MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[AndOne]

Nice article from the Naperville Sun about the Rosenberg-Moten combination/connection:

http://napervillesun.chicagotribune.com/2014/12/18/college-basketball-comeback-kid-charles-rosenberg-sidekick-ncc/

[Gregory Sager]

Elmhurst 82
St. John's 76

A game of runs, as Kyle Wuest picked the right time to get hot. Will Nixon has definitely improved his game at the offensive end of the floor for the 'jays this season.

Where was Erik Crittenden?

[Gregory Sager]

Wheaton 68
Trinity (TX) 63

Wheaton dodged a bullet. I'm not entirely sure how the Tigers were able to hang around for the entire game, but they hung in right until the end against a Wheaton team that looked flat. WC did a terrible job of taking care of the ball. Brayden Teuscher (27 pts) really put his team on his back today.

[jaybird44]

Right now Trinity is playing well enough to give teams fits. Emory and WashU are Exhibits A and B to support that statement.  If one ignores Trinity's record and just watches them play as of late, it becomes clearer why they came close to upsetting two Top 10 teams in one weekend.

I watched the first half of the Tigers' bad loss at Concordia TX, and saw a situation similar to a fine solid automobile that had some loose spark plug wires or some bad gasoline.  Somewhere between Concordia and St. Louis, the Trinity sedan got a much-needed tuneup.  It runs a lot better now, for sure.

[AndOne]

Following last night's win at neighboring Benedictine, the North Central Cardinals Road Warriors are now idle until leaving for Alliance, Ohio on 12/26 for the University of Mt. Union M-Club Classic. NCC will face Olivet (MI) on Sat 12/27 at 4:00 Central Time, and Adrian (MI) on Sun 12/28 at noon Central.
This upcoming trip follows a trip to Stevens Point, WI, a 2 game trip to suburban Los Angeles, a second 2 game trip to the Juniata (PA) College tournament, and the BU game, all during NCC's 6 week Thanksgiving-Christmas break. The Cardinals last played in the friendly confines of The Hangar on 11/25, and will not do so again until opening CCIW play against IWU on 1/3/15, a stretch of 39 days.   

[AppletonRocks]

After the Bosko at Oshkosh game on December 31, my New Years resolution to to not watch any CCIW games for the remainder of the season.  Penance.

[Gregory Sager]

Right now Trinity is playing well enough to give teams fits. Emory and WashU are Exhibits A and B to support that statement.  If one ignores Trinity's record and just watches them play as of late, it becomes clearer why they came close to upsetting two Top 10 teams in one weekend.

I watched the first half of the Tigers' bad loss at Concordia TX, and saw a situation similar to a fine solid automobile that had some loose spark plug wires or some bad gasoline.  Somewhere between Concordia and St. Louis, the Trinity sedan got a much-needed tuneup.  It runs a lot better now, for sure.

I just wasn't that impressed by the Tigers, Jay. They're certainly much better than their 0-10 record indicates -- according to Massey, they've played the second-toughest sked in all of D3 thus far -- and their knack for hanging around with really good teams as of late definitely says something about their self-confidence and work ethic. But they strike me as being somewhere south of acceptable in the talent department. That may be relative, though; TU's talent level may be perfectly acceptable for the SCAC, a conference whose teams I'll admit I don't watch much.

I thought that the story of yesterday's game was how flat Wheaton looked; the Sonic Atmospheric Disturbance didn't move well without the ball, and their 17 turnovers (they barely averaged 10 tpg going into yesterday's contest) were in large part a reflection of their sloppiness rather than TU's ballhawking.

Yesterday Wheaton looked like a team that's much too dependent upon one player. When WC is at its best, Teuscher is the main cog rather than the only cog.

[jaybird44]

Well, perhaps everything is relative to the particular context of a game.  I didn't see the Trinity/Wheaton game so I will defer to your assessment.

Maybe Trinity caught lightning in a bottle in St. Louis, that it hasn't been able to extract since. And, Coe is certainly better than Trinity, with more balanced scoring. I just didn't want to sell the coaching effort of Pat Cunningham short.  He should've won a Coach of the Week award for getting the Tigers ready to play two very competitive games in StL, after the debacle that I watched at Concordia.

[Gregory Sager]

North Park 69
St. John's 62

Jordan Robinson: 30 pts, 9 rebs
Juwan Henry: 16 pts, 7 rebs, 3 stls
Colin Lake: 10 pts
Michael Hutchinson: 8 rebs
T.J. Cobbs: 4:2 a:to

As Tom Slyder likes to say, the test of a good team is when it can find a way to win when it doesn't have its 'A' game going. I still don't know how good the Vikings can be this season, but I'm learning to doubt them less and less all the time.

After leading by as much as 16 in the first half and going into the locker room at halftime up 41-27, the Vikings went ice-cold from the field in the second half. The Vikings were still up by as many as 13 as late as the 11:30 mark, but the Johnnies finally caught fire and made their run down the stretch. They had the NPU lead down to either one or two possessions for almost all of the game's final nine minutes, and with 4:10 to go they got an and-one situation in which a made FT would've tied the game at 60-all. But they missed the FT, North Park scored on its next two possessions, and SJU never took the lead.

