MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

The ]WARHAWKS won the first two halves of the scrimmage with Elmhurst by seven points in the first one and eight points in the second.  Elmhurst drilled the WARHAWKS by 14 in the reserves twenty minutes.  In the first half Elmhurst held an early lead and neither team led by more than five points until the WARHAWKS banked a three pointer with seconds left.  The WARHAWKS led  from the beginning of the second half.  Elmhurst kept it close for most of the half but the WARHAWKS went up by ten late in the half.  The Elmhurst reserves #30 (3) (freshman Chris Parilli) and another who's number I've forgotten (2) shot the three pointers well.  The WARHAWKS led early in that matchup but got hung up on seventeen for a long stretch and the Blue Jay reserves ran away with it. 

Elmhurst has decent size and their bigs are athletic.  #52 Will Nixon started and #22 Erik Crittenden also played.   #22 was 8 for 8 from the charity stripe.  #52 had some foul issues.   We didn't have a roster so I'll only be able to refer to players by the number they wore.  #24 Nathan Rogers, a guard, is a really nice player.  He was quick and shot well.  #15 Pat "the Guru" Coleman was the point guard and he played well.  He's pretty quick.  They were disciplined offensively and ran their offense well.  Coach Miller mentioned how much they had improved since last year when they were just learning the new coaches offense.  However they did foul quite a bit putting the WARHAWKS in the bonus with eight to ten minutes remaining in each half.

Both teams struggled with the new contact foul rules.  They had a significant impact on the scrimmage.  Basically two hands  on an opponent at the same time is an automatic foul as is the arm bar in the back.  Touching a player twice is also a foul whether it's one hand and then another or the same hand twice.  There were a lot of these fouls called.  Players are going to have to adjust.

Thanks for the firsthand look, BW.

For CCIW fans, I've put in the Elmhurst players -- all but one of whom are returnees and should thus be familiar -- next to their numbers in BW's scrimmage recap.

ONU=Olivet Nazarene University. Its a NAIA school in Bourbonnais, IL that usually has pretty decent teams.
You may have heard of it as the place at which a football team out of Chicago calling itself "professional," holds it's summer camp.

Personally, I don't think that we should be granting initials status to an NAIA school, even though OliNaz crosses paths with CCIW schools more often than does our D3 peer Ohio Northern University. I'm all for giving the D3 schools primacy of place. Still, I doubt that most CCIW observers would think of either Olivet Nazarene or Ohio Northern if the initials "ONU" were mentioned in conversation.

(NPU football coach Mike Conway keeps referring to his alma mater and former employer down in Bourbonnais as "Olivet," which is another headache entirely. )

[AndOne]

Article in the Kenosha News today on the basketball team.  Here a few notes and comments from the article.  Bosko stated that if they finish seventh, he'd be the most surprised guy in the world.  He noted no team he ever coached finished seventh, and this won't be the first one.  He feels they are better than last year.  Starters will be seniors Logan, Herth, Kastel, Van Wyk and sophomore, Mike Kjeldsen. Players off the bench will be McNellis, Olsen, Matthews and Valentine.

Bosko said he couldn't be more upbeat about the group...they have practiced better than they have in the past five or six years....will be very good defensively and if they can find enough ways to put the ball in the basket, they will have a very good season. 

The thing that befuddles me is there are only two freshmen listed on the roster....I've never seen that small a class of freshmen and I doubt most schools ever would have that few freshmen.  When you have five seniors on the roster, how can you not bring in more freshmen....it's not like they have a bunch of transfers on the roster.  Of the two freshmen one has very good credentials, Brad Kruse, but it's not like he is listed to get major minutes, based on the article. 

On the coaches chat, Bosko mentioned how good a recruiting class they had...not sure what he was referring to.  Maybe the delay in listing the full roster until just a few days ago had something to do with questions around this limited class.   It's not like they don't have a full coaching staff to be out there recruiting.  Something just seems odd about this...doesn't pass the sniff test for me.

