MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[GoPerry]

I think it's established that Wheaton has somewhat more to overcome in recruiting than the rest of the league- significantly more in some cases. 

I always assumed that being one of the best evangelical Christian institutions in the nation was more blessing than curse when it came to recruiting, but maybe not.

I think that helps them get some recruits who value the christian experience, high quality education, and top athletics as a package but that funnel is decidedly harder to populate. Wheaton coaches don't get to go around Chicagoland to every catholic league school or the top suburban leagues and draw students. They must have a national recruiting base to find enough prospects who 1-Love their christian faith, 2-have academics for a top 100 school, 3-are good enough to compete in the CCIW. That prospect list is narrower than most other schools. I think their hit rate on prospects is better when they find that profile though.

I agree with USee that the faith identity can cut both ways but it generally narrows your pool, further evidence of which is simply the # of Wheaton applicants(about 2,000) annually which is far less than other CCIW and peer institutions(IWU for example at approx 3,500, Augie 5,800, WUSTL 30,000).  A 4th factor to add to the list is the relative scarcity of merit aid available at Wheaton which others here have prior noted.

[Naperick]

Final in Decatur

Illinois Wesleyan 78
Millikin 59

[Naperick]

Final in Decatur

Illinois Wesleyan 78
Millikin 59

Now livestats shows 25 seconds remaining with the same score.  Maybe it's not quite over?

[Naperick]

2nd try

Illinois Wesleyan 80
Millikin 61

FINAL

[mr_b]

Final from Chicago: North Park 71, Wheaton 68

[Naperick]

FINAL from Kenosha   Elmhurst 78  Carthage 75

[Gregory Sager]

North Park 71
Wheaton 68

Juwan Henry: 22 pts
Jordan Robinson: 19 pts, 9 rebs, 4:2 a:to
Colin Lake: 10 pts, 5:0 a:to, 3 stls
T.J. Cobbs: 9 rebs

Brayden Teuscher: 25 pts
Michael Berg: 12 pts, 10 rebs, 3:0 a:to
Caleb DeMoss: 11 pts

As I said a month ago, NPU needs to scratch and claw to win in this league. Tonight, NPU scratched and clawed, and Wheaton scratched and clawed right back in what was a very chippy contest. Not a game for the faint of heart. The Vikings were just a little too quick in the end for Wheaton to handle, as the Vikings held off a furious late Wheaton comeback sparked by a tremendous effort from WC's Brayden Teuscher.

[Naperick]

North Central 72
Augustana 70    OT FINAL

[GoPerry]

North Central 72
Augustana 70    OT FINAL

Wow, monster win for NCC. . . and without Moten.  Didn't figure that.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Ron Rose must have had an inkling that the game could be a rout.  SIXTEEN Titans saw the floor!  I wonder how often (if ever) a team dresses that many for an away game (even if Decatur is just a short hop down the freeway)?  No one played more than 20 minutes.

Both Stempel and Bausch made threes, as did Brandon Heyen (which must have made iwu70's day ).

[augie_superfan]

Updated after tonight's games:

#1 Seed Chance:
IWU - 56.9%
Augie - 23.6%
Elmhurst - 16.6%
NCC - 2.8%

Chance of Making Conf. Tourney:
IWU - 99.9%
Augie - 99.7%
Elmhurst - 98.9%
NCC - 90.4%
NPU - 9.5%
Carthage - 0.8%
Millikin - 0.7%
Wheaton - 0.0%

[GoPerry]

Congrats to NPU on delivering yet another agonizingly close road loss to the Thunder ( I presume Coach Slyder didn't need the bowling side trip this week).  A brilliant game by Teuscher was not enough to counter the Juwan Henry/Jordan Robinson quinella.  Brayden had a look at a trey to tie with 4 secs left . . . it was open but not exactly clean coming off a screen and not being able to totally square up.  Other factors were:

Michael Berg getting the flagrant 2  technical and ejection with 4 minutes left really hurt.  He did foul Henry pretty hard but as I was only watching the feed, I will defer to Mr Sager's objectivity as to whether flag2 was justified- it was quite obvious Mike Schauer didn't think so.  Berg was having a very effective game up to that point with 12 and 10.

By contrast, Joel Smith coming up with a mere 2 rebounds (the second one with 18 secs remaining in the game) is just not getting it done. Meanwhile, all 5'-10" of TJ Cobb was collecting 9, 3 offensive.

A microcosm of their season in the first half:  trailing by one they go 5 straight possessions without a shot, 4 TOs and 2 missed FTs.

By the way Gregory, on the broadcast you kept referring to NPU only being 1 game behind NCC but I believe it's 2?  I guess you can make a case for 1 ½ with one win in hand. In any case, it looks like they need to go 3-1 to have a chance.

