MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Titan Q]

+/- standings through Saturday, January 26
Illinois Wesleyan +4
North Central +2
Augustana +2
Carthage +0
Wheaton +0
Millikin -1
North Park -3
Elmhurst -4

Wednesday, January 30
Carthage @ North Central, 7:30pm
Millikin @ Elmhurst, 7:30pm
Wheaton @ North Park, 7:30pm
Illinois Wesleyan @ Augustana, 7:30pm

[iwumichigander]

The biggest play of the game was made by Nate Serenius with 30 seconds left in OT and the game tied at 69. He missed a long jumper, read where the ball was going off the rim, ran to the spot, got his own rebound, and drew a foul from Derek Raridon in the process. That fouled Raridon out of the game. If Raridon had stayed in the game, I think NCC would've won.

Agree Greg.  With the Raridon 5th foul, NCC was basically left with only Tiknis as a true 3 point threat and to me that team really runs through Raridon.  From a fan perspective, it was a great game!

[Titan Q]

The biggest play of the game was made by Nate Serenius with 30 seconds left in OT and the game tied at 69. He missed a long jumper, read where the ball was going off the rim, ran to the spot, got his own rebound, and drew a foul from Derek Raridon in the process. That fouled Raridon out of the game. If Raridon had stayed in the game, I think NCC would've won.

Agree Greg.  With the Raridon 5th foul, NCC was basically left with only Tiknis as a true 3 point threat and to me that team really runs through Raridon.

Don't forget that Wheaton's Tyler Peters fouled out before Raridon did.  Peters is as important to Wheaton as Raridon is to NCC.

[Gregory Sager]

Augustana 90
North Park 61

Chris Benjamin: 18 pts
Mark Holmes: 15 pts
Cameron Burnett: 4 asts (1 to)

Brandon Kunz: 19 pts, 9 rebs
Danielius Jurgutis: 17 pts
Nic Hoepfner: 11 pts, 5 rebs
Tayvian Johnson: 10 pts, 6 rebs
Jawan Straughter: 5 rebs

Rather than focus upon the unbelievable 52-13 rebound disparity that Augie enjoyed -- how do you only get 13 of 65 available rebounds, anyway, when the sheer law of averages almost dictates that you'd get at least 25 by random? -- I'm going to be Mr. Silver Lining here for NPU:

* Chris Benjamin had a career scoring high for the Park. He was challenged by the coaches to step up his game and play hard every second that he's on the floor, and he certainly put in his fair share of effort this afternoon.

* Mark Holmes seemed to shrug off his aching foot and played a solid game. He had an incredibly difficult time trying to slow down Kunz and Hoepfner, though, who simply pack too much size for him to handle defensively.

* Cameron Burnett played a very good floor game, and was a pesky defender. The more I see Burnett play, the more I like him.

* NPU had the game tied at 33-all with two minutes left in the first half, and the Park did it on sheer hustle and defensive effort. Even though the hosts weren't getting any rebounds at all, whereas Augie was basically running a tip drill every time it missed a shot, NPU hung tough. Then Jurgutis got hot at the end of the half, Augie closed out on an 11-0 run, and that was all she wrote.

Augie outscored NPU in the paint, 40-6, and had 21 second-chance points to NPU's two. Even given NPU's massive size disadvantage, I don't understand how the host Vikings could ... well, I said that I wasn't going to talk about that.

This is just a very tough season to take. No matter how much effort and hard work NPU puts in, the Vikings are simply so outmatched by everybody that they play that it just doesn't make any difference. Tom Slyder's just gotta recruit and get in a bushel load of guys who can immediately play in this league, and that's all that there is to it. Meanwhile, I've already got my eye on baseball season.

[blue_jays]

There's still plenty of games yet to be played, but the CCIW MOP race is the closest it's been in years. IMO, Peters and Raridon are best individual players in the league, but IWU will get some love because they are looking to wrap up conference title soon. Past years have really lacked the drama with McCrary, Djurickovic, Raymond dominating.

[Gregory Sager]

The biggest play of the game was made by Nate Serenius with 30 seconds left in OT and the game tied at 69. He missed a long jumper, read where the ball was going off the rim, ran to the spot, got his own rebound, and drew a foul from Derek Raridon in the process. That fouled Raridon out of the game. If Raridon had stayed in the game, I think NCC would've won.

