MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Titan Q]

Greg, yes.  Trost literally could not find any additional in-region games.  He contacted every in-region school with an open date. 

Now, there are a whole bunch that will play him next season of course.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

There were only two reasons for a team to play IWU this year:

1) They thought they could win (which might have been, what, three teams?)

2) They knew they had no shot at the national tournament and they wanted to show their guys how far the team has to progress to be a national contender.  Some coaches like their teams to get beat by the best as an example of a goal to work for, while others shy away to protect confidence.


Either way these leave very few in-region games.  Maybe he should have tried to schedule one out of region, at least it would factor into secondary criteria more formidably.

[Gregory Sager]

Hey, if Trost can say at the end of the day in all honesty that he did everything within his power to maximize his team's chances to play as many regional games as possible, and it still works against Wesleyan next Monday that the Titans played such a small number of regional games, then his conscience is clear -- and Titans fans have something legitimate to gripe about if they lose out on a Pool C bid.

I find it hard to believe that Augie had similar problems, though. Giovanine ended up with eight regional games on his non-con schedule. The only other CCIW school that ended up playing that many was NPU. Plus, the fact that five of those opponents -- Beloit, Simpson, Coe, Rockford, and Clarke -- have appeared on the Augie sked at least four of the past five years tells me that they have ongoing scheduling contracts with Augie, or at least some sort of spoken understanding in that regard.

[oldVWCfan]

How can Harrigan be not on First team?

[oldVWCfan]

How can Harrigan be not on First team?

Sorry...forget this post, pls!

[Dennis_Prikkel]

Certainly non-conference scheduling has now taken on an importance with the NCAA Tournament that it did not have in the early years of D3.

But the situation of NOT being able to schedule local non-conference games was certainly true in the 70's and 80's as it is today.

You would be surprised at how fast home-and-home non-conference game contracts can be begged off for a year or broken entirely. 

Team Z from the CCIW has a great team returning, and all of a sudden Team Y from another local conference begs off playing next year, because their president wants them to take a recruiting/alumni trip to Tougaloo, Mississippi. 

Anyone, who has frequented a basketball athletic office in a CCIW school for any length of time can read you chapter-and-verse on that scenario.  It happened repeatedly to North Park for a decade, leading the Vikings to have to play NE Illinois every year in the holiday tournament.

IWU year in and year out has played the toughest non-conference schedule of any D3 school in the country.  To be skewered at tournament time because other local D3 schools won't play them does NOT speak well of the sportsmanship that is supposed to be so much a part of D3 and was so ballyhooed by NCAA President Myles Brand last night at the CCIW 60th anniversary dinner.

MW

[Dennis_Prikkel]

I don't know how many times it has happened in prior years - but this year's CCIW tourney provides a "Third Time is a Charm" chance for IWU vs Augustana.

It's tough enough in the CCIW for the good teams to win at the other good teams' courts so they can sweep a season series, like AC did to IWU (a little louder) this year.  (For EC & NC the Friday matcup is the 'rubber-game'.)

But beating a team a third time has got to be really hard.  Especially as good a team as IWU.

In the old days prior to D3 only the CCIW champ made the NAIA District tourney in Illinois (Carthage & Carroll often made a private school play-in to the NAIA District tourney in Wisconsin), though I seem to recall that that rule went by the boards in the early seventies because both Millikin and Augie made it in 1974.  MU lost its first game to McKendree and AC won its first versus NE Illinois, on its way to making it to the quarterfinals in KC.

NP did play AC in the 1980 regional final won by NPC in Chicago (rubber-game) - that was the first year that multiple teams from the CCIW were elligible for the tourney, the two teams met again in the first game of the regional at Beloit in 1981 and AC won (rubber-game).  In 1985 NP & NC were in the same regional but did not play.  NP & IW were in the same regional at IW in 1986, but didn't play.  In 1987 NP beat IW in Chicago in the regional championship game, but I can't remember the outcomes of their in-season games.  And I think NP lost at IWU in the opening round of the 1990 tournament (rubber-game, after each team had won on the other's homecourt during the CCIW season).

