senior year and just has a whole new determination about him.  He played hard tonight and with a lot of confidence.  He gave IWU a lot of problems in the 1st half.  In the second Ron Rose put Andrew Ziemnik on him, and Ziemnik contained him very effectively (Pierce had 16 at the half and finished with 22).  Heading into 2012-13 I thought Pierce might pack it in and forget about basketball.  I give him a lot of credit for obviously working hard in the off-season.

IWU is now 4-0 in the league with a game @ North Park Wednesday.

[Titan Q]

+/- standings through Saturday, January 12
Augustana +1
Illinois Wesleyan +1
Millikin +1
North Central +1
North Park +0
Carthage -1
Wheaton -1
Elmhurst -2

Wednesday, January 16
Millikin @ North Central
Illinois Wesleyan @ North Park
Carthage @ Elmhurst
Wheaton @ Augustana

[Titan Q]

Bosko's postgame comments...

http://athletics.carthage.edu/news/2013/1/12/Mens_Basketball_0112133314.aspx

"I thought we had things stabilized at the start of the second half," said Carthage coach Bosko Djurickovic, "but we broke down and rushed a couple of shots.  Frankly, we just didn't play well enough to beat a good team on the road.  They're an excellent basketball team, and their record speaks for that.  We have to play better to beat teams like this on the road.  Illinois Wesleyan has excellent depth, even though they don't have any 'wow' players.  They play with a very good purpose.  Meanwhile, our depth inside is just not there.  We're just our-manned against teams like Illinois Wesleyan with great size depth.  We had a good game plan against North Central and executed it.  Tonight, we had a good game plan but didn't execute.  We fell behind because of lack of attention to detail."

[Gregory Sager]

North Park 76
Elmhurst 68

Mark Holmes: 23 pts, 7 rebs
Aaron Weaver: 21 pts, 13 rebs
Zach Cassita: 5 asts

Nick Sanford: 19 pts, 9 rebs
D'Ante Foster: 11 pts
Alex Morgunov: 11 pts
Bryant Ackerman: 11 pts
Taylor Baxter: 10 pts, 6 asts

I cried because I had no shoes. And then I met a man who had no feet.

Tonight really put things into perspective as far as NPU is concerned. For as many missing parts as the Vikings have in their lineup, and for as badly as they've played over the past two weeks, they aren't nearly in critical condition to the degree that the Bluejays are. The Vikings dominated tonight's game for the most part, and if their star player hadn't had to spend most of the second half on the bench with four fouls NPU would've turned it into a rout.

The Vikings had a couple of big runs in the first half: A seven-minute-plus 15-0 run that turned a 7-2 deficit into a 17-7 lead; and a 10-0 run that expanded a narrow 26-25 lead to 36-25. The Vikes led by as much as 13 in the half, and went into the locker room up, 40-29.

The only fly in the ointment was that Mark Holmes picked up three fouls in the first half, and at the 16:42 mark of the second half with NPU up 47-38 he picked up foul #4. It was the ultimate "uh-oh" moment. How could North Park possibly hold a lead with its best player forced to sit on the bench for that long? Well, the fact that when he re-entered the game at the 4:35 mark the Vikings had actually expanded their lead slightly to ten points (65-55) tells you everything that you need to know about Elmhurst's ineptitude. Some of it was Aaron Weaver essentially taking over the game, some of it was really stout defense by the badly-outsized Vikings, but a lot of it was just Elmhurst's inability to run anything resembling a coherent offense. Mark Scherer insists on staying with a high-low look that, to my eyes at least, really doesn't afford him any advantages and doesn't put any of his players in a good position to make a play. The high-low may work for some teams, but it doesn't work for this one.

Eventually, after Holmes had fouled out, Elmhurst got hot from the outside by finally using its non-Sanford bigs for just about the only thing they're useful for -- setting screens on the perimeter -- and the 'jays three-balled their way back into it. They got as close as four points with 45 seconds left, but Weaver went 4-6 from the line from that point onward while the Vikings finally worked their way through the screens and forced the 'jays to launch their final three desperation treys from longer range, and all of them were misses.

