MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

( I presume Coach Slyder didn't need the bowling side trip this week

At tonight's North Park vs. Judson JV game he told me that on Monday he showed the team a film about frog gigging. Seriously.

Not a single player knew what frog gigging was. I didn't, either, until Tom explained it to me. I think that that's the whole point of it. He's baffling and amusing them, keeping them guessing ... and loose. As he said in his post-game interview last night, it's all about letting them grow in their self-confidence by having fun and by not overcoaching them.

[Gregory Sager]

Wheaton has 3 very good players in Braydon Teuscher, Joel Smith and Michael Berg. But they play so many minutes that they seldom are as effective in the last 5 minutes as they have been in the first 35.

I don't agree. I don't see that as the problem at all. Brayden Teuscher, for example, played 38 minutes last night, and he saved his best for last in terms of the game's final four minutes. Joel Smith is averaging 30 mpg in CCIW play, which is entirely reasonable for a big man, and 25 mpg overall. Michael Berg's averaging about the same. Wheaton plays a three-man rotation at the PF and C spots, a rotation which is perfectly adequate in terms of rest and which a whole slew of college teams employ. If you play 'em 30-30-20 or 30-25-25 you should have no problem with their effectiveness at the ends of games. (The one drawback is that your rotation goes askew if one of the three gets into early foul trouble.) Wheaton's trademark has always been its conditioning; I've never seen a Bill Harris or Mike Schauer team that couldn't get up and down the floor at the end of a game.

If there's any team in this league that should have tired players at the end of games, it's North Park. The two players in this league who've averaged the most minutes in CCIW play are Juwan Henry and Colin Lake, both of whom are averaging a full minute and a half per game more than the third most-used player in CCIW contests, T.J. Sims of Millikin. And yet anyone who's watched NPU play over the past four games will tell you that Henry and (especially) Lake have absolutely shined down the stretch in those ballgames.

Wheaton has 3 very good players in Braydon Teuscher, Joel Smith and Michael Berg. But they play so many minutes that they seldom are as effective in the last 5 minutes as they have been in the first 35. I realize Wheaton has had significant injury issues this season, but Ron Rose recruits a minimum of 5 talented freshmen every year. Last year IWU graduated 6 above average seniors and still has a lot of talent this year. I think Schauer, for whatever reason, didn't recruit enough quantity and quality freshmen for the current team and that is going to be very hard for Wheaton to overcome. But getting players from all over the country may result in Wheaton having great freshmen recruits next year. Smith and Berg as senior leaders and two great freshmen will result in a much better Wheaton team for 15/16. It's quite a story for Wheaton, a school that has made 8 consecutive CCIW Conf. Tournaments, to be in last place with 5 left.

Actually, M Schauer had a bumper crop of freshman commits in the spring, 2 of which are getting some quality minutes now( and a good one committing but not enrolling) and I would think that most coaches would love to get just one freshman per class that can play immediately on a competitive squad.  So I'm not sure of your point- except perhaps that you believe Ron Rose is a superior recruiter?

Does this surprise you, considering the source? I think that if you ask him, he'll tell you that Ron Rose is also a better basketball mind, a nicer guy, and has whiter teeth and fresher breath than does Mike Schauer.

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.

Boy, do I vehemently disagree with that.

I don't think that you realize just how hard it is to recruit D3 student-athletes to come to a city school. Even in basketball -- the one sport in which the city of Chicago is not a preps desert, comparatively speaking -- the city is a hard hurdle to overcome. Not only are suburban basketball players wary of NPU's recruiting pitch to attend school in the big, bad urban jungle, but the city-bred talent in hoops is difficult to exploit, because so few kids who attend Chicago public schools can hack either the academic demands or the price tag of a North Park education. And many of the city kids who can handle both the books and the bills of a CCIW education want to leave town and experience life on the other side of the city limits in a more buttoned-down environment (Exhibit A: Erwin Henry of North Central, who specifically picked NCC over NPU because he wanted to get out of the city.).

I would also argue that Carthage is becoming more and more of a tough place to recruit, and not just based on the evidence of this year's much-discussed thin freshman class for Bosko & Co. The bread and butter of Carthage athletics was the school's long-standing policy of matching the state aid given to Illinois students who stay in-state, which allowed Carthage to mine the suburbs for student-athletes. With that policy gone by the wayside due to budgetary cutbacks, Carthage now has to recruit as an out-of-state school in what had once been its most fertile recruiting ground. Meanwhile, on the other side of the cheddar curtain, Carthage has to compete for high-school prospects with the WIAC schools, who can offer just as competitive a sports environment for Wisconsin kids at a fraction of the cost of Carthage's tuition and r&b.