Didn't EC & IW meet recently in the NCAA tourney.

I would doubt there have been a lot of 3-0 sweeps.

(Oh yes, there have been several instances where CCIW schools played each other at in-season tournaments, in championship or consolation games).

MW

[Brick]

That is exactly why I said a couple days ago that the game on Friday scares me...

[Titan Q]

Thanks to those of you who volunteered to help with the broadcasts.  Ben Alsene, who did color for me 3 times on WJBC2.com this year, is going to join me for the North Central/Elmhurst game.  Ben will also do the title game if IWU is not in it.  If the Titans are in it, Penn Atlantic will just take the WJBC radio feed Saturday night (with Jim Williams and myself) like they'll do for IWU vs Augustana.

I'm hoping Penn Atlantic is working with Augustana on the logistics...as I posted a couple days ago, the current radio location won't work.  Assuming everything gets worked out, it should be a great opportunity for people to watch the games.

[Titan Q]

Didn't EC & IW meet recently in the NCAA tourney.

IWU faced Elmhurst on Friday night of the U. of Chicago Sectional in 2001. 

http://www.iwu.edu/~iwunews/sports/mbb2001/o3901m.htm

The Titans finished 3rd in the CCIW that season, with Elmhurst winning it and Carthage finishing 2nd.  After getting by Elmhurst 63-60, IWU defeated the host Maroons the following night to advance to Salem.  Meanwhile, Carthage, which had been shipped out to the Great Lakes bracket, lost by a basket (66-64) @ Ohio Northern.  We almost had two CCIW teams in Salem.

The Redmen won @ Wooster 88-80 in round 2 before that destruction of Mass-Dartmouth 90-41 in the Sweet 16.  IWU had to travel to a very good Wartburg team in Round 2 before heading to Chicago.  Elmhurst knocked off Wash U to get to the Sectional.  Some real impressive tournament wins for the league in 2001.

[Gregory Sager]

In 1987 NP beat IW in Chicago in the regional championship game, but I can't remember the outcomes of their in-season games.

North Park and Illinois Wesleyan split their CCIW home-and-home that season, each team winning on its home court.

There are five other examples that Dennis didn't mention of two CCIW teams facing off for the third time that season in a D3 tournament game. They are:

* 1984 tourney, North Central defeated Illinois Wesleyan
* 1988 tourney, Illinois Wesleyan defeated Millikin
* 1989 tourney, North Central defeated Millikin
* 1990 tourney, Illinois Wesleyan defeated North Central
* 1992 tourney, Illinois Wesleyan defeated Elmhurst

I have no idea how the CCIW home-and-homes turned out in those five instances, i.e., whether the tournament games turned the season series between the two teams into 3-0 sweeps or 2-1 splits.

[Titan Q]

In 1987 NP beat IW in Chicago in the regional championship game, but I can't remember the outcomes of their in-season games.

North Park and Illinois Wesleyan split their CCIW home-and-home that season, each team winning on its home court.

There are five other examples that Dennis didn't mention of two CCIW teams facing off for the third time that season in a D3 tournament game. They are:

* 1984 tourney, North Central defeated Illinois Wesleyan
* 1988 tourney, Illinois Wesleyan defeated Millikin
* 1989 tourney, North Central defeated Millikin
* 1990 tourney, Illinois Wesleyan defeated North Central
* 1992 tourney, Illinois Wesleyan defeated Elmhurst

I have no idea how the CCIW home-and-homes turned out in those five instances, i.e., whether the tournament games turned the season series between the two teams into 3-0 sweeps or 2-1 splits.

Per IWU.edu...

1984: NCC 55 @IWU 54, IWU 72 @NCC 60 (Naperville)

1988: @IWU 70 Millikin 60, IWU 84 @Millikin 70

1990: NCC 87 @IWU 80, IWU 76 @NCC 66

1992: Elmhurst 71 @IWU 66, @IWU 91 Elmhurst 83

2001: @Elmhurst 89 IWU 87, @IWU 71 Elmhurst 63

[knarocky22]

I saw some people in the gym at the Carver Center today and it looked like they were trying to get the whole logistics thing worked out for the Penn Atlantic broadcasts this weekend.  However, I still saw them setting up a couple tables in the usual radio broadcast spot.  So who knows how they are going to get this whole thing solved.