With the experience they have, they will surely win their share of games this year, but depth would seem to be an issue.

Perhaps Bosko has Tosser Giovanine's number on speed dial. After the board was recently treated to several rather grandiose statements by Coach G, it seems Bosko is now taking the same tact in expressing angst at the thought that his team could finish seventh in CCIW. His primary reason for being unable to comprehend this is even a remote possibility is that it has never happened before. After all, no team he has ever coached has finished seventh, so that evidently means it can't happen this year. Makes perfect sense. Very logical. 
What the esteemed Coach D is evidently overlooking is the fact that those who picked his squad for that seventh place finish were not a bunch of D3 yahoos, but rather his fellow conference coaches. 
Perhaps those new glasses that Bosko sported in his interview with Mike Kirzman were mistakenly coated with one layer too many of red tint! 
For what it's worth, I agree with Bosko. I too was ready to slot the Redmen in the 7th position. But now that Deavis Johnson has been dismissed from the Millikin team, I sense they may be good for 6th!

With regard to Coach D stating he feels he brought in such a good class of two recruits, a diligent investigation reveals math was never Bosko's best subject. Of course, if they both turn out to be All-Americans, who can argue?

[Titan Q]

Chicago is picked to win the UAA...Wash U picked 3rd.

http://static.psbin.com/8/f/1pybcpmxtqwz9z/14-15_UAA_BKB_Preseason.pdf

[WUPHF]

Chicago is picked to win the UAA...Wash U picked 3rd.

http://static.psbin.com/8/f/1pybcpmxtqwz9z/14-15_UAA_BKB_Preseason.pdf

[Rhetorical question] Is it possible the voting occurred prior to the injury of Royce Muskeyvalley?  The press release mentions Muskevalley as a key starter, though certainly every coach knows that he is out.  I do not see Chicago as the favorite, though admittedly, it is hard to imagine someone else as the favorite.

Chicago actually tied NYU in first place votes.  And, No. 4 Emory also received a first place vote.  The press release referred to the voting as balanced, which, in my mind, suggests that no one really knows.

[petemcb]

Isn't it about time for Q's season preview / review of the 2014-15 TITANS? 

'70

Trying to track down Parker Musselman and Alex Rossi for interviews, then I'll be all done.

+k.  Might even be back tomorrow to give you another.

[petemcb]

Congrats Augustana. I wasn't aware that Augie had a superior pre-med program. I thought IWU had the premiere pre-med program, but maybe I'm wrong. IWU has had many pre-med basketball players over the years, Todd Wente a fairly recent example.

North Park has a premier pre-med program as well, I believe it has an 85% acceptance rate in to medical school. Nice new facility on campus as well.

But what about the other half of them?

[Gregory Sager]

Article in the Kenosha News today on the basketball team.  Here a few notes and comments from the article.  Bosko stated that if they finish seventh, he'd be the most surprised guy in the world.  He noted no team he ever coached finished seventh, and this won't be the first one.  He feels they are better than last year.  Starters will be seniors Logan, Herth, Kastel, Van Wyk and sophomore, Mike Kjeldsen. Players off the bench will be McNellis, Olsen, Matthews and Valentine.

Bosko said he couldn't be more upbeat about the group...they have practiced better than they have in the past five or six years....will be very good defensively and if they can find enough ways to put the ball in the basket, they will have a very good season. 

The thing that befuddles me is there are only two freshmen listed on the roster....I've never seen that small a class of freshmen and I doubt most schools ever would have that few freshmen.  When you have five seniors on the roster, how can you not bring in more freshmen....it's not like they have a bunch of transfers on the roster.  Of the two freshmen one has very good credentials, Brad Kruse, but it's not like he is listed to get major minutes, based on the article. 

