MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[kenoshamark]

Following the OT win last night in Decatur: 

"This game does not get played like this in most NCAA Division III conferences," said Carthage coach Bosko Djurickovic.  "This was two teams playing for pride, and it was as competitive and as physical a game as you can imagine.  We're thrilled to win this one.  We're proud to be a part of this league, and I'm proud of how our guys finished the season.  It was weird season, and there was no way to predict what the league scores were going to be, night in and night out.  The league was really good this year, top to bottom.  We have some good players, and I know we'll be significantly better next year.  There's no guarantee of that unless we do a better job of recruiting.  We were just under-manned this year, and that's on me.  We have to have an exceptional recruiting class this year, and I have no doubt that we will."

While no team comes close to getting all the recruits they target as a priority, things so far on the recruiting circuit aren't looking "exceptional" for Carthage at least as far as the recruitment of bigs is concerned.
One of Bosko's top big man targets, a 6'6" combo forward from the near northwest suburbs, recently committed to future CCIW member Carroll, and another, a 6'7" center from the far northwest suburbs decided to forego basketball in college, and attend the U of I as a student only. Perhaps Bosko is having better luck with some shorter players.

AndOne,  I don't know of any shorter players they have gotten, but I do know of one that isn't going there.  Andre Brown, from Indian Trail H.S., is going to Whitewater.  Brown is the best player coming out of Kenosha and was named the MVP of the Southeast Conference (all the big schools between Kenosha and Racine and a few surrounding areas - same conference that Steve D. played in).  Brown is 6'1" off guard who is very strong for his age. If you were to look at him physically, he looks like he could be a junior in college (based on how kids typically mature with some weightlifting).  He isn't a PG, but he can handle the ball well and is really good taking guys off the dribble and posting up.  Carthage definitely needs guys who can take someone off the dribble...Logan was good at that and there was a deep drop off from there. 

In all fairness, I don't know if Carthage even wanted him or he had an interest.  Just pointing out that ball players like him are few and far between in Kenosha.  I think Whitewater is getting a good player who has some real potential.  They struck gold with Quardell Young out of Kenosha Bradford (same conference as IT) and this was a good get for them.  He definitely could have made an impact at Carthage.

[Gregory Sager]

C'mon, Greg, it's obvious he's just trying to sandbag his team to the casual reader to give us has-beens false hope that we can knock off the juggernaut that is Augustana this weekend.

I think that it's entirely possible that this is a new attempt at poor-mouthing by the Augie coach. Giovanine is quoted in the story, although not in reference to the loss of Kevin Schlitter. It may be that he reiterated that spurious bit of sandbaggery that he'd fed to Josh Smith in December when he spoke to Rob Knox for the current d3hoops.com article. Or it's possible that the subject never came up when Knox interviewed Giovanine, and that Knox simply took the bit about Schlitter from Smith's prior story.

Either way, it's simply not true -- as was demonstrated by Giovanine himself with regard to the limited amount of minutes that he gave to the non-starting Schlitter when the Augie center was still healthy at the beginning of the season. Furthermore, Schlitter was taken out of the starting lineup and had his minutes reduced about halfway through the CCIW portion of the 2013-14 season, so this was not a new development.

[Pat Coleman]

C'mon, Greg, it's obvious he's just trying to sandbag his team to the casual reader to give us has-beens false hope that we can knock off the juggernaut that is Augustana this weekend.

I think that it's entirely possible that this is a new attempt at poor-mouthing by the Augie coach. Giovanine is quoted in the story, although not in reference to the loss of Kevin Schlitter. It may be that he reiterated that spurious bit of sandbaggery that he'd fed to Josh Smith in December when he spoke to Rob Knox for the current d3hoops.com article. Or it's possible that the subject never came up when Knox interviewed Giovanine, and that Knox simply took the bit about Schlitter from Smith's prior story.

Either way, it's simply not true -- as was demonstrated by Giovanine himself with regard to the limited amount of minutes that he gave to the non-starting Schlitter when the Augie center was still healthy at the beginning of the season. Furthermore, Schlitter was taken out of the starting lineup and had his minutes reduced about halfway through the CCIW portion of the 2013-14 season, so this was not a new development.

