MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[iwu70]

Auge 39, IWU 38, at the half. 

'70

[all blues]

Halftime: Millikin: 36  Elmhurst: 19  Elmhurst coach has left the building after 2nd T with 7:41 left in the half.  Millikin up 24 at one point...

[markerickson]

I missed the first half of the NPU/WC game, but the Vikes have been playing a man-to-man defense the first six minutes of the second half!!

[mr_b]

Final from Chicago: North Park 87, Wheaton 83.  Colin Lake (23 points) and Juwan Henry (22 points) led the Viking scoring attack. Aston Francis (23 points) paced the Thunder with 23 points.

[John Gleich]

2016 -- Due to the difficulty of attracting 3 quality teams, the long term, season opening Tip-Off Tournament was discontinued. Same thing is happening to a number of schools with traditional season opening tourneys.

I wonder why more programs don't do something like the MIAA/CCIW challenge (or whatever it's called).

Even if you ran it as a four team tournament... And just rotated the host annually.

[Titan Q]

Augustana 92
IWU 77

* Chrishawn Orange: 19 pts, 5 reb, 2 assists
* Pierson Wofford: 16 pts, 6 reb, 2 assists
* Dylan Sortillo: 14 pts, 4 reb, 3 assists
* Micah Martin: 7 pts, 4 reb, 6 blocks

* Brady Rose: 16 pts
* Alec Bausch: 15 pts, 5 reb, 4 assists
* Nick Coleman: 12 pts

In the first half, 6-10 Micah Martin was a defensive force in the paint, blocking shots and altering others.  IWU hung around nicely, leading for a decent stretch of the 1st and trailing by only 1 at the half.

In the 2nd, IWU's defense was awful - the Titans gave up 53 in the final 20 minutes and had all kinds of problems with dribble penetration.  Chrishawn Orange had a great second half.

IWU (3-3) has Carthage (3-1) coming to the Shirk Center Saturday in a biggie.

[all blues]

Final from Decatur: Millikin 66  Elmhurst 41  Elmhurst was universally inept tonight-offense, defense, 4 techs, coach ejection-it's a wonder the bus driver found the campus...never recovered from an opening 11-0 Big Blue run...

[shepherd]

Better ball movement and team play by the Thunder today.  This is the area along with defense they need to keep focusing on to be competitive in the CCIW.
Greg, enjoyed the call along with the great video.

[Gregory Sager]

North Park 87
Wheaton 83

Colin Lake: 23 pts, 7:0 a:to, 3 stls
Juwan Henry: 22 pts
Darius Brown: 16 pts, 8 rebs
T.J. Cobbs: 11 pts

Aston Francis: 23 pts, 4:1 a:to, 3 stls
Ricky Samuelson: 19 pts, 9 rebs
Jay Spencer: 11 pts, 7 rebs
Jake Mlagan: 10 pts
Luke Peters: 10 pts

If you had told me that Jordan Robinson would play a full 37 minutes tonight and yet only come away with five points and six rebounds, I would've told you that North Park was doomed. Fortunately for NPU, Darius Brown stepped up and covered for Robinson (who scored a career low tonight) and had his best game ever as a Viking. And, to be fair to Robinson, he made two huge blocks down the stretch on back-to-back possessions in which NPU recovered the ball after the block -- two great defensive plays on a night in which both teams' defenses were absolutely shredded. WC shot 61% from the field and NPU shot 54% as both teams put on a cut-and-pass clinic.

For the umpteenth time this year, NPU blew a sizeable lead, this one a 15-point margin (68-53) with 13:50 to go. Credit Wheaton for a doughty effort, sparked in large part by the unheralded Jake Mlagan, but NPU really needs to do a much better job of putting people away. Wheaton got as close as three at two different points with three minutes and change remaining, and again in the final three seconds, but the Vikes made just enough free throws to frustrate a very good Wheaton effort tonight.

Ugly, ugly win for the Vikes, especially at the defensive end, but ... I'll take it.

