MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

While we NPU fans are pleased with your prediction, bbfan44, we'd rather you not write it down with a pen. NPU should be solid this coming season, but the Vikings are far from a lock for the top two. Go ahead and use a pencil instead.

[AndOne]

Nice preview of the Carthage team.  Seems to be a pretty good recruiting season.  It's always interesting to see a 6'10' in D3 ball.  Hopefully there will be 6 teams in the running for the playoffs.  I don't think it's as wide open as you suggest, Red and black .  Unless there are injuries, I'm ready to pencil in, no, I'll use ink, and write down NC and NP.

While we NPU fans are pleased with your prediction, bbfan44, we'd rather you not write it down with a pen. NPU should be solid this coming season, but the Vikings are far from a lock for the top two. Go ahead and use a pencil instead.

NCC and NPU will certainly be in the hunt for conference honors. However, I think anyone overlooking IWU, Carroll, and Augie is making a mistake. I believe these 5 teams will ultimately be the ones fighting for the four conference tourney spots.

As far as the above Carthage lineup at this early date, I read/foresee athleticism, quickness, some one-on-one matchup ability, and possibly an inside presence recently missing from the Bosko Brigade.
I realize some may not share my view, but I always wonder about kids who end up halfway across the country at a D2 school that many within the confines of the CCIW have never heard of. The same applies to "preferred walk ons." So often we see these kids as coming out of high school thinking they're too good for D3. That's not to say they aren't good ball players, moreso that D3 was where they probably belonged in the first place. The trepidation being are they going to be truly happy at the D3 level, and, if not, how will that effect team chemistry which I always feel is high on the list of attributes of a successful team. Can they share the ball? Just from a statistical point of view, Kamal Shasi scored 15 points at his D2 school last year, 9 of which were from the FT line. He was 2/9 from the field including 2/7 from three. Jordan Thomas played 24 minutes all year and scored 9 points. He was 3/8, all threes. While the potential is probably there, not thinking either of these stat lines automatically transfers to D3 star status.

[Gregory Sager]

Reggie Banks 6'6 Freshman:  From Richmond Burton High school.  Missed his Sr. Season due to injury.  Was a top 50 player in the state of Illinois heading into his final season.   Big time recruit who has a crazy upside.  Right near the top of the list for best CCIW recruits this season!

I can't find any evidence for this "top 50 player in the state" statement online. There are mentions of his athleticism in a couple of stories (prior to his tearing his ACL while playing football for Richmond-Burton last fall), and his Hudl videos certainly show some nice talent, but there's no scouting website that I could find that had him ranked in the top 50. He was an All-Big Northern honorable mention pick as a junior -- but three of his Richmond-Burton teammates were first-teamers that year. Granted, there isn't necessarily a correlation between high-school awards and college potential, as I've often said in this room. But you'd think that a top 50 Illinois player would be a first-teamer in his conference, rather than an honorable mention selection who had three teammates who were first-teamers.

Does this mean that I don't think that Reggie Banks is all that and a bag of chips? No, it doesn't mean that. I'm agnostic on the issue of Reggie Banks being a sure-fire bet to conquer the world of D3 basketball. I really don't know anything about him other than what I've found online. If his knee gets back to 100%, I suppose that it's entirely possible that he'll become a CCIW superstar. I'm just saying that I find the initial hype to be a bit dubious.

[Titan Q]

Getting pretty close - IWU opens practice in 7 days.

The Titans' schedule is here - http://www.iwusports.com/schedule.aspx?path=mbball&schedule=166&;.  Non-conference opponents are:
- Dominican (H)
- Webster (H)
- Loras or Aurora (H)
- MacMurray (H)
- Ohio Wesleyan (A)
- Washington U. (A)
- U. of Chicago (H)
- Middlebury (Staten Island, NY)
- Bridgewater or Staten Island (Staten Island, NY)

Still pretty strange to think that IWU faces North Central on December 3 - that's going to take some getting used to.

IWU returns a lot of talent and has some newcomers who could help right away.  I'm looking forward to seeing how it comes together.

[Greek Tragedy]

Yeah, playing conference games at the beginning of December  (usually 3 or 4) and then not playing another conference game until the beginning of the calender year is something I never got used to and something I won't miss now that the WIAC is a year into it's 8-team format. I love playing all the conference games before the new year and then straight conference games after that. It's literally like a whole new season.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Getting pretty close - IWU opens practice in 7 days.

The Titans' schedule is here - http://www.iwusports.com/schedule.aspx?path=mbball&schedule=166&;.  Non-conference opponents are:
- Dominican (H)
- Webster (H)
- Loras or Aurora (H)
- MacMurray (H)
- Ohio Wesleyan (A)
- Washington U. (A)
- U. of Chicago (H)
- Middlebury (Staten Island, NY)
- Bridgewater or Staten Island (Staten Island, NY)

Still pretty strange to think that IWU faces North Central on December 3 - that's going to take some getting used to.

