MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[D3_Commenter]

Looking forward to a full slate of games tomorrow:

North Park at Illinois Wesleyan
7 p.m.

Elmhurst at Carroll
7p.m.

Wheaton at Augustana
7 p.m.

Carthage at North Central
7 p.m.

Webster at Millikin
7 p.m.

Any bold predictions?

NPU/IWU and Wheaton/Augie should both be highly competitive.

[WUPHF]

Greg:

I was going to run a picture of you on the front page and even got Kevin to send me a photo. But I decided to use Robinson for the front page instead.

That is awesome!

[Gregory Sager]

Looking forward to a full slate of games tomorrow:

North Park at Illinois Wesleyan
7 p.m.

Elmhurst at Carroll
7p.m.

Wheaton at Augustana
7 p.m.

Carthage at North Central
7 p.m.

Webster at Millikin
7 p.m.

Any bold predictions?

NPU/IWU and Wheaton/Augie should both be highly competitive.

I don't know if this qualifies as a bold prediction, but there's an outside chance that Carthage @ North Central could be highly competitive, too. The Red Men are certainly talented, but they're also pretty young. They're largely untested as well; the one competent opponent that they've faced thus far, UW-River Falls, beat them at Tarble, and they also lost at home to a shooter-deficient Calvin team that really only qualifies as semi-competent at the moment (and I don't think that our many Calvin readers here on CCIW Chat will argue that point with me).

Most importantly, the fact that the Red Men weren't able to dispatch a floundering Millikin squad with ease at Tarble three days ago should give anyone pause when considering whether or not they have the stuff to hang with NCC for forty minutes, especially since Carthage had a 21-point lead at the half last Saturday. So it's not as though I expect Carthage to give the Cardinals a good fight in the airplane hangar tomorrow night. I'm just saying that they have the personnel that could give NCC a good fight if they rise above the level at which they've been playing thus far (and if NCC doesn't play all that well in response).

I don't envision Elmhurst putting up much resistance against Carroll in Van Male, although the Pioneers are still something of an unknown at this point. Millikin, to my eyes, looks due to go 0-4 against the SLIAC this year, since the Gorloks aren't going to be an easier opponent than the three SLIAC teams that have already beaten MU -- unless that second half against Carthage on Saturday is an indication that we need to start taking the Big Blue more seriously, and I doubt that that's the case.

[hopefan]

Regarding Greg's prediction of a Millikin loss to Webster, and their resulting 0-4 record vs the SLIAC, it is darned hard for me to imagine that ANY CCIW team has EVER gone 0-4 vs the SLIAC in a prior year!!!!

[D3_Commenter]

Looking forward to a full slate of games tomorrow:

North Park at Illinois Wesleyan
7 p.m.

Elmhurst at Carroll
7p.m.

Wheaton at Augustana
7 p.m.

Carthage at North Central
7 p.m.

Webster at Millikin
7 p.m.

Any bold predictions?

NPU/IWU and Wheaton/Augie should both be highly competitive.

I don't know if this qualifies as a bold prediction, but there's an outside chance that Carthage @ North Central could be highly competitive, too. The Red Men are certainly talented, but they're also pretty young. They're largely untested as well; the one competent opponent that they've faced thus far, UW-River Falls, beat them at Tarble, and they also lost at home to a shooter-deficient Calvin team that really only qualifies as semi-competent at the moment (and I don't think that our many Calvin readers here on CCIW Chat will argue that point with me).

Most importantly, the fact that the Red Men weren't able to dispatch a floundering Millikin squad with ease at Tarble three days ago should give anyone pause when considering whether or not they have the stuff to hang with NCC for forty minutes, especially since Carthage had a 21-point lead at the half last Saturday. So it's not as though I expect Carthage to give the Cardinals a good fight in the airplane hangar tomorrow night. I'm just saying that they have the personnel that could give NCC a good fight if they rise above the level at which they've been playing thus far (and if NCC doesn't play all that well in response).

Agreed. I am excited to see both how Sorenson reacts to Carthage's size and how the freshman for Carthage plays against an All-American candidate in Sorenson.

I have a feeling that this game will come down to perimeter shooting as Sorenson will likely have to stretch the floor against the larger Perry. Interesting note though, Perry is only playing about 20 minutes a game where as Sorenson is at about 32 so, S will see a good amount of action with a different match up (barring foul trouble).

For reference from 3 -

Carthage: 47-139  .338
NCC: 29-90   .322

% wise these teams look pretty even - In situations like this I tend to side with the home team for obvious reasons however, in CCIW play we all know that anything can happen any night! So, cheers to a good game at the hangar.

