MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[4samuy]

Any other takers on who you think will be the four teams in the CCIW tournament, come season's end?

Happy New Year all.

IWU'70

Carroll
Carthage
NPU
Someone else--no one I feel is a threat to win it

The closer to Whitewater, the better the chances.   

Hmm....I thought all trolls knew that Elmhurst College is closer to Whitewater than NPU.

[AppletonRocks]

That is correct, sorry I forgot about them.  My apologies. Maybe they could be 4th, they lost the the eventual champ in the 2016 tourney.

[4samuy]

 

Any other takers on who you think will be the four teams in the CCIW tournament, come season's end?

Happy New Year all.

IWU'70

It's still pretty early. If you made me pick now, I'd probably end up putting North Park, North Central, Illinois Wesleyan, and Augie in, and not necessarily in that order, but I wouldn't be shocked to see Wheaton, Carroll, or Carthage sneak in. (And no, I didn't originally refer back down to the current Massey ratings before throwing those four teams out. ) We'll have to revisit this in about three weeks when everybody's played everybody else once.

For both North Central and Augie we will get a pretty good idea  if they will have a shot at the tournament over the next 10 days or so.  Both play at Stevens Point over the next couple of days. (Although those two games won't have an impact on CCIW rankings it will be interesting how they perform on the road).  Augie hasn't played a game since Dec. 16.  The next three games Augie plays are at North Central, home vs Illinois Wesleyan and at home vs Carrol.  North Central on the other hand after the Stevens Point game, they host Augie, host North Park and go on the road vs Carroll.
If both these teams can come away with wins in two out of those three conference games, although along way to go, they'll be in good positions in terms of getting into conference tournament.

[Gregory Sager]

Gordon Mann has really nailed it on the broadcast: Wheaton is playing with no energy tonight.

[petemcb]

Looks like there are still a few good seats available for any fans in Sin City with nothing to do. 😳

[izzy stradlin]

Gordon Mann has really nailed it on the broadcast: Wheaton is playing with no energy tonight.

I liked: "it looks like Mike Schauer is ready for one"

[Gregory Sager]

Wheaton lost to UCSC, 80-70, in a game that wasn't nearly as close as the final score seems to indicate. As Gordon Mann said, all that Wheaton's late run proved was that the end of the WC bench is better than the end of the bench for the Banana Slugs.

Wheaton got back-doored to death, and the interior defense in particular for the Sonic Atmospheric Disturbance was really soft. Wheaton turned the ball over 16 times, most of those turnovers being unforced, and the 43/25/59 shooting splits aren't really indicative of a team that's playing well, either.

Aston Francis, the only WC player in double figures, scored 21, and Luke Peters grabbed nine rebounds.

This was an embarrassing loss -- not just because UCSC is a perennial cupcake, but because the Banana Slugs really didn't appear to be any kind of juggernaut; they made more than their fair share of dumb mistakes, too, and really hit some rather lucky shots, especially early in the ballgame. The problem for Wheaton is that this kind of makes Mike Schauer's team look as though the progress they seemed to be making was illusory, in a one-step-forward-two-steps-back sort of way. (He got T'ed up in the second half, by the way, and if I was him I would've picked up a second one just to get out of that gym and get an early start back to the hotel room and a nice room-service meal.)

Gordon Mann has really nailed it on the broadcast: Wheaton is playing with no energy tonight.

I liked: "it looks like Mike Schauer is ready for one"

That was a great one by Gordon. Always fun to listen to Gordon and Pat do a game.

[iwu70]

and many of us thought WC was making some progress. 

IWU'70

[Titan Q]

#18-Illinois Wesleyan (8-2, 1-2 CCIW) vs Middlebury (7-1, 0-0 NESCAC), 5:30pm ET/4:30pm CT, at College of Staten Island...