From my perspective, it's hard to say whether Wheaton's recruiting challenges are more or less difficult than the other CCIW schools, since it's such an apples-and-oranges comparison.  Are they easier or harder?  I dunno -- they're mostly different.  The Wheaties do have to cast a wider net, but to the comments above, when they find a kid that fits their profile, the chances of landing them are much higher.  Most of the rest of the conference can stay local in whom they target, but they're often fighting against a bigger pool of competitive schools that have a comparable profile.

I think this is reflected in the numbers you cite above -- 2000 applicants is a smaller pool, but the academic credentials of those who are accepted are as good as or better than that of every other school in the conference.  Perhaps I'm naive, but relative to others in the conference, Wheaton's challenge to me seems less about landing recruits and more about surfacing them, if that makes sense.

I think that that's a good way to describe it.

I'm not one to cheerlead for Wheaton as it would be a-okay by me if they broke NPU's football losing streak.

Fine by me, too.

  But their gridiron success is particularly impressive given the narrower recruiting profile that frames up their sweet spot.  Basketball teams can get better in a hurry with just a couple of key recruits.  Football is far more of a numbers game, and having sustained success against some exigencies that would intuitively seem to work against you is pretty impressive.

I agree with that completely. Wheaton's success in that regard on the gridiron is very impressive. Of course, given my alma mater's innate recruiting difficulties in football, I reserve the right to say that same thing about NPU's eternally woebegone football program if it ever gets competitive.

[Mr. Ypsi]

IIRC, the CCIW COY is a 'ho-hum' award automatically awarded to the coach of the title-winning team.  If it were actually a merit award, is there anyone who would disagree that it would come down to John Baines vs. Tom Slyder?

[iwu70]

My vote would be for Baines, but looks like Ron Rose may win it.  We'll see.  Still some very tough games ahead for everyone.

17-4 for EC to date is pretty impressive.   

'70

[iwu70]

Pink Zone games at The Shirk this Saturday -- hope everyone comes out and supports the fundraising efforts, the games.  A good cause = the Community Cancer Center.

A busy weekend at The Shirk, with the Keck Track meet with 8-9 teams and the CCIW Diving Championships, all going on at once.  Parking is going to be tough!  Come early!

Go TITANS -- beat NCC!

IWU'70

[veterancciwfan]

Looking at Knightslappy's great computer rankings, maybe the Centennial Conf. is the best D3 conf. this year with these 3 teams: 1) Dickinson  18-2  2) Johns Hopkins  18-2   3) Franklin & Marshall   17-3. However, there is no doubt the Central Region is by far the best of the 8 regions based on these numbers from K'slappy: 1) It has 5 teams in the top 13 in the National Rankings: Whitewater at #3 in the nation; Augustana at #4; Stevens Point at #6; IWU at #9, and Wash. U. at #13. Also, it has 7 teams in the top 20 as St. Norbert at #18 and North Central at #20. My guess is that the 5 teams currently in the top 13 will likely (barring a complete meltdown in remaining games) make the D3 Tournament as well as St. Norbert. I'm fairly certain the CCIW will have 3 teams in and at this juncture and it appears the 3rd team will be either NCC or Elmhurst, which is the #27 team according to K'slappy. It would be unusual for 4 teams in an 8-school league to make the tournament. But we know anything can happen in the remaining games in the CCIW. NCC or Elmhurst could win their final 6 (counting 2 in CCIW Tournament). Nothing will surprise me this year.

[GoPerry]

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.

From my perspective, it's hard to say whether Wheaton's recruiting challenges are more or less difficult than the other CCIW schools, since it's such an apples-and-oranges comparison.  Are they easier or harder?  I dunno -- they're mostly different.  The Wheaties do have to cast a wider net, but to the comments above, when they find a kid that fits their profile, the chances of landing them are much higher.  Most of the rest of the conference can stay local in whom they target, but they're often fighting against a bigger pool of competitive schools that have a comparable profile.

I think this is reflected in the numbers you cite above -- 2000 applicants is a smaller pool, but the academic credentials of those who are accepted are as good as or better than that of every other school in the conference.  Perhaps I'm naive, but relative to others in the conference, Wheaton's challenge to me seems less about landing recruits and more about surfacing them, if that makes sense.