[Gregory Sager]

Regarding Greg's prediction of a Millikin loss to Webster, and their resulting 0-4 record vs the SLIAC, it is darned hard for me to imagine that ANY CCIW team has EVER gone 0-4 vs the SLIAC in a prior year!!!!

When Millikin crashed and burned with a 1-23 record in 2010-11, one of the things that doomed Millikin (and head coach Marc Smith, who paid for that record with his job) was that the Big Blue didn't have any SLIAC opponents on the docket. That surprised me at the time, because Millikin always plays lots of non-conference contests against SLIAC teams in practically every sport except football (which, of course, is not a SLIAC sport; the SLIAC schools that offer football compete in the UMAC, and MU doesn't play them, anyway). The year before, for example, Smith's Big Blue went 7-18 but 1-2 against the SLIAC (with a win as well over Maryville MO, which was in its first year of transitioning out of the SLIAC and D3 and into D2), and the previous season before that (2008-09) a pretty good Big Blue team led by Tunde Ogunleye and Joscar Demby went 16-9 for the year and blew out their two SLIAC opponents by 25 and 28.

But there was nary a SLIAC team to be found on the Millikin sked in 2010-11; the lone Big Blue victim that year was RMU-Springfield. One wonders if Smith would've been able to keep his job if he had slipped four SLIAC teams (other than Webster, Spalding, and Westmo, who were each good enough to beat MU that year) onto his slate that season. If Smith had played some combination of MacMurray, Greenville, Fontbonne, Principia, Blackburn, and/or Eureka instead of facing Nebraska Wesleyan on a neutral court in St. Louis, taking far-flung trips to Adrian, MI and to Lexington, KY (where the Decaturites lost both ends of a tourney to Transylvania and Piedmont), and participating in the Illinois College tourney (where they lost to St. Mary's MN and to NAIA member Clarke), Millikin might've gone 5-19 (or at least 4-20) instead of 1-23 and Smith might still have his job.

The following year, of course, Matt Nadelhoffer took over and made the bold and courageous decision to let his assistant run practices every day while he crisscrossed the state like a one-man recruiting machine. That talent-deprived edition of Jimmy Millikin went 1-24, and, again, there were no SLIAC schools on the MU schedule. The lone Big Blue win came at Cornell, a 58-57 victory in which neither the Big Blue nor the Rams (who went 3-22 that season) scored in the game's final minute and a half.

Matt wisely decided to go back to playing SLIAC teams, probably as a motivating tool for his young team as much as an attempt to justify his salary with a few W's, and in his second year the Big Blue dispatched Blackburn, Principia, and Fontbonne en route to a 8-17 record.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that I, too, doubt that any CCIW team has ever gone 0-4 versus the SLIAC.

[augie77]

I've been very impressed with Coach Nadelhoffer's work ethic and approach to the game.  There was clear progress since that initial year.  Suddenly, the wheels have come off.  What's happened? There appears to have been a lot of attrition, but why?

[AndOne]

Everything you read and hear about Nadelhoffer seems to suggest he is both a good guy and a good coach. However, I think two of the biggest challenges he has had problems overcoming are; 1) Millikin's reputation as a losing proposition - they haven't had a winning record since 2008-09, and 2) the fact Decatur is a pit.

[Gregory Sager]

I have a feeling that this game will come down to perimeter shooting as Sorenson will likely have to stretch the floor against the larger Perry. Interesting note though, Perry is only playing about 20 minutes a game where as Sorenson is at about 32 so, S will see a good amount of action with a different match up (barring foul trouble).

Bosko's using a four-man rotation at the two big-man spots, with Mike Stevenson (his most experienced player) and talented freshmen Kienen Baltimore and Reggie Banks sharing time with Perry. I'm not sure if Perry is being restricted to 21 mpg because he weighs 285 lbs. (albeit on a 6'11 frame) and can't handle more than half a game, conditioning-wise, or if it's because Bosko needs to make sure that Baltimore and Banks are getting enough developmental time as well, while Stevenson ensures a steady presence on the floor.

Banks, who is 6'7, 235, is the one who is rotating the most with Perry at the center spot. It's therefore likely that Banks will be the guy who is guarding Sorenson, and vice-versa, when Perry is not in the game. Banks has the size and the quickness to match up with Sorenson, but he doesn't have the experience. Perry's got the size, but I think that he'll get exposed by Sorenson when the NCC star steps out to the perimeter and looks to shoot long-distance jumpers.

I've been very impressed with Coach Nadelhoffer's work ethic and approach to the game.  There was clear progress since that initial year.  Suddenly, the wheels have come off.  What's happened? There appears to have been a lot of attrition, but why?