[cardinalpride]

I'd like to see teams rewarded more for playing top teams, even if they're out of region games, but under the current system, Augie's schedule this year helped them a lot.

Exactly. It all comes down to tailoring your schedule to the dictates of D3's regionally-based system. In retrospect, Augie's doing just that has worked to the benefit of the Doggies, because now they'll have a gaudy regional record to show for themselves if they lose in the CCIW tourney and need to display their credentials to the guy at the door handing out the Pool C ducats next Monday. The fact that their non-con schedule didn't seem to have the heft of Carthage's, Elmhurst's, and Illinois Wesleyan's doesn't seem to have hurt them in the slightest once CCIW play began. Of course, it helped that Giovanine scheduled their toughest non-con game (@ Wisconsin-Stout in the championship game of the Blue Devils' holiday tourney) for last. That undoubtedly made a nice warmup to the rigors of CCIW play.

Illinois Wesleyan supporters can at least make the argument that playing the likes of the U of I and all of those NAIA-1 teams promised to whet the collective game of the Titans as a precursor to CCIW play, even though the gamble didn't really pay off for them this year. North Central can't make that claim, though; what was Todd Raridon thinking, scheduling RMC-Springfield twice? I hope for his sake that he was just scheduling the Eagles to fill out cancellations in the Redbirds' dance card. And why were the likes of NAIA nonentities Illinois Tech and Judson on the North Central sked? OK, so Judson managed to recover from the 107-46 pounding the Cardinals dealt them to finish the regular season at 19-10 (including a surprising win over Aurora). But nobody is going to mistake Judson for Olivet Nazarene or St. Xavier. And IIT (3-24), which actually beat Judson for one of their three wins, is beyond pathetic.

The Cardinals certainly can't make Wesleyan's argument in defense of their low-regional-content non-con schedule, which is that it was supposed to toughen up the team for CCIW play. Several of North Central's November and December games can't be described as anything other than wasted opportunities for a program that should've been thinking about tournament possibilities when the schedule was put together.

Greg, wouldn't you think 19 in region games would be enough for a 25 game schedule?  Afterall, a lot of programs would like to take one nice trip a year for their kids.   I know NCC took a trip to Hawaii where usually an in region game is not likely.  However, NCC did play Ripon in Hawaii, but they were down this year and they're usually pretty good.  Plus, Raridon probably was used to playing a ton of NAIA schools being at Nebraska Wesleyan and the thought of scheduling more in region games probably never entered his mind because 19 was definitely more than he ever played at Wesleyan.  I just hope the scheduling doesn't come back to haunt NCC in the eyes of the selection committee.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Hey, if Trost can say at the end of the day in all honesty that he did everything within his power to maximize his team's chances to play as many regional games as possible, and it still works against Wesleyan next Monday that the Titans played such a small number of regional games, then his conscience is clear -- and Titans fans have something legitimate to gripe about if they lose out on a Pool C bid.

I find it hard to believe that Augie had similar problems, though. Giovanine ended up with eight regional games on his non-con schedule. The only other CCIW school that ended up playing that many was NPU. Plus, the fact that five of those opponents -- Beloit, Simpson, Coe, Rockford, and Clarke -- have appeared on the Augie sked at least four of the past five years tells me that they have ongoing scheduling contracts with Augie, or at least some sort of spoken understanding in that regard.

Greg, I've re-read this post 5 times and I'm still not CERTAIN what point you were making concerning whether-or-not you believe Trost simply could not schedule more in-region games.  The obvious difference between Scott's situation and Grey's is that Augie was NOT the lead-pipe cinch pre-season #1 in the d3 universe!  Prior to the conference season, I was far from the only one who thought that, while not literally unbeatable, the Titans were still a country mile over #2 (NATION, not just conference - they WERE unanimously #1 for several weeks in the poll). 

As Q points out, plenty of teams responded to Trost that they'd be happy to play them NEXT year!