IWU returns a lot of talent and has some newcomers who could help right away.  I'm looking forward to seeing how it comes together.

We're gonna know a lot very early with that schedule.  A lot of tough schedules around the country this year - it should be fun.

[AndOne]

Getting pretty close - IWU opens practice in 7 days.

The Titans' schedule is here - http://www.iwusports.com/schedule.aspx?path=mbball&schedule=166&;.  Non-conference opponents are:
- Dominican (H)
- Webster (H)
- Loras or Aurora (H)
- MacMurray (H)
- Ohio Wesleyan (A)
- Washington U. (A)
- U. of Chicago (H)
- Middlebury (Staten Island, NY)
- Bridgewater or Staten Island (Staten Island, NY)

Still pretty strange to think that IWU faces North Central on December 3 - that's going to take some getting used to.

IWU returns a lot of talent and has some newcomers who could help right away.  I'm looking forward to seeing how it comes together.

We're gonna know a lot very early with that schedule.  A lot of tough schedules around the country this year - it should be fun.

As TQ indicates, NCC/IWU on 12/3 tends to elicit a first reaction of "what"? It WILL be very strange.

I sense the Green Team will get a nice bump with the return of B. Rose from injury. This will be especially important given what they lost from the guard corps. I may change things up when I get around to analyzing the conference race in more detail but presently, off the top of my head, I'd pencil the Greenies in for 2nd place. Anytime you center a team around a player as talented as Trevor Siebring you are headed in the right direction.

I think the last 4 or 5 non-con games might tell us something, but I sense the first 4 will be relatively easy Ws for IWU.

[hopefan]

I think the last 4 or 5 non-con games might tell us something, but I sense the first 4 will be relatively easy Ws for IWU.

Uh oh... Bulletin Board material for a couple of my favorite SLIAC teams..

[X-Road Coug]

New Elmhurst guy here enjoying the posts.  Our roster is up and it has 13 Freshman and 3 Seniors (30 total).  Some talent, but not much game experience throughout roster.  Is it possible to get to .500, with all the inexperience, while playing in the CCIW?

[Pat Coleman]

New Elmhurst guy here enjoying the posts.  Our roster is up and it has 13 Freshman and 3 Seniors (30 total).  Some talent, but not much game experience throughout roster.  Is it possible to get to .500, with all the inexperience, while playing in the CCIW?

Lots of things are possible, right? I'd be surprised if Elmhurst were .500 in the CCIW this season but I wouldn't rule it out completely.

[Gregory Sager]

New Elmhurst guy here enjoying the posts.  Our roster is up and it has 13 Freshman and 3 Seniors (30 total).

Four seniors, actually: Jalen Loving, who blew out his knee about a third of the way through last season; Nathan Rogers, who has seemed to move in and out of John Baines's doghouse throughout his career in terms of the amount of playing time he gets; and Caleb Mowry and Tucker Harlan, both of whom have flipped back and forth between JV-mainstay and varsity-garbage-time roles throughout their careers (although Harlan actually started nine games as a freshman back in 2013-14).

I noticed that former NPU starting point guard JayQuan Lee, who transferred to Elmhurst last year from a juco but did not play for the Bluejays as expected in 2015-16 (although I saw him at several Bluejays games), is not on the roster. I also noticed that former North Central center Jeremy Ireland has transferred to EC and is on the roster for the 'jays, continuing the weird incest that's been going on between the two DuPage County songbird schools in terms of men's and women's basketball over the past few years (see: Godhardt, Tess; Vaughn, Devin; and Moten, Jayme).

Some talent, but not much game experience throughout roster.  Is it possible to get to .500, with all the inexperience, while playing in the CCIW?

A few thoughts: 1) If Jalen Loving is fully healed from his torn ACL, things go much easier for John Baines & Co. this season; 2) Nathan Rogers is good enough to be an effective CCIW starter if Baines is ever able to get him to maximize his potential; 3) How is Baines going to assemble his rotation this year? Will he feature last year's JV team, which consisted of juniors Chris Parrilli, Morten Mueller, Brandon Auker, Chris Lynch, and Tristan Heffner, and sophomores Mason Schaub and Pavlos Marakis (as well as seniors Mowry, Harlan, and even Rogers on occasion), all of whom worked well together, or does he turn to his inexperienced newcomers ... or does he try to mix and match?