#18-Illinois Wesleyan (8-2, 1-2 CCIW)
G – Brady Rose, 6-3 Jr.  13.6 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 3.2 apg
G – Colin Bonnett, 6-4 So.  9.7 ppg, 2.0 rpg, 2.2 apg
G – Andy Stempel, 6-4 Sr.  12.6 ppg, 5.3 rpg, 3.2 apg
F – Jaylen Beasley, 6-6 Jr.  6.3 ppg, 4.8 rpg
F – Trevor Seibring, 6-8 Jr.  13.1 ppg, 5.9 rpg

F – Alec Bausch, 6-6 Sr.  9.1 ppg, 5.4 rpg
G – Nick Coleman, 6-1 So.  6.8 ppg, 2.0 rpg, 2.6 apg
G – Austin Amann, 6-3 Sr.  3.8 ppg, 2.7 rpg
F – Tyler Burdine, 6-9 Jr.  2.4 ppg, 2.6 rpg

Middlebury (7-1, 0-0 NESCAC)
G – Jake Brown, 5-11 Sr.  10.1 ppg, 2.9 rpg, 7.4 apg
G - Matt St. Amour, 6-3 Sr.  18.1 ppg, 3.4 rpg, 3.0 apg
G – Jack Daly, 6-3 Jr.  10.6 ppg, 5.9 rpg, 5.1 apg
F – Zach Baines, 6-5 So.  13.8 ppg, 6.8 rpg
F – Adisa Majors, 6-5 Jr.  12.0 ppg, 4.5 rpg

F - Nick Tarantino, 6-7 Jr.  5.5 ppg, 4.3 rpg
F - Eric McCord, 6-7 So.  5.3 ppg, 3.8 rpg
F - Matt Folger, 6-8 Fr.  5.0 ppg, 2.9 rpg
G - Bryan Jones, 6-1 Sr.  4.6 ppg, 1.3 rpg

Recent articles – http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/college/basketball/men/stronger-coleman-finding-role-with-iwu/article_d1d31e08-758f-5405-a24b-3672902d50c7.html

                        http://www.wjbc.com/2016/12/28/beasley-roses-long-history-as-teammates-sparks-iwu-basketball/

Video - http://www.csidolphins.com/sports/2015/8/13/GEN_0813151351.aspx

Live Stats - http://www.sidearmstats.com/csi/mbball/

WJBC Radio - https://portal.stretchinternet.com/wjbc/

Massey – #9-IWU 76  #32-Middlebury 71  http://www.masseyratings.com/rate.php?s=cb2017&sub=11620

[GoPerry]

Thunder 70
Banana Slugs 80

Watching the game last night and wasting late night hours past bedtime to do so was a real double whammy punch. 

This was pretty disappointing.  Las Vegas was the appropriate venue as Wheaton merely impersonated a basketball team.  Their play was lethargic(as the announcers accurately mentioned several times), only occasional defensive intensity and indifferent offensively.  I lost count of how many close-in layups or put backs were not just missed but failed to at least draw a foul.  They looked entirely un-prepared to play a competitive basketball game.  I do think they had a problem with UCSC's overall size advantage but that only explains so much.

They looked like inexperienced freshmen and sophomores.  I suppose that if this really is who they are –  not a very good team but will show potential at some stretches  -  then last night is not so embarrassing and I lower my future expectations, discount their early season play as an aberration, hope for a few good wins in the league and that's about it.  I'm not quite ready for that yet but Mike Schauer's repeated requests for patience with this team are proving prescient.  We'll see what sort of team shows up on Friday vs Hardin-Simmons. 

I really like G Luke Peters.  But he is Shaq-like atrocious at the free throw line.  Unfortunately he leads the Thunder in attempts because he likes to drive the lane and also post up offensively which 53% foul shooting makes sort of ineffectual.  It's not good if your primary ball handler is the 'guy you wanna foul' in close games down the stretch is it?  I'm sure he's working on it because it needs to improve.

[Gregory Sager]

Like the talk a while ago regarding Jordan Robinson being "only" D3, why is Carthage's Brad Perry at a D3 school?  He's listed at 6'11" and has some beef.  He is currently averaging 11 ppg and nearly 7 rpg while getting 21 mpg.  He couldn't have been a sleeper while attending Maine South (IL).