I think that that's a good way to describe it.

Yes kiko said it better.  The specific recruiting issue to which I was referring in that and subsequent posts was the narrower pool that Wheaton begins with because of the factors USee described and then the finances.   But of course, WC will by far have the best chance at landing the kid from a christian HS, with 3.50 GPA, 30 ACT, Wheaton alum parents, filled out the recruiting interest form and did a research paper on Billy Graham as a 6th grader. 

But even that's no guarantee for the top Raymond-McCreary-Peters D3 talent.  I don't know for sure, but I would guess that Schauer and crew were in close touch with Brayden Teuscher during his senior year at Rockford Christian, but he ended up choosing WUSTL.  Fortunately he ended up transferring.  (And congrats to Brayden for making Capital One Academic All District btw).  Max Rothschild is another example.

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.

Boy, do I vehemently disagree with that.

Respectfully, I think you're reading a little too much into my statement.  The context was responding to an implication that Mike Schauer was asleep at the recruiting wheel vis a vis Ron Rose.  The factors are not an excuse of any sort, but they are situational fact.

I don't think that you realize just how hard it is to recruit D3 student-athletes to come to a city school. Even in basketball -- the one sport in which the city of Chicago is not a preps desert, comparatively speaking -- the city is a hard hurdle to overcome. Not only are suburban basketball players wary of NPU's recruiting pitch to attend school in the big, bad urban jungle, but the city-bred talent in hoops is difficult to exploit, because so few kids who attend Chicago public schools can hack either the academic demands or the price tag of a North Park education. And many of the city kids who can handle both the books and the bills of a CCIW education want to leave town and experience life on the other side of the city limits in a more buttoned-down environment (Exhibit A: Erwin Henry of North Central, who specifically picked NCC over NPU because he wanted to get out of the city.).

I'm not quite buying this.  Yes, it's axiomatic that many in the city are not candidates for any 4 yr school from an academic and cost standpoint.  But is it suggested that North Park's only fertile recruiting ground is the CPS?  And while I would believe that the city location might be a negative to some, would it not be a positive to plenty of recruits from the suburbs?  At the very least, it did not deter Jordan Robinson who would've been welcome on any CCIW roster.  I'm inclined to believe that location would be less of a factor should NPU challenge for the league title over the next 2-3 years.  By the way, as a Covenant Church institution, I don't know if or how that plays into the makeup of Slyder's pool(do students sign a statement, attend required chapel, etc).

None of us would deny that recruiting at the D3 level is hard and competitive for every coach who must sell the merits of their program over another.  Every school has it's natural advantages or disadvantages with regard to locale, quality of program, academics, facilities, size, student life.  Institutional buy-in is pretty big too.

[Gotberg]

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.

From my perspective, it's hard to say whether Wheaton's recruiting challenges are more or less difficult than the other CCIW schools, since it's such an apples-and-oranges comparison.  Are they easier or harder?  I dunno -- they're mostly different.  The Wheaties do have to cast a wider net, but to the comments above, when they find a kid that fits their profile, the chances of landing them are much higher.  Most of the rest of the conference can stay local in whom they target, but they're often fighting against a bigger pool of competitive schools that have a comparable profile.

I think this is reflected in the numbers you cite above -- 2000 applicants is a smaller pool, but the academic credentials of those who are accepted are as good as or better than that of every other school in the conference.  Perhaps I'm naive, but relative to others in the conference, Wheaton's challenge to me seems less about landing recruits and more about surfacing them, if that makes sense.

I think that that's a good way to describe it.

Yes kiko said it better.  The specific recruiting issue to which I was referring in that and subsequent posts was the narrower pool that Wheaton begins with because of the factors USee described and then the finances.   But of course, WC will by far have the best chance at landing the kid from a christian HS, with 3.50 GPA, 30 ACT, Wheaton alum parents, filled out the recruiting interest form and did a research paper on Billy Graham as a 6th grader. 

But even that's no guarantee for the top Raymond-McCreary-Peters D3 talent.  I don't know for sure, but I would guess that Schauer and crew were in close touch with Brayden Teuscher during his senior year at Rockford Christian, but he ended up choosing WUSTL.  Fortunately he ended up transferring.  (And congrats to Brayden for making Capital One Academic All District btw).  Max Rothschild is another example.