The Vikings didn't play great, but they did play solidly. Fouls aside, Holmes had a great night -- 23 points in 23 minutes while only taking 11 FG attempts is a nicely economical performance -- and Weaver was terrific. Nobody else played really well, but all eleven Vikings who saw the floor chipped in at least a little. Nick Sanford, whom I greatly respect as a player, had a very strong night for EC, and Bryant Ackerman is clearly an up-and-coming freshman in this league, but they had limited help. Taylor Baxter didn't even score until there was 5:24 left in the game. Alex Morgunov didn't assert himself nearly as much as a player with such a tremendous size advantage should've done to help his team (on several occasions, the 6'9, 270 Morgunov was guarded in the low post by 6'1, 190 Brett Peterson), and D'Ante Foster, although he got hot towards the end, shot his team out of numerous chances to put a dent in the NPU lead by missing one attempt from the corner after another (it took him 15 attempts to get his 11 points). Elmhurst is just a bad team, no two ways about it.

NPU can savor this win for at least another 24 hours or so. Then it's back to the grind and to the harsh reality of where they really stand in the CCIW pecking order this season. But for one night it was good to finally play the bully again.

[Titan Q]

A look at some CCIW-only stats by position through 4 games.  Note, there are 66 players listed...only 13 are seniors.


PG (1)
(WC) Tyler Peters, 6-4 Jr - 18.5 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 4.8 apg, 1.5 A/TO
(MU) TJ Griffin, 6-0 Fr - 13.3 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 4.0 rpg, 1.2 A/TO
(EC) D'Ante Foster, 5-11 Sr - 10.3 ppg, 2.3 rpg, 2.5 apg, 0.6 A/TO
(AC) Danielius Jurgutis, 6-0 So - 8.8 ppg, 3.5 rpg, 1.3 apg, 0.6 A/TO
(CC) Donte Logan, 5-11 So - 8.5 ppg, 3.5 rpg, 5.0 apg, 1.3 A/TO
(NCC) Brandon Williams, 6-1 Jr - 8.0 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 2.3 apg, 0.6 A/TO
(NPU) Zach Cassita, 6-2 Sr - 7.3 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 3.0 apg, 0.7 A/TO
(IWU) Dylan Overstreet, 6-3 So - 7.0 ppg, 3.3 apg, 6.5 apg, 3.3 A/TO

SG (2)
(WC) Brayden Teuscher, 6-3 So - 14.5 ppg, 2.3 rpg 1.8 apg
(IWU) Pat Sodemann, 6-3 So - 13.3 ppg, 4.3 rpg, 0.5 apg
(MU) Trent Windemuller, 6-2 Fr - 10.5 ppg, 2.0 rpg, 1.8 apg
(NCC) Vince Kmiec, 6-4 Jr - 9.5 ppg, 5.0 rpg, 1.0 apg
(CC) Reese Herth, 6-2 So - 8.8 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 1.3 apg
(EC) Taylor Baxter, 6-5 Jr - 7.8 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 3.8 apg
(AC) Brandon Thompson, 6-1 So - 7.8 ppg, 2.0 rpg, 2.0 apg
(NPU) Ryan Hyrn, 5-11 Fr - 7.0 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 1.5 apg

G/F (3)
(MU) Elijah Kinmon, 6-5 Fr - 8.5 ppg, 3.5 rpg
(NCC) Derek Raridon, 6-6 Sr - 8.3 ppg, 2.3 rpg
(WC) Peter Smith, 6-6 So - 6.8 ppg, 6.3 rpg
(AC) Tayvian Johnson, 6-6 Fr - 6.8 ppg, 3.0 rpg
(IWU) Andrew Ziemnik, 6-4 Jr -  6.5 ppg, 5.5 rpg
(EC) Bryant Ackerman, 6-2 Fr - 6.0 ppg, 2.0 rpg
(CC) Cameron Van Wyk, 6-6 So - 4.0 ppg, 3.3 rpg
(NPU) Brett Peterson, 6-1 Sr - 1.3 ppg, 2.0 rpg

PF (4)
(EC) Nick Sanford, 6-5 Jr - 17.5 ppg, 8.5 rpg
(IWU) Victor Davis, 6-5 Jr -  10.5 ppg, 5.5 rpg
(CC) Mitch Thompson, 6-6 Sr - 8.8 rpg, 5.5 rpg
(NCC) Aaron Tiknis, 6-6 Sr - 8.0 ppg, 5.7 rpg
(AC) Ben Ryan, 6-5 Fr - 8.0 ppg, 5.3 rpg
(NPU) Chris Benjamin, 6-2 Fr - 6.8 ppg, 3.8 rpg
(WC) Michael Berg, 6-6 Fr - 6.0 ppg, 3.5 rpg
(MU) Jaylon Owens, 6-5 Fr - 5.3 ppg, 7.8 rpg