On the coaches chat, Bosko mentioned how good a recruiting class they had...not sure what he was referring to.  Maybe the delay in listing the full roster until just a few days ago had something to do with questions around this limited class.   It's not like they don't have a full coaching staff to be out there recruiting.  Something just seems odd about this...doesn't pass the sniff test for me.

With the experience they have, they will surely win their share of games this year, but depth would seem to be an issue.

Perhaps Bosko has Tosser Giovanine's number on speed dial.

Highly unlikely. You've forgotten that Bosko and Grey have had a very nasty confrontation during a Carthage vs. Augie game before, the infamous "noogie game" of 2002. I doubt that there's any love lost between the two.

After the board was recently treated to several rather grandiose statements by Coach G, it seems Bosko is now taking the same tact in expressing angst at the thought that his team could finish seventh in CCIW. His primary reason for being unable to comprehend this is even a remote possibility is that it has never happened before. After all, no team he has ever coached has finished seventh, so that evidently means it can't happen this year. Makes perfect sense. Very logical. 

You're way off on this, Mark. First of all, I think that Carthage is better than a seventh-place team. Second, I think that Bosko's more than entitled to a little consideration in terms of his opinions vis-a-vis what a seventh-place CCIW team looks like or doesn't look like. He's been a coach in this league for 37 years, while his seven opponents have 61 years of CCIW coaching experience combined. His resume is second to none among D3 men's basketball coaches. I know that you don't like the guy, but he nevertheless deserves your respect when he expresses an opinion about this league.

What the esteemed Coach D is evidently overlooking is the fact that those who picked his squad for that seventh place finish were not a bunch of D3 yahoos, but rather his fellow conference coaches. 

What the esteemed AndOne is evidently overlooking is the fact that the coaches are wrong more often than not in the preseason poll, often dramatically so, and that the poll is sometimes an exercise in gamesmanship among the CCIW's head coaching fraternity more than anything else.

Perhaps those new glasses that Bosko sported in his interview with Mike Kirzman were mistakenly coated with one layer too many of red tint! 

Vis-a-vis red-tinted glasses ... physician, heal thyself!

For what it's worth, I agree with Bosko. I too was ready to slot the Redmen in the 7th position. But now that Deavis Johnson has been dismissed from the Millikin team, I sense they may be good for 6th!

I would've picked Carthage higher than seventh, Deavis Johnson or no Deavis Johnson.

With regard to Coach D stating he feels he brought in such a good class of two recruits, a diligent investigation reveals math was never Bosko's best subject. Of course, if they both turn out to be All-Americans, who can argue?

The insult is beneath you, Mark. As for the perplexing matter that K-Mark raised of the apparent two-member freshman class of the Red Men, a couple of possible explanations are: 1) this may be a varsity-only roster, with a JV roster to be posted later -- plenty of D3 programs list separate varsity and JV rosters; or 2) there may have been an exodus of freshmen from the Carthage squad in between the time Mike Krizman interviewed Bosko for www.cciw.org and the posting of the roster. That would be (presumably) a dramatic loss, but it would explain the discrepancy by making Bosko's statement in the interview obsolete.

Speaking of the two Carthage freshmen, I'll say again that I absolutely hate that one of them is Freddie Kruse's son. I understand the situation -- I have to re-live it all over again almost every time that I encounter a pre-1994 Vikings hoops alumnus -- but that doesn't mean that I hate it any less.

[Gregory Sager]

Chicago is picked to win the UAA...Wash U picked 3rd.

http://static.psbin.com/8/f/1pybcpmxtqwz9z/14-15_UAA_BKB_Preseason.pdf

[Rhetorical question] Is it possible the voting occurred prior to the injury of Royce Muskeyvalley?  The press release mentions Muskevalley as a key starter, though certainly every coach knows that he is out.  I do not see Chicago as the favorite, though admittedly, it is hard to imagine someone else as the favorite.