Robert Morris-Chicago made a bid for him, but I'm not sure what other scholie schools, if any, gave him offers. Perry's not a bad player at all right now. He's still pretty raw -- I haven't seen any evidence thus far that he has a left hand, but, then again, I haven't watched a whole lot of Carthage yet -- but when you consider how well he's done over the course of ten varsity games as a newly-minted freshman, his potential is pretty impressive. And that's why I agree with you that his presence at Carthage is a bit of a mystery, because nowadays scholie schools just don't overlook 6'11 guys who can walk and chew gum at the same time, let alone have demonstrated the capacity for good conditioning, useable fundamental skills, and a modicum of competitive drive. Bosko may really have gotten a steal in landing Perry.

(It cracks me up that Perry's Twitter icon is a picture of him dressed in an Illinois Wesleyan basketball t-shirt. )

[gordonmann]

Thanks for the kind words. I always enjoy doing games with Pat and Dave this time of year.

I was trying to relay the look of total frustration on the bench and keep it light. Plus I'll confess to being a little punchy.

[Gregory Sager]

They looked like inexperienced freshmen and sophomores.  I suppose that if this really is who they are –  not a very good team but will show potential at some stretches  -  then last night is not so embarrassing and I lower my future expectations, discount their early season play as an aberration, hope for a few good wins in the league and that's about it.  I'm not quite ready for that yet but Mike Schauer's repeated requests for patience with this team are proving prescient.  We'll see what sort of team shows up on Friday vs Hardin-Simmons.

Hardin-Simmons is 7-4 and has logged six straight seasons of 16 wins or more. While it's uncertain how that translates to the local standards with which we're familiar, given that there isn't a lot of crossover, even second- or third-hand, between the CCIW and the ASC (or, to be truthful, between the ASC and most of the rest of D3), I'm willing to wager that the Cowboys are probably decent, and thus a Wheaton win in Friday's game could be at least a partial redemption for last night's slip on the banana slug peel.

[D3_Commenter]

Like the talk a while ago regarding Jordan Robinson being "only" D3, why is Carthage's Brad Perry at a D3 school?  He's listed at 6'11" and has some beef.  He is currently averaging 11 ppg and nearly 7 rpg while getting 21 mpg.  He couldn't have been a sleeper while attending Maine South (IL).

He is a very talented player so, in no means am I trying to take anything away from him. In my eyes he just lacks the athleticism and condition to play at a higher level. The D3 game is very much a half court game which suits his style of play more so than that of a D1 or even D2 school. He has the potential (which is starting to come to fruition now) to be a very effective D3 center.

[Gregory Sager]

Conditioning can be improved with a little weight loss, though. It's not as though Perry is terribly overweight; he'd just move a bit quicker up and down the floor with a little less gut, and that's eminently fixable with the diet and training regimen that's typically imposed upon a scholarship player. And I've seen loads of D2 and NAIA scholie centers who are less athletic than Perry. As I said, nowadays scholie schools will make offers to anybody 6'11 who can walk and chew gum at the same time (and to plenty who can't, as well). It didn't used to be that way, but the D1 and D2 ranks have swollen so much in recent years, while NAIA has stemmed its losses and is now booming as well, that the standards for who gets scholie offers from D2 and NAIA programs is definitely lower than it used to be.

Bob and I have talked about that here before, in conjunction with comparing modern-day CCIW teams to the teams of the past. It's not that Bob and I and the other long-termers who've been around this league for decades live within the stereotypical fog of elder-statesman nostalgia in which everything and everybody was better in the past than it is now. It's just the plain truth that it's harder to get good quality high-schoolers to play for D3 programs now than it used to be, because there's more scholie schools and thus more competition for the borderline players below the blue-chip level. Plus, scouting and online research services are so much more extensive now that very few players get overlooked, and the off-season exposure from AAU likewise makes it even harder for such a borderline player to slip through the cracks.

Yeah, twenty years ago Brad Perry might've been snubbed by scholie schools. But today's a different story, which is why he's an anomaly.