MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Titan Q]

IWU 88
Elmhurst 57

* Brady Rose: 15 pts, 3 reb, 3 assists
* Trevor Seibring: 15 pts, 4 reb
* Andy Stempel: 9 pts, 3 reb, 3 assists
* Colin Bonnett: 9 pts, 4 reb
* Tyler Burdine: 7 pts, 11 reb


I thought Brady Rose had a really nice game at the PG position - for a kid who has never been the starting PG on any team he's every played on, he's really coming on nicely.  Different players, but he is really developing in a similar way that Dylan Overstreet did as a sophomore.

6-9 Tyler Burdine had his best game as a Titan - 7 points, 11 rebounds in 15 minutes off the bench.  6-8 Seibring had a strong game as well and was a tough matchup for Elmhurst.

The Titans were good defensively today, holding EC to 33.3% from the field.  The Bluejays had a very hard time finding good looks today.

Important road win for IWU in trying to claw back in the CCIW race (1-2).

[iwu70]

Carroll 84 NPU 81

Wowza.

NCC and Augie and WC all win tonight.

IWU70

[4samuy]

Yeah, I've been watching a little of the game myself.  Always new IWU was a deep quality team.  What I can't figure out is how Elmhurst took it to Carroll the way they did. I attended the Carroll-Chicago game a couple weeks back at the Ratner Center in Chicago and Carroll looked pretty impressive against a quality Chicago side for the first 30 minutes losing by 10 or so at the end.  I'm not sure if it was a better than avg performance in Chicago or weaker performance than avg against Elmhurst.  I think the game against NPU tonight might give me my answer.

I guess I got my answer.  At least for this night.

[Gregory Sager]

Carroll 84
North Park 81

Juwan Henry: 22 pts
Jordan Robinson: 17 pts, 12 rebs
Colin Lake:17 pts, 4:2 a:to
T.J. Cobbs: 11 pts

Tanner Zaeske:27 pts, 7 rebs
Kyle Keranen: 17 pts
Tyler Ingebrigtsen: 12 pts
Nick Penny: 11 pts

Kyle Keranen hit a trey from the corner with Juwan Henry's hand in his face and 1.5 seconds left on the clock as Carroll pulled off the road win. Give full credit to Carroll -- how the heck did these guys lose by 13 at home to Elmhurst, anyway? -- as the Pios erased deficits of 15 in the first half and 10 in the second half. But NPU threw away a game that the Vikings should've won handily by shooting a ridiculous 15-28 (54%) from the free throw line.

It feels as though all of the success that the Vikes have forged over the past week has been squandered. Of course, that's really not the case, but this game serves as a reminder that the Park is simply going to have to fight hard every night -- and execute well in the things that they can control, such as FT shooting -- in order to win.

[Titan Q]

Standings (through 12/10)
Augustana 2-1
Carthage 2-1
North Central 2-1
North Park 2-1
Carroll 1-1
Wheaton 1-1
Elmhurst 1-2
Illinois Wesleyan 1-2
Millikin 0-2

+/- Standings (through 12/10)
Carthage +1
North Park +1
Wheaton +1
Carroll +0
Illinois Wesleyan +0
North Central +0
Augustana -1
Elmhurst -1
Millikin -1

NPU would have been in great early shape with a home win tonight.  As it stands, this thing is really wide open.

[Gregory Sager]

Augustana 86
Carthage 70

North Central 73
Millikin 67

(The Big Blue actually led for a pretty sizeable chunk of this game.)

Wheaton 74
Calvin 65

[Titan Q]

Too bad we have to go play non-conference games for 3 weeks.  This was getting good.

[augie77]

The suspense ends early this year.   We are now assured of a 44th consecutive season in which the CCIW champion has at least one loss.  I expect the 1973 Augustana Vikings are popping the champagne corks.

[4samuy]

The refs were very whistle happy in tonites Augie/Carthage game calling fouls on both teams for hands in the back as soon as a pass was made into the post. It was a joke.  From an Augie perspective it worked out well as they continue their torrid FT shooting shooting 28-32 (88%}.

[markerickson]

There may have been close to 50 fouls called in the NPC/CC game tonight, and that totally disrupted NPU.  Heck, NPU played a 6' 5" freshman from Norway (maybe his first minutes of the season?) in the first half!  As Greg wrote, the Vikings were horrible at the stripe.  That was the difference in the game.  Oh wait, the one guy that Carroll can beat you with, Mr. Zaeske, drained uncontested treys all night long, which is why I don't fully understand basketball.  If you know there is "one guy", then why can't you put a guy such as NPU's defensive guru TJ Cobbs on Zaeske all night long, denying him the ball?  Cobbs is certainly quicker than Zaeske.  I do criticize Juwan Henry for taking some really, really bad off-balanced shots tonight.

Congrats to Carroll for not folding after NPU created an early double-digit lead.

[kiko]

The suspense ends early this year.   We are now assured of a 44th consecutive season in which the CCIW champion has at least one loss.  I expect the 1973 Augustana Vikings are popping the champagne corks.

If they aren't, it's cuz they don't yet realize that we're playing conference games in December this year.  This was way earlier (in both calendar and number of games) than we usually see everyone break into the right-hand column...