Good question. He obviously gambled on a couple of high-risk, high-potential recruits in Deavis Johnson and T.J. Sims that turned out badly off the court -- and, in Matt's defense, I would've recruited those guys and given them the benefit of the doubt, too, if I was in his position -- but that's not the whole story. Attrition has always been a problem at Millikin; the Big Blue always lost a bunch of players every year, and that was true even when the program was going well during that one good year Smith had that I spoke about earlier, or back at the turn of the millennium when Tim Littrell had that solid team for a couple of years that featured Adam Provance, Antoine Ford, Brad Skowronski, Anthony Figueroa, Hercules Moore, and future Illinois Tech head coach Todd Kelly.

Millikin's something of a hard sell, especially for Chicagoland kids. I think that that's true across all sports, and it might even be true of non-athletes. Decatur doesn't hold much appeal. That never seems to change, and the one thing that could really overcome it -- consistent winning, which is, more often than any other attribute, the most attractive aspect of a college program for a high-school prospect -- is something that's really hard to obtain as a CCIW program when you don't have it. This is most certainly not an easy league in which to turn around a consistent loser. Trust me on that, because as someone close to the NPU program I've lived with that problem for decades. There's so many good programs in this league that climbing up out of the cellar is a very difficult proposition, especially when you've been in that cellar for a few years. It's hard to recruit kids for a CCIW men's basketball team that hasn't had double-digit-win seasons for awhile; and it's hard to keep around the kids that you have if you still can't crack that double-digit-win barrier.

[D3_Commenter]

I have a feeling that this game will come down to perimeter shooting as Sorenson will likely have to stretch the floor against the larger Perry. Interesting note though, Perry is only playing about 20 minutes a game where as Sorenson is at about 32 so, S will see a good amount of action with a different match up (barring foul trouble).

Bosko's using a four-man rotation at the two big-man spots, with Mike Stevenson (his most experienced player) and talented freshmen Kienen Baltimore and Reggie Banks sharing time with Perry. I'm not sure if Perry is being restricted to 21 mpg because he weighs 285 lbs. (albeit on a 6'11 frame) and can't handle more than half a game, conditioning-wise, or if it's because Bosko needs to make sure that Baltimore and Banks are getting enough developmental time as well, while Stevenson ensures a steady presence on the floor.

Banks, who is 6'7, 235, is the one who is rotating the most with Perry at the center spot. It's therefore likely that Banks will be the guy who is guarding Sorenson, and vice-versa, when Perry is not in the game. Banks has the size and the quickness to match up with Sorenson, but he doesn't have the experience. Perry's got the size, but I think that he'll get exposed by Sorenson when the NCC star steps out to the perimeter and looks to shoot long-distance jumpers.

If that is the case I would not be surprised to see a lot of zone; the Bosco 2-3

[Gregory Sager]

I can remember an era when the possibility of Bosko using a zone (2-3 or any other kind) was about as likely as seeing a picture of Chuck Norris in a tu-tu.

Give Bosko credit for being able to change with the changing times.

[Gregory Sager]

Again, it's still far too early to put much stock in Ken Massey's HAL 9000, but, just for the heck of it:

    4. North Park
  10. North Central
  15. Augustana
  20. Illinois Wesleyan
  40. Wheaton
  70. Carroll
122. Elmhurst
161. Carthage
375. Millikin



HAL sez:

@ Illinois Wesleyan 81, North Park 78 (IWU 58%, NPU 42%)
@ North Central 77, Carthage 63 (NCC 90%, CC 10%)
@ Augustana 78, Wheaton 68 (AC 82%, WC 18%)
@ Carroll 77, Elmhurst 74 (CU 60%, EC 40%)
Webster 74, @ Millikin 67 (WU 74%, MU 26%)

(That's the best chance that MU has left to win a game this season, according to Massey. The only other contest in which the Big Blue are reckoned to have better than a 16% chance of winning is their game in the Griz against Carthage in mid-February, for which Massey says Millikin has a 22% shot at a victory.)

[AndOne]

I think HAL needs  tune-up. He ranks NPU 4th and IWU 20th and then says IWU will beat NPU. 

[Gregory Sager]

Well, HAL also says that North Park is going to lose to Augustana in Chicago in mid-February, in spite of the fact that NPU has already bested Augie by nine on Augie's home floor. So, figure that out.

No wonder it went kerflooey and killed Frank Poole and the hibernated astronauts, and tried to do in Dave Bowman as well.

[D3_Commenter]

I think HAL needs  tune-up. He ranks NPU 4th and IWU 20th and then says IWU will beat NPU. 

Cant be wrong if you guess both.... Good move on HAL's part