I didn't send Rob a link to that story, remembering how it was roundly panned here, so I suspect it's a fair assumption that that is just the  storyline they are selling.

This time, I took it out.

[Gregory Sager]

Thanks, Pat. I think that we all recognize that coaches often gild the lily when speaking about their teams -- but this was an instance of a coach taking it too far.

[veterancciwfan]

Should have posted earlier about best route for Augie fans to get to Salem, having taken at least 4 different routes before: Go through Dayton, hit I-35 south, merge on to I-64 east, then I-77 south, crossing into VA at Bluefield, then head to Salem on I-81 north, approaching Roanoke/Salem from south. If possible, stay at Hotel Roanoke in the heart of downtown Roanoke. The extra cost is worth it. I assume Augustana is staying at that old established hotel, always the center of D3 Final Four team events.

[petemcb]

Greg:  During the NPC run under McCarrell, what school was the team that went to the FF in the fourth year?

In 1981, after North Park's national championship threepeat, Augustana made it to the Final Four. Since, as you well know, the Final Four was held at Carver back then, Augie is thus the only D3 school to play in a men's Final Four that it also hosted.

Augie defeated Otterbein in the semifinals, 93-81, advancing to the national championship game against Potsdam State. The hosts came oh-so-close to winning in regulation, but Potsdam State's Leroy Witherspoon hit a halfcourt shot at the buzzer to send the game into overtime. (Since that predated the three-point shot, Witherspoon's halfcourt heave was only worth two points.)

So, basically, the equivalent of a dunk, right? 😉

[realist]

Should have posted earlier about best route for Augie fans to get to Salem, having taken at least 4 different routes before: Go through Dayton, hit I-35 south, merge on to I-64 east, then I-77 south, crossing into VA at Bluefield, then head to Salem on I-81 north, approaching Roanoke/Salem from south. If possible, stay at Hotel Roanoke in the heart of downtown Roanoke. The extra cost is worth it. I assume Augustana is staying at that old established hotel, always the center of D3 Final Four team events.

I think you mean I 75 south in Dayton.

[AppletonRocks]

I have learned that is Sager said it, it is the truth.   

[Gregory Sager]

Greg:  During the NPC run under McCarrell, what school was the team that went to the FF in the fourth year?

In 1981, after North Park's national championship threepeat, Augustana made it to the Final Four. Since, as you well know, the Final Four was held at Carver back then, Augie is thus the only D3 school to play in a men's Final Four that it also hosted.

Augie defeated Otterbein in the semifinals, 93-81, advancing to the national championship game against Potsdam State. The hosts came oh-so-close to winning in regulation, but Potsdam State's Leroy Witherspoon hit a halfcourt shot at the buzzer to send the game into overtime. (Since that predated the three-point shot, Witherspoon's halfcourt heave was only worth two points.)

So, basically, the equivalent of a dunk, right? 😉

Yes, Denny.

[Augie6]

Augie up 32-19 at the half against Babson.  Not the prettiest half of basketball that I've seen, but I'll take it.  Griffin Pils has keyed a very good defensive effort so far.  Keep it going Augie!

[Gregory Sager]

Augustana 68
Babson 48

Augie ended the game on a 22-1 run.

[GoPerry]

Congrats to Augie on pretty impressive victory if you throw out the first 14 mins of the 2nd half.  Finishing a national semifinal with a 22-1 run sounds like a winning formula to me.  Hill stepped up big when it counted for that 2 min stretch after Babson took the lead.

[Gregory Sager]

Hill stepped up big when it counted for that 2 min stretch after Babson took the lead.

Pils, too. And I thought that Nic Hoepfner played big at both ends of the floor during that crucial stretch from the ten-minute mark to about the four-minute mark in which it was a close game.

[Augie6]

Congrats to Augie on reaching the National Championship game.  Babson came back hard in the second half and took the lead with about 7 1/2 minutes left, but then Augie hit 4 3 pointers down the stretch and dominated from that point on.  Babson looked like they ran out of gas towards the end of the game.  Here's hoping that Augie can bring home their first team national championship in a sport other than football, tomorrow night. 

[iwu70]

Congrats to Augie on their national semis win.  Great second half by Hunter Hill.

Looks like SP awaits, leading my nine now with about 10 to go.

IWU70