There's some guesswork and question marks surrounding just about all of the teams aside from North Central, so I wouldn't put it past Elmhurst to crack .500 in CCIW play this season. I also think that it's entirely possible that the 'jays will be a punching bag. Like several other teams in the league (Augustana and Millikin, and my guess is that you can probably include Carthage in this list as well, given that I suspect Bosko is going to heavily rely upon his newcomers), Elmhurst is retooling so much that it's hard to figure out right now what that team is going to look like, much less how it will perform.

[Titan Q]

Welcome to the 2016-17 season!  Many Division III teams kick off practice today...IWU starts tomorrow.

Like most teams at this point, IWU has a lot of questions to sort through regarding personnel at this point.  Here are 10 questions I have about IWU's 2016-17 rotation heading into the preseason...


1. Will 6-2 junior Brady Rose primarily play the 1 or the 2? Rose, a combo guard, is probably IWU's most talented perimeter player overall, so where he lands will impact the entire perimeter rotation.

2. Who will play the 5 when 6-8 C Trevor Seibring rests for 10 minutes or so per game? 6-9 Tyler Burdine seems to be an option, but the Titans could also go smaller and quicker for those 10 minutes and play one of the 4s there...so another decision that impacts the entire rotation.

3. Will 6-4 senior Andy Stempel play the 2 or the 3?  6-4 Stempel can play either spot - probably more 3 than 2 in terms of defensive quickness, but would bring nice size to the 2 on both ends of the floor.

4. Who will IWU's starting 4 be? 6-6 senior Alec Bausch would seem to have a slight edge going in, but 6-6 junior Jaylen Beasley seems to be very close.

5. Will 6-3 sophomore Colin Bonnett play the 2 or the 3? Bonnett started IWU's final 8 games last year at the 3, but could slide to the 2.  Another question - will he continue to look more like a 37-year old welder than a 19 year-old college student?

6. Where will 6-1 sophomore PG/SG Mark Falotico play? He averaged 13 minutes a game as a freshman and figures to play a big role - anywhere from starting 1 to backup 2.

7. Will any newcomers push for time? 6-9 junior transfer Tyler Burdine (Lincoln Land JC), 6-7 freshman PF Brice Robinson (Oswego HS), and 6-5 freshman G/F Miles Curry (Kenwood Academy) would seem to be the leading candidates. 

8. Where will 6-2 sophomore PG/SG Nick Coleman fit into the rotation?  I hear good things about Coleman and believe he will play an important role this season off the bench...but at the 1 or the 2?

9. Outside of Coleman, which JV players from 2015-16 will push for a spot? 6-2 G Austin Amman, 6-4 G/F Jason Gregoire, 6-5 PF Danny Baker, 6-6 F/C Isaac Roethemeyer, and 5-10 PG Derrick Streety seem to the best candidates for a final spot or two in the rotation.

10. Who the heck is Tishon Pollard? http://www.iwusports.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=5537&path=mbball


Good luck to all CCIW teams and players as we get 2016-17 going!

Pantagraph - http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/college/basketball/men/iwu-basketball-shoots-for-consistency/article_3e7a727b-50d1-5fea-ba85-592809a0bc76.html.

[AndOne]

TQ---

You probably know the guys you referred in your above post better than anyone else on here.
As such, what is your best guess as to the answers to the questions found along the 2016-2017
IWU Magical Mystery Tour? 🔬 🔮 🤔 🏀

[Titan Q]

TQ---

You probably know the guys you referred in your above post better than anyone else on here.
As such, what is your best guess as to the answers to the questions found along the 2016-2017
IWU Magical Mystery Tour? 🔬 🔮 🤔 🏀

Just too many questions at this point for me to have a great guess on rotation -- other than Trevor Seibring starting at the 5 of course.  Just so many things up for grabs at those other 4 spots.

A few things I'm the most excited about related to the Titans heading into the season...

* The perimeter cast.  I think that group of Rose, Stempel, Bonnett, Coleman, and Falotico has a chance to be really strong.

* Trevor Seibring.  I don't think there will be many centers in Division III as good as Trevor.  He's a tough matchup and a real difference-maker.

* Seeing if a newcomer gets in the varsity mix.

[AndOne]

Gettin' ready for North Central's opening 🏀 practice for the 2016-2017 season. It is expected that 19 players (no hoarding allowed in Naperville 😏) will report at 6:00 for the opening session. The Cardinals return starters at all but the SG spot where last year's seventh man is a strong early candidate. Accordingly, the focus will be on cementing that position, and determining the top subs at each position that will comprise the remaining members of the regular rotation. At this point, each of those spots is pretty much wide open, and a great deal of spirited completion is expected before those questions will be able to be answered. The Cards are fortunate in that they will have several players that can play more than one position, including a couple that can be sloted in as many as 3 spots. Let the competition begin. 😀