My thoughts exactly. The first thing that occurred to me when I saw that the Maroons were picked to win the UAA was, "The other UAA coaches are clearly unaware that Muskeyvalley's out for the year." Jordan Smith is the flashy star for Chicago, but Muskeyvalley is the engine that makes that team go.

Emory is now my choice to win the UAA, although I'm certainly rooting for the Maroons to prove me wrong.

[kenoshamark]

Greg,

You bring up fond memories for me when mentioning the "noogie" game.  I was there with Jack Wiertel and still remember Antoine hitting a 20 foot jumper at the buzzer to win it.  It was a wild scene even though it was at Augie. Bernero provided the noogie on Grey as he was caught up in the celebration....

As far as the Carthage roster, part of the article also called out the fact there were only two freshmen on the team so I really don't think a separate listing is coming.  I've never seen that with Carthage before (separate roster).  Is it possible that some left the team early, sure, but that much of a defection seems hard to fathom.  The website has a JV schedule listed so its not like freshmen would have felt they wouldn't get a chance to play at all.

[Gregory Sager]

Greg,

You bring up fond memories for me when mentioning the "noogie" game.  I was there with Jack Wiertel and still remember Antoine hitting a 20 foot jumper at the buzzer to win it.  It was a wild scene even though it was at Augie. Bernero provided the noogie on Grey as he was caught up in the celebration....

... and I am never going to let Tim forget it, either.

I've never been that impressed with the antics of the Illinois Wesleyan student section, which usually has too high a booze-to-cleverness ratio for my particular taste, but the IWU students really came up with a classic in the Carthage game at Shirk that immediately followed the "noogie game" at Carver. One IWU student wore boxing trunks and boxing gloves and had a sheet of paper with the word "BOSKO" taped to his back, and another IWU student, also decked out in boxing gear, had a sheet of paper with the word "GREY" taped to his back, and during timeouts of the CC @ IWU game the two would get up and spar. Bosko still laughs at that memory, which I freely admit is one of the better CCIW student-section performances that I've heard about.

As far as the Carthage roster, part of the article also called out the fact there were only two freshmen on the team so I really don't think a separate listing is coming.  I've never seen that with Carthage before (separate roster).  Is it possible that some left the team early, sure, but that much of a defection seems hard to fathom.  The website has a JV schedule listed so its not like freshmen would have felt they wouldn't get a chance to play at all.

The Kenosha News article is behind a firewall, so I couldn't read it. Thanks for the follow-up, K-Mark. Yeah, there seems to be a mystery here with regard to Bosko's remark and the smallness of CC's class of '18.

[Mr. Ypsi]

d3hoops.com has named their pre-season men's AA teams - Augie's Hunter Hill (2nd team) is the only CCIW rep.  Is this a down year for the CCIW, or just for superstar players?

[iwu70]

Hunter Hill surely deserving.  I'm a bit surprised that Dylan Overstreet wasn't somewhere on that list.  Not saying he's first team or anything, but surely he deserves some pre-season props.  Looks like IWU will see one first team player from MSOE on the 25th, right?  Perhaps by the end of the year the list will look different.  I wouldn't be surprised to see Jordan Nelson on that list by year's end. 

Just a few days now, and the 2014-15 season begins.  Looking forward to it.

IWU70

[Gregory Sager]

d3hoops.com has named their pre-season men's AA teams - Augie's Hunter Hill (2nd team) is the only CCIW rep.  Is this a down year for the CCIW, or just for superstar players?

I think that preseason AA selections are pretty irrelevant, as far as gauging the overall strength of the league is concerned.

[AppletonRocks]

Mr. Sager:

I see that UW-Oshkosh plays at North Park on December 15.  The game time listed on the Oshkosh website is 5 pm. 

A little early for us working folks, do the games sell out at North Park like they do in the WIAC? 

[Titan Q]

My 2014-15 IWU men's basketball preview...

http://www.iwuhoops.com/preview_14-15.html