The Johnnies would muster up one more sally, bringing the game to 64-62 with 1:13 left, but Juwan Henry made one of his patented scoop shots underneath the basket with 56 seconds left and T.J. Cobbs took a huge charge at the other end with 44 seconds left, and the Vikings rode it out by hitting a few FTs.

Jordan Robinson was money tonight. The freshman from Hoffman Estates went a very efficient 12-17 from the field, including 3-4 from beyond the arc, and he presented the dean of D3 coaches, Jim Smith, with a matchup problem he couldn't solve. Robinson's confidence level is really increasing exponentially every time that he steps on the floor. Juwan Henry seemed to be off his game today, but he made big shots when the contest was on the line. He, Robinson, and Cobbs came up very big on defense. And once again the Vikings managed to outrebound a much bigger team, winning the battle of the boards by a 40-36 margin.

Not a pretty win, but the Park will take it. After going 3-1 during their four-games-in-eight-days marathon, NPU is now 7-2 heading into their Christmas break, with one more game (home vs. St. Mary's MN on December 30) before CCIW action starts up in January. While I still wish that the Vikings could've found a way to pull out Wednesday's overtime contest at the U of C, it's hard to fault a 7-2 record at Christmas.

[Gregory Sager]

Final from San Antone:

Texas Lutheran 63
Wheaton 56

Color me surprised, and yet not surprised. Wheaton just didn't look very good yesterday, and apparently there was some sort of hangover effect -- if I may use the term "hangover effect" to describe a Wheaton team -- with today's game. Peter Smith (22 and 7) had a nice day for WC, but Brayden Teuscher only scored 15 and turned the ball over five times. Wheaton finished the non-con section of the sked 7-4; TLU is still only 4-5 after today's win.

[Gregory Sager]

Final from the toolshed:

Carthage 75
Lake Forest 73

The Red Men were actually down by three going into the final minute of this game. A Cameron Van Wyk layup, a Foresters miss rebounded by Carthage, and a Donte Logan three-point play proved to be the difference. LFC missed what would've been an overtime-forcing jumper with three seconds left. Somebody must've lit a fire under Logan, as he had a very impressive 22 and 7 afternoon.

CC is now 4-5, LFC drops to 3-5.

[GoPerry]

Yesterday Wheaton looked like a team that's much too dependent upon one player. When WC is at its best, Teuscher is the main cog rather than the only cog.

Wheaton wraps up non-conference play with another pretty poor performance as they lose 63-56 to a Texas Lutheran squad that was less than formidable.  WC shot 30% FG, 22% 3FG and were badly outrebounded once again 39-27.  Teuscher was held to 15 pts on only 9 shots; Pete Smith scored 22 finally asserting himself offensively with about 6 mins left in the game but that was much too late.  The Thunder got very little from the rest of the team.  All this while the Bulldogs only shot 40% from the field and had 16 turnovers.

In my opinion, I believe Brayden Teuscher is among the top 2 or 3 players in the CCIW this year.  But after him there's a larger-than-we're-used-to drop off ability-wise.   Call it lack of size, lack of development from last year, basic toughness or whatever:  the Thunder simply don't have the depth of tools to really be strong in the league this year I'm afraid.  The last 5 games have really exposed this.  They will have some good moments and win their share of games.  But based on their present form, unless one or 2 other players (not wearing #20) steps up their game on a consistent basis, I'm thinking they'll be in a fight to make the Conference tourney. 

[Gregory Sager]

I enjoyed spending some time before the game with legendary SJU head coach Jim Smith, who has been the head coach of the Johnnies for half a century -- no lie -- and is second on the all-time D3 coaching wins leaderboard behind only Glenn Robinson of Franklin & Marshall. Jim Smith is truly one of the great gentlemen among D3 men's basketball coaches.

[Gregory Sager]

The CCIW breaks for Christmas week with a record of 55-21 (.724).

[markerickson]

The two season leading scorers for North Park (Henry and Robinson) and SJU (Schmitt and Kuck) each totaled 46 points.  For the game that is 46/69 and 46/62.  What struck me about SJU was their trees seemed to have no idea how to post to the basket, and their top-notch guard Alex Schmitt (20.8ppg) didn't look to pass after dribble penetration.

Freshman Viking Jordan Robinson has demonstrated to me in this young season that he likes to post up.  (He can also hit the trey and mid-range jumper.)  When Jordan gets the ball in the low post, he actually uses the pivot foot, has a shoulder dip, and creates a shot with his back to the basket.  Think a young Rob Berki!

Juwan Henry scored 16 points while being guarded by an athletic and much taller hack machine.  #10 Risinger finished with four fouls, but he committed at least eight...twice Henry blew passed Risinger only to have him swat the back of Henry's head....obvious fouls, not called.  Overall, though, few stoppages and fouls.

SJU traveled very well and made some noise when the Johnnies got to 60-59 before missing the FT to tie.  NPU and especially Henry missed too many free throw shots tonight.