Agree Greg.  With the Raridon 5th foul, NCC was basically left with only Tiknis as a true 3 point threat and to me that team really runs through Raridon.

Don't forget that Wheaton's Tyler Peters fouled out before Raridon did.  Peters is as important to Wheaton as Raridon is to NCC.

... which is a big reason why I think NCC would've won the game had Raridon not fouled Serenius on that long rebound.

[Titan Q]

That Wheaton/NCC game tonight was a classic.  My goodness.

[Titan Q]

The biggest play of the game was made by Nate Serenius with 30 seconds left in OT and the game tied at 69. He missed a long jumper, read where the ball was going off the rim, ran to the spot, got his own rebound, and drew a foul from Derek Raridon in the process. That fouled Raridon out of the game. If Raridon had stayed in the game, I think NCC would've won.

Agree Greg.  With the Raridon 5th foul, NCC was basically left with only Tiknis as a true 3 point threat and to me that team really runs through Raridon.

Don't forget that Wheaton's Tyler Peters fouled out before Raridon did.  Peters is as important to Wheaton as Raridon is to NCC.

... which is a big reason why I think NCC would've won the game had Raridon not fouled Serenius on that long rebound.

Agree.

[blue_jays]

That Wheaton/NCC game tonight was a classic.  My goodness.

Lots of classics in King Arena the past 5-6 years with NCC and IWU involved. Always coming down to last shot.

[CCIWchamps]

That Wheaton/NCC game tonight was a classic.  My goodness.

It seems like the 2nd matchups are always so intense.  Just prepping for the conference tournament I suppose.

[Gregory Sager]

I was at last year's NCC @ WC game, which Wheaton won in two overtimes, and tonight's game was almost as good as that one was. In fact, I'm sorry that I stayed in the city and watched it on the computer rather than going out to King Arena to see it live, for a couple of reasons:

1) The energy in the building must've been amazing. Mike Schauer talked about that a lot after the game. Wheaton has certainly stepped up its home support the past couple of years, especially in terms of the student section, but I was absolutely amazed by how many North Central people were there tonight. NCC never travels well. But tonight there were hundreds of people at King Arena wearing red and making a lot of noise, and a phenomenal number of them appeared to be North Central students. You have to go all the way back to the glory days of the Bill Warden era back in the 1980s to find the last time that North Central students cared enough about their basketball team to travel like that.

2) Wheaton is the most frustrating site to watch a basketball game online of any that I normally watch. The camera is set so low on the gym's south wall that the backs of the heads of fans are constantly obstructing the view. Every time that a person stands up in the vicinity of the camera, you lose a piece of the court. Since the Wheaton student section was standing throughout the entire game, there were huge portions of the east end of the court that were blocked from the picture. Build a platform for your camera, Wheaton!

[Titan Q]

2) Wheaton is the most frustrating site to watch a basketball game online of any that I normally watch. The camera is set so low on the gym's south wall that the backs of the heads of fans are constantly obstructing the view. Every time that a person stands up in the vicinity of the camera, you lose a piece of the court. Since the Wheaton student section was standing throughout the entire game, there were huge portions of the east end of the court that were blocked from the picture. Build a platform for your camera, Wheaton!

Agree.  Wheaton was the first in the CCIW with live video - I was jealous for years.  But now all 8 have video and I think Wheaton has the worst picture quality.  The picture is kind of fuzzy, and then you end up staring at the back of someone's head half the game.  Please raise the camera, Wheaton!

By the way, after watching today, I believe Elmhurst has the best quality video stream by far.  Great picture, different camera angles, and even replays!

[Gregory Sager]

Yep. I'll second that. Elmhurst leads the league in terms of video quality. Plus, the EC feed has full time-and-score graphics.

[Titan Q]

This pretty much gives Wesleyan the CCIW title.

Well it certainly puts IWU in tremendous shape, but I think this statement is way too strong.  IWU still has...

@ Augustana
vs Wheaton
@ Carthage
@ North Central

There could easily be 3 losses there.

[Gregory Sager]

Everybody else already has three losses. Wesleyan's not going to lose four out of six.