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.

Boy, do I vehemently disagree with that.

Respectfully, I think you're reading a little too much into my statement.  The context was responding to an implication that Mike Schauer was asleep at the recruiting wheel vis a vis Ron Rose.  The factors are not an excuse of any sort, but they are situational fact.

I don't think that you realize just how hard it is to recruit D3 student-athletes to come to a city school. Even in basketball -- the one sport in which the city of Chicago is not a preps desert, comparatively speaking -- the city is a hard hurdle to overcome. Not only are suburban basketball players wary of NPU's recruiting pitch to attend school in the big, bad urban jungle, but the city-bred talent in hoops is difficult to exploit, because so few kids who attend Chicago public schools can hack either the academic demands or the price tag of a North Park education. And many of the city kids who can handle both the books and the bills of a CCIW education want to leave town and experience life on the other side of the city limits in a more buttoned-down environment (Exhibit A: Erwin Henry of North Central, who specifically picked NCC over NPU because he wanted to get out of the city.).

I'm not quite buying this.  Yes, it's axiomatic that many in the city are not candidates for any 4 yr school from an academic and cost standpoint.  But is it suggested that North Park's only fertile recruiting ground is the CPS?  And while I would believe that the city location might be a negative to some, would it not be a positive to plenty of recruits from the suburbs?  At the very least, it did not deter Jordan Robinson who would've been welcome on any CCIW roster.  I'm inclined to believe that location would be less of a factor should NPU challenge for the league title over the next 2-3 years.  By the way, as a Covenant Church institution, I don't know if or how that plays into the makeup of Slyder's pool(do students sign a statement, attend required chapel, etc).

None of us would deny that recruiting at the D3 level is hard and competitive for every coach who must sell the merits of their program over another.  Every school has it's natural advantages or disadvantages with regard to locale, quality of program, academics, facilities, size, student life.  Institutional buy-in is pretty big too.

NPU doesn't require students to sign any statements of faith - NPU also welcomes students of any religion.

[WUPHF]

I would also argue that Carthage is becoming more and more of a tough place to recruit, and not just based on the evidence of this year's much-discussed thin freshman class for Bosko & Co. The bread and butter of Carthage athletics was the school's long-standing policy of matching the state aid given to Illinois students who stay in-state, which allowed Carthage to mine the suburbs for student-athletes. With that policy gone by the wayside due to budgetary cutbacks, Carthage now has to recruit as an out-of-state school in what had once been its most fertile recruiting ground. Meanwhile, on the other side of the cheddar curtain, Carthage has to compete for high-school prospects with the WIAC schools, who can offer just as competitive a sports environment for Wisconsin kids at a fraction of the cost of Carthage's tuition and r&b.

This is absolutely true.

[joehakes]

It is interesting to read the posts on the difficulties of recruiting after many posters refer to recruiting almost like shopping.  "Why didn't Coach X just recruit an All-State All-Academic player for a certain position?"  This sentiment supposes that coaches just choose from the stock of players who are sitting there waiting for the teacher to call on them.  It just doesn't work that way.

All schools have their difficulties in recruitment of students, and particularly of student athletes.  Changes in a school's academic profile, cost, or financial aid policies along with the intended major (at least for the first few weeks of school) can change the type of young man or woman that a coach can realistically have a chance to successfully recruit.  It is the hardest part of coaching because you are reliant upon the whims of seventeen year olds as well as the financial ability of the parents to pay.  Add in the expectations that parents have for their "most-wonderful-and-talented-child-that-has-ever-lived" that they have supported to the nth degree for many years, and it is an emotional and often irrational decision that determines where they go. 

Bosko said something to me years ago about recruiting that has stuck with me and I have passed this along to many coaches who have worked for me.  There is no runner-up prize in recruiting; you either got 'em or you didn't.  The fortunes of many programs might be markedly different but for a few enrollment decisions.  It is the hardest single job duty (and probably the most important) that DIII coaches have on their plate. 

[79jaybird]

Agree if there was ever a year to differentiate COY vs. Coach X who wins the CCIW  this is the year to do it.  Baines and Slyder have brought programs that earlier would have been viewed as "out of the picture", into contention. 

[WUPHF]

It is interesting to read the posts on the difficulties of recruiting after many posters refer to recruiting almost like shopping.  "Why didn't Coach X just recruit an All-State All-Academic player for a certain position?"  This sentiment supposes that coaches just choose from the stock of players who are sitting there waiting for the teacher to call on them.  It just doesn't work that way.