F/C (5)
(WC) Nathan Haynes, 6-6 Jr - 17.3 ppg, 13.3 rpg
(NCC) Landon Gamble, 6-6 Jr - 15.3 ppg, 8.0 rpg
(CC) Tyler Pierce, 6-5 Sr - 15.3 ppg, 3.8 rpg
(NPU) Mark Holmes, 6-6 Sr - 12.5 ppg, 6.0 rpg
(AC) Brandon Kunz, 6-7 Sr - 11.8 ppg, 7.0 rpg
(IWU) Kevin Reed, 6-6 Sr - 8.3 ppg, 4.5 rpg
(EC) Alex Morgunov, 6-9 Jr - 8.3 ppg, 3.8 rpg
(MU) Mitch Wilfer, 6-8 Fr - 2.8 ppg, 2.5 rpg

Bench (3.0 ppg+)
(IWU) Brady Zimmer, 6-4 Jr - 15.8 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 1.8 apg
(NPU) Aaron Weaver, 6-6 Jr - 14.0 ppg, 6.3 rpg
(MU) Chase Robbins, 6-2 Fr - 11.3 ppg, 1.3 rpg, 1.3 apg
(MU) Deavis Johnson, 6-6 Fr - 11.0 ppg, 7.3 rpg
(MU) Tommy Pilackas, 6-3 Fr - 7.0 ppg, 2.3 rpg, 1.5 apg
(AC) Nic Hoepfner, 6-6 So - 7.0 ppg, 3.5 rpg
(NCC) Jack Burchett, 6-6 So - 6.8 ppg, 4.8 rpg
(WC) Michael Kvam, 6-2 Sr - 6.0 ppg, 2.0 rpg
(IWU) Mike Mayberger, 6-6 Jr - 5.4 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 1.3 apg
(CC) Marlon Senior, 6-5 Jr - 4.5 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 1.5 apg
(NPU) Rodney Clarke, 6-1 Fr - 4.5 ppg, 1.8 rpg
(NCC) Charlie Rosenberg, 6-5 Jr - 4.3 ppg, 2.3 rpg
(WC) Caleb DeMoss, 6-0 So - 4.3 ppg
(NCC) Pat Rourke, 6-3 Jr - 4.3 ppg
(IWU) Parker Musselman, 6-8 So - 4.0 ppg, 2.5 rpg
(AC) Griffin Pils, 6-4 Fr - 4.0 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 1.0 apg
(AC) Mark Roth, 6-0 So - 4.0 ppg, 1.5 apg
(CC) Ellis Matthews, 6-3 Fr - 4.0 ppg, 1.5 rpg
(EC) Kyle Wuest, 6-2 Fr - 3.5 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 2.5 apg
(EC) Eric Dornfield, 6-7 Sr - 3.5 ppg, 2.5 rpg
(IWU) Nick Anderson, 6-9 Jr -  3.5 ppg, 2.0 rpg
(WC) Joel Smith, 6-6 Fr - 3.3 ppg, 1.3 rpg
(AC) George Dexter, 6-7 Sr - 3.0 ppg, 2.3 rpg
(CC) Kevin Sykes Jr, 6-3 Jr - 3.0 ppg, 1.0 rpg
(CC) Kiston Lee, 6-3 So - 3.0 ppg, 2.3 rpg
(NPU) Maxwell Morgan, 6-3 Jr - 3.0 ppg, 1.7 rpg

[Titan Q]

http://napervillesun.suntimes.com/sports/17505196-419/mens-basketball-gamble-leads-north-central-victory.html

Add in the absence of the top-ranked Cardinals' most versatile player, Aaron Tiknis, due to a dislocated kneecap and a shoulder injury slowing forward Derek Raridon, and Todd Raridon was understandably nervous heading into the game.
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There is no timetable for Tiknis' return, though he did vow to return this season.
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Todd Raridon said that nothing in Tiknis' knee is torn, so he is hoping for him to return sooner rather than later.