[markerickson]

On the other side, I saw the refs protect Brayden Teuschner and call a biased game against NPU.  I believe he shot too many free throws in the last 10 minutes while accruing zero fouls the entire game, according to the scoreboard.  And NPU defensive specialist, TJ Cobbs, "earned" four fouls while guarding Teuschner.  Henry also got called for fouls while guarding Teuschner.  Wheaton had a grand total of seven fouls the entire game, and Coach Schauer whined too much.  He took off his coat in a fit!  Understanding Wheaton's side on the ejection of Berg, I didn't understand the refs.  The ref immediately raised the X signal after a hammer foul to deter a clear layup...there was no blood or injury.  The refs were absolutely horrible.   (I've got several other anti-Viking examples, but will spare you.)

However, in the waning seconds, I strongly believe the ball went off the Wheaton player.  If my vision is correct, and the play happened directly in front of me, Wheaton would not have had the chance to tie at the end with a trey.  Nevertheless, Teuschner missed his trey attempt and the Vikes won by three.

I'm interested in the steals portion of the box score.  It is possible that Lake and Cobbs will finish 1+2 in conference pay, respectively.  Seems like Henry is also adept at stealing the ball.   

[iwu70]

Indeed so, Ypsi.  Glad to see so many pine-sitters on the floor, including that trey by Heyen.  I was clapping for him here in HK for sure.   

Overall, IWU won the game on rebounding.  Also, very superb trey shooting, esp. in the first half.  Dolan a big key early.   Very balanced scoring and lots of fresh legs running in and out.  Not one of Overstreet's better games.  I think we can conclude at this point that the IWU system is really coming along, that this team passes the ball very well, and shoots the three extraordinarily well.  The bigs did a good job tonight controlling the paint, rebounding the ball and blocking some shots.  Pleasant surprises this season for sure the play of Pennington with always quality minutes both offensively and defensively . . and the superb play of Bausch, with energy, rebounding, and now some offensive contributions as well.  (Even with the three key senior perimeter players graduating, next year this team is going to be very good, very deep still.  More on that later on).  Let's enjoy this run first. 

Wowza, the Doggies go down.  Thank you NCC (AO is happy).  EC wins and continues to put together a very fine season overall.  Congrats to NPU on their win.  When was the last time NPU beat Wheaton -- must have been some few years.  Greg, please enlighten. 

Congrats to Coach Rose and the Titans on getting these key road wins. Any CCIW road win is a good win.   Now time to protect the home floor and beat NCC and AC at The Shirk. 

Keep it rolling Green.  I bet those two old guys in the balcony are having a good laugh tonight, likely over a cup of cocoa, and just there sharing stories about how the Titans continue to "rock the CCIW."     My triple-jointed shoulder is feeling just fine tonight. 

Four games to go. 

IWU'70

[GoPerry]

On the other side, I saw the refs protect Brayden Teuschner and call a biased game against NPU.  I believe he shot too many free throws in the last 10 minutes while accruing zero fouls the entire game, according to the scoreboard.  And NPU defensive specialist, TJ Cobbs, "earned" four fouls while guarding Teuschner.  Henry also got called for fouls while guarding Teuschner.  Wheaton had a grand total of seven fouls the entire game, and Coach Schauer whined too much.  He took off his coat in a fit!  Understanding Wheaton's side on the ejection of Berg, I didn't understand the refs.  The ref immediately raised the X signal after a hammer foul to deter a clear layup...there was no blood or injury.  The refs were absolutely horrible.   (I've got several other anti-Viking examples, but will spare you.)

However, in the waning seconds, I strongly believe the ball went off the Wheaton player.  If my vision is correct, and the play happened directly in front of me, Wheaton would not have had the chance to tie at the end with a trey.  Nevertheless, Teuschner missed his trey attempt and the Vikes won by three.

I'm interested in the steals portion of the box score.  It is possible that Lake and Cobbs will finish 1+2 in conference pay, respectively.  Seems like Henry is also adept at stealing the ball.

Teuscher went to the line 8 times and w/o looking at his season stats, I would guess that's close to his average.  He was pretty much taking it to the rim every time in the last couple mins to bring the team back by getting to the line and I didn't notice any of the fouls being blatant bailout type calls.  And the play in the corner was not really clear on the video blurr.  But of course, I'm not totally objective because I was too busy trying to keep track of the offensive rebounds and 2nd chances Park was getting.

The final foul tally was 16-8, yes- pretty lopsided.  But the Vikes took lots of outside shots against the 2-3 zone that Wheaton utilized pretty much the last 25 mins of the game.  So that could explain some of that.