I think it is safe to say that everyone who has commented on recruiting agrees with you on this and everything else you said.  Recruiting 101.  I did not read anything to the contrary. 

[GoPerry]

Agree if there was ever a year to differentiate COY vs. Coach X who wins the CCIW  this is the year to do it.  Baines and Slyder have brought programs that earlier would have been viewed as "out of the picture", into contention.

Massey has Wheaton a mere 3 point home dog tomorrow night jaybird and Naperick . . . sounds a little thin doesn't it?!

[Gregory Sager]

IIRC, the CCIW COY is a 'ho-hum' award automatically awarded to the coach of the title-winning team.  If it were actually a merit award, is there anyone who would disagree that it would come down to John Baines vs. Tom Slyder?

I would agree with you. Right now, I'd give the nod to Baines, with the understanding that that could change over the last four nights of regular-season play.

Looking at Knightslappy's great computer rankings, maybe the Centennial Conf. is the best D3 conf. this year with these 3 teams: 1) Dickinson  18-2  2) Johns Hopkins  18-2   3) Franklin & Marshall   17-3. However, there is no doubt the Central Region is by far the best of the 8 regions based on these numbers from K'slappy: 1) It has 5 teams in the top 13 in the National Rankings: Whitewater at #3 in the nation; Augustana at #4; Stevens Point at #6; IWU at #9, and Wash. U. at #13. Also, it has 7 teams in the top 20 as St. Norbert at #18 and North Central at #20. My guess is that the 5 teams currently in the top 13 will likely (barring a complete meltdown in remaining games) make the D3 Tournament as well as St. Norbert.

I think that we can take it as an article of faith that the reconstituted Central Region will be the best region of the eight on an annual basis for the foreseeable future. Both the WIAC and the CCIW have long established themselves as among D3's four or five elite leagues, while Washington (MO) and Chicago represent two of the stronger programs within another one of those elite leagues, the UAA. None of the other seven regions has that kind of firepower with that kind of history. Alas, those are mixed bragging rights from our point of view, because the strength of the region may also work to the region's detriment when it comes to Pool C bids. I keep worrying that sooner or later the committee is going to get fed up with taking one Central Region team after another, and that a deserving team from this region might get left on the table because somebody on the committee thinks that there's already too many Central Region teams in Pool C, primary criteria notwithstanding.

I'm fairly certain the CCIW will have 3 teams in and at this juncture and it appears the 3rd team will be either NCC or Elmhurst, which is the #27 team according to K'slappy. It would be unusual for 4 teams in an 8-school league to make the tournament.

I'm not certain that the CCIW will get three in, although I think that the odds are pretty good. There's never been a tourney that's featured four CCIW teams, although other D3 leagues have reached that threshold before. As an interesting sidenote, I interviewed NPU head softball coach Katie Anderson at halftime of the AC @ NPU game last Saturday, and we discussed the theory that the CCIW, while nationally strong across the board, is stronger in softball than it is in any other sport. Two years ago there were four CCIW teams that made the D3 softball tournament. Softball doesn't get a lot of attention, but I thought it was worth mentioning that there is a sport in which the CCIW is collectively stronger than it is in men's basketball.

But we know anything can happen in the remaining games in the CCIW. NCC or Elmhurst could win their final 6 (counting 2 in CCIW Tournament). Nothing will surprise me this year.

That's pretty much our motto here in the Anything Can Happen League.

[kiko]

I would also argue that Carthage is becoming more and more of a tough place to recruit, and not just based on the evidence of this year's much-discussed thin freshman class for Bosko & Co. The bread and butter of Carthage athletics was the school's long-standing policy of matching the state aid given to Illinois students who stay in-state, which allowed Carthage to mine the suburbs for student-athletes. With that policy gone by the wayside due to budgetary cutbacks, Carthage now has to recruit as an out-of-state school in what had once been its most fertile recruiting ground. Meanwhile, on the other side of the cheddar curtain, Carthage has to compete for high-school prospects with the WIAC schools, who can offer just as competitive a sports environment for Wisconsin kids at a fraction of the cost of Carthage's tuition and r&b.

This is absolutely true.

Out of curiosity, does Carroll face these same challenges as Carthage?  Not sure what their tuition policy is/was or how it impacts where they go trolling for power forwards.  But it will become relevant to us soon enough.