MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[WUPHF]

What do you think so far?

[realist]

Alma 9 Wheaton 9 at 15:22 1st period.  Action has stopped due to broken basket.  It looks like the support for the glass, and backboard are about 4 feet off the court.  Lots of guys looking at it, and one guy has a tool box.

[toooldtohoop]

Alma 9 Wheaton 9 at 15:22 1st period.  Action has stopped due to broken basket.  It looks like the support for the glass, and backboard are about 4 feet off the court.  Lots of guys looking at it, and one guy has a tool box.

He's been working on it for about 40 minutes.  Also, no audio on the Alma feed?

[Gregory Sager]

North Park 63
Trine 60

Juwan Henry: 21 pts, 5 rebs
Michael Hutchinson: 14 pts, 7 rebs, 3:0 a:to
Jordan Robinson: 14 pts, 6 rebs, 3 stls
T.J. Cobbs: 4:1 a:to

A solid win for NPU, albeit an unartistic one, in which the Vikings "played older" in a way that belied their youth. The game was close most of the way; the Vikings did jump out to a 10-point bulge in the first half, but for the most part the game was played with the two teams within four points of each other.

The Vikings were very impressive in crunch time, particularly freshman Jordan Robinson. With NPU up one going into the final minute, Robinson caught the ball in the near block, tiptoed to the other side, and hit a bunny from the far block to push the lead to 61-58 with 00:34 left. That heady play in which he somehow managed to stay inbounds despite the post entry pass almost pulling him onto the endline, was one of the key plays of the game. The other big play immediately followed, and involved Robinson's defense -- bigger, bulkier Trine center Jared Holmquist got the ball down on the right block. Robinson, playing with four fouls, gave up no ground while staying straight up. Holmquist had to fall away and try a bunny, which he missed and Colin Lake rebounded with 00:31 left. The Vikings then made enough free throws to push the lead into two possessions and notch the W.

Robinson's heroics helped make up for his two fellow Vikings stars, who both came back down to Earth a little today; Juwan Henry, although making his average of 21 ppg, had an iffy floor game (six turnovers negating his five assists), and Colin Lake (2-7 FG) struggled to get anything going on offense. Michael Hutchinson was the other key to the game, as he played perhaps his best 33 minutes in a Vikings uniform. He's a real inspiration; he has come such a long way since joining the team two years ago, after a low-key career at Marian Catholic HS in which he wasn't even a starter.

Trine's not a world-beater, but the Thunder were fresh off of an 87-82 win over #6 and previous unbeaten Ohio Wesleyan. Thunder guard Will Dixon, who scored 32 in that win over the Bishops, was held to half that by the Vikings. This was a nice win for NPU, which ups its record to 5-1 on the campaign.

Greg, I was only able to catch the last two minutes of your broadcast of NPU's win over Trine today.  Kudos on the win and greater kudos on a top-quality job flying solo on the broadcast.  It was really well-done.

Thanks, Pete!

[realist]

Alma 9 Wheaton 9 at 15:22 1st period.  Action has stopped due to broken basket.  It looks like the support for the glass, and backboard are about 4 feet off the court.  Lots of guys looking at it, and one guy has a tool box.

He's been working on it for about 40 minutes.  Also, no audio on the Alma feed?

Thanks.  I have seen broken boards, and rims, but this looks like a problem with the stanchion itself.  Not sure whats up with the audio.

[toooldtohoop]

Alma 9 Wheaton 9 at 15:22 1st period.  Action has stopped due to broken basket.  It looks like the support for the glass, and backboard are about 4 feet off the court.  Lots of guys looking at it, and one guy has a tool box.

He's been working on it for about 40 minutes.  Also, no audio on the Alma feed?

Thanks.  I have seen broken boards, and rims, but this looks like a problem with the stanchion itself.  Not sure whats up with the audio.

It looked like something happened after an Alma dunk.  I believe it is just the rim, but they must not have a replacement.  They lowered the goal in order to have easier access. 

[AppletonRocks]

They are bringing in a crane and a welder.

[realist]

Alma 9 Wheaton 9 at 15:22 1st period.  Action has stopped due to broken basket.  It looks like the support for the glass, and backboard are about 4 feet off the court.  Lots of guys looking at it, and one guy has a tool box.

He's been working on it for about 40 minutes.  Also, no audio on the Alma feed?

Thanks.  I have seen broken boards, and rims, but this looks like a problem with the stanchion itself.  Not sure whats up with the audio.

It looked like something happened after an Alma dunk.  I believe it is just the rim, but they must not have a replacement.  They lowered the goal in order to have easier access.

Thanks again.  I tuned in late.  Hard to tell what the deal was with the video. angle.
The Wheaton players look like they are starting to limber up so may resume shortly.

[WUPHF]

Update from St. Louis: 2 pair of three goggles, 0 obvious turnovers negated.

[WUPHF]

The IWU-WUSTL game is all but over...similar to last season with a different team winning. 

[WUPHF]

WUSTL over IWU, 90-72.

[Gregory Sager]

Washington (MO) 90
Illinois Wesleyan 72

I'm sure that Bears fans will want to focus upon the great game that WU point guard David Fatoki (28 pts) played today, but I think that the Bears won this one at the rim. Wash U got a lot of second-chance garbage points, while at the other end Titans bigs Coyle and Seibring missed a lot of shots right around the basket. I was really impressed with Wash U's bench as well. It looks to me as though a lot of guys who had not previously seen much tick for the Bears, if any at all, have really stepped up their games this season.

Wash U was also a lot more physical than IWU, which surprised me. In fact, Jay Murry, who calls an honest game, mentioned several times on the air that Wash U was getting away with pushes and over-the-backs, and I think that he was right.

The one Titan whom I thought really played well today was Pat Sodemann. I don't know why IWU didn't feed him the ball more, because he seemed to be the only consistently hot hand that the Titans had. Dylan Overstreet had a double-double, but it also looked to me like he turned the ball over a lot. (The WU live stats doesn't list individual turnovers.)

[GoPerry]

Update from St. Louis: 2 pair of three goggles, 0 obvious turnovers negated.

So a total of 6 goggles . . .?

Rebounding leading to some 2nd chance points made things easy for WashU.  Also, Titans tied it up early in the 2nd by going inside and making some nice cuts to the baskets for some easy layups.  Then they inexplicably went away from that and started shooting 3s while the Bears kept going just grinding it out with good movement.  I don't know why Overstreet didn't try posting up Fatoki more; decent size advantage for him there. 

Pretty impressive W for WashU in convincing fashion.

[Mr. Ypsi]

From the silver lining department:  the last three times WashU and IWU met in the playoffs, the Bears won all three regular season games, the Titans won all three tourney games.   If I have to choose just one, I'll take the tourney game!

[Titan Q]

Wash U is a great team that played incredibly well today.  Too much David Fatoki, and just way too many 2nd half chance opportunities for the Bears.

I was very surprised that the Bears so physically dominated IWU, including out-rebounding the Titans 45-33.  IWU came in a +11 rebounding team.  IWU is not as big and physical as last year, but the Titans are still a big, strong team that rebounds it well.

This Wash U team passes the ball about as well as any Mark Edwards team I've seen.  It's certainly not close to the most talented Wash U team I've seen, but they really, really play well together.  The Bears also really defend well.

The Bears are a legitimate national championship contender from what I see.