[Titan Q]

Kyle Keranen hit a trey from the corner with Juwan Henry's hand in his face and 1.5 seconds left on the clock as Carroll pulled off the road win.

Here is a tweet with the video...

https://twitter.com/Pio_CarrollMBB/status/807806639915102208

Keranen was actually very open. Colin Lake was screened out by big #52. (Henry was under the basket.)

[sac]

Standings (through 12/10)
Augustana 2-1
Carthage 2-1
North Central 2-1
North Park 2-1
Carroll 1-1
Wheaton 1-1
Elmhurst 1-2
Illinois Wesleyan 1-2
Millikin 0-2

+/- Standings (through 12/10)
Carthage +1
North Park +1
Wheaton +1
Carroll +0
Illinois Wesleyan +0
North Central +0
Augustana -1
Elmhurst -1
Millikin -1

NPU would have been in great early shape with a home win tonight.  As it stands, this thing is really wide open.

btw plus/minus standings are much more important and relevant to follow in odd number of team leagues.

[AndOne]

The NPU/CU bos score shows NPU's Robinson & Henry went 12 for 24 from the line tonight. 
Hard to believe even after seeing it.

Also, is NPU really playing Manchester Univ (IN) on both 12/19 and 12/30?
Home and away in the same year! Very creative scheduling. Anyone who can pick up two games in the same year over a team that has gone 28-80 since 2012-2013, including 1-6 this year, should get a raise!

[Gregory Sager]

Kyle Keranen hit a trey from the corner with Juwan Henry's hand in his face and 1.5 seconds left on the clock as Carroll pulled off the road win.

Here is a tweet with the video...

https://twitter.com/Pio_CarrollMBB/status/807806639915102208

Keranen was actually very open. Colin Lake was screened out by big #52. (Henry was under the basket.)

Yep, good call. I don't know why I thought that Henry had a hand in his face. Must've been the angle.

Looks like Ingebrigtsen shoved Lake away with his left arm on that screen, but I doubt you'll find many refs that'll make that call.

There may have been close to 50 fouls called in the NPC/CC game tonight, and that totally disrupted NPU.

I don't think it disrupted NPU at all, Mark. I think that it was totally within Tom Slyder's game plan to attack the basket and get to the free-throw line. Why wouldn't it be, when you have Juwan Henry and Jordan Robinson on your team? The problem wasn't that going to the line "disrupted" the Vikings; the problem was that they clanked their throws all night as though they were trying to see what's underneath the orange paint. Even the FTs that they made were adventures that bounced around the rim a few times or barely rolled over the front and in.

Heck, NPU played a 6' 5" freshman from Norway (maybe his first minutes of the season?)

Nope. Veggie Tangen got four minutes of PT in the opener at Chicago. Since then he's been strictly JV until tonight. The three "bigs" in the NPU rotation (Robinson, Darius Brown, and Joe Biko) each picked up their respective second fouls with a lot of time left in the first half, which is why Veggie and Dyron Woods got called into the game for emergency duty down low in the first half.

in the first half!  As Greg wrote, the Vikings were horrible at the stripe.  That was the difference in the game.  Oh wait, the one guy that Carroll can beat you with, Mr. Zaeske, drained uncontested treys all night long, which is why I don't fully understand basketball.  If you know there is "one guy", then why can't you put a guy such as NPU's defensive guru TJ Cobbs on Zaeske all night long, denying him the ball?  Cobbs is certainly quicker than Zaeske.

It's not as easy as you make it sound, Mark. The Pioneers ran Zaeske through baseline screens in the first half, and when you have a bulky low post (Ingebrigtsen is 6'7, 225, and the dude is all hips) who can set a good screen, it can be very hard to track your man through the traffic under the basket and into the far corner. Add to that a quick release by Zaeske and a hot hand, and it spells trouble. A coach can't simply wave a magic wand and make that go away. Besides, the NPU coaching staff had Cobbs on Kyle Keranen all night. Keranen's the leading scorer this season for Carroll, and, unlike Zaeske, he can beat you either with the trey or off the dribble. Cobbs was guarding the right guy.

I do criticize Juwan Henry for taking some really, really bad off-balanced shots tonight.

That will always happen. Every game you'll see Juwan throw up something ugly at least two or three times. You live with that, because his balance sheet is always so heavily weighted towards the good rather than the bad. He did shoot 9-17 from the field tonight, so there's no real room to complain about his FG shooting. His FT shooting, on the other hand ...

Congrats to Carroll for not folding after NPU created an early double-digit lead.

Two double-digit leads, actually. NPU was up 31-16 with seven minutes to go in the half, and the Pios caught up and took the lead by one going into the locker room. Then the Vikings broke out to a 56-46 lead at the 15:19 mark of the second half, and again squandered it. Carroll showed a truckload of moxie in climbing the hill twice this evening, once in each half. The problem was that the Vikings didn't make the hill steeper by hitting free throws.

Again, I have to ask how the heck Carroll lost to Elmhurst in Van Male by 13. I knew all along that the Pioneers were going to be solid this season, but ... Elmhurst? At home? I've seen parts of two Bluejays games now, including the entire first half of today's car wreck against IWU, and they just look awful.