[iwu70]

Seibring greatly missed tonight at Augie, Titans outrebounded.  Poor defensive effort by the Titans in the second half.  Both good teams for sure, but Augie surely the better team tonight -- at least with the personnel available. 

IWU'70

[GoPerry]

A very solid effort by the Thunder tonight at the Crackerbox.  Wheaton shoots 61% from the field but still can't come up with the win as NPU also shoots well @ 55%.  Hard to say what made up the 4 point difference -  Wheaton had been better at the foul line lately, but 57% tonight was a reversion backwards.  The Vikes only shot 67% but went to the line twice as much.  Stats were generally pretty even otherwise.

I think Coach Schauer needs to find more minutes for Freshman Jake Mlagan because he is pretty skilled offensively and needs to assert himself in getting more shots.  He was very effective in only 16 mins tonight and against a smaller team, I thought he should've been in the game at the end.  Aston Francis scored 23 with Ricky Samuelson contributing 19 pts on 9/13 shooting with 9 rebs. 

Jordan Robinson really seemed to struggle tonight with only  5 pts.  But Colin Lake was excellent and more than picked up the slack with 23 pts, seeming to hit a key trey or make a steal every time Wheaton seemed to make a run.  I know we all post about Robinson and Howard plenty, but Colin Lake is really terrific and seems to be a huge factor on that team.

Greg: Thanks again for repeating the score as often as you do.  If only the basket didn't block that far scoreboard . . .

[AndOne]

Colin Lake was the best player on the floor for NPU in their win over NCC on Sat.

[AndOne]

While missing such an important cog, every game is going to be a struggle for North Central.
However, when you throw the ball around with such inaccuracy that the action closely resembles a grade school dodgeball game, fail to so often catch passes which are on target that you could be mistaken for the Chicago Bears receiving corps, and otherwise frequently present the ball to the opposition through a series of unforced errors, you don't stand much chance of even beating the team from the Motherhouse of the Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters.

21 Turnovers. Ouch. More than the output of the Busy Bee Bakery over the same period of time!

Very surprising, and I'm sure frustrating to fans, staff, and players alike. Something the Cardinals will hopefully clean up in short order.

[Gregory Sager]

I missed the first half of the NPU/WC game, but the Vikes have been playing a man-to-man defense the first six minutes of the second half!!

NPU almost always plays man-to-man, Mark. I'm not sure what you're getting at.

(Although tonight's defensive set would be best described as neither man nor zone, but rather none of the above. I've seen middle school teams play better D than the Vikings played tonight.)

Better ball movement and team play by the Thunder today.  This is the area along with defense they need to keep focusing on to be competitive in the CCIW.

That's for sure. I think that the NPU coaching staff studied the WC @ IWU game film pretty closely, given what Wesleyan did to Wheaton's defense at Shirk on Saturday, because the Vikings did a fair approximation of the Titans this evening in terms of three-man lane cuts, backdoor plays, and reverse baseline cuts. I don't think I've ever seen a North Park team score so many points in the halfcourt without the ball ever touching the floor. In fact, Aston Francis, who is clearly a very talented offensive threat, spent 28 minutes of the game on the floor and 12 minutes on the bench getting berated by his head coach for failing to play even a lick of defense. (I think that that's why Mike Schauer didn't start him in the second half.) To be fair to Francis, he was not the only one; there were so many players on both teams who got burned multiple times on defense tonight that the gym smelled like a fireplace.

Greg, enjoyed the call along with the great video.

Thanks!

Aston Francis scored 23 with Ricky Samuelson contributing 19 pts on 9/13 shooting with 9 rebs.

As I mentioned on the air, I'm impressed with how much Samuelson has added to his game this season. He's not just a spot-up shooter anymore; he's a complete ballplayer. (Well, his defense could use some work, but it's not as though he sticks out in terms of having that problem among Wheaton players.)

Jordan Robinson really seemed to struggle tonight with only  5 pts.  But Colin Lake was excellent and more than picked up the slack with 23 pts, seeming to hit a key trey or make a steal every time Wheaton seemed to make a run.  I know we all post about Robinson and Howard plenty, but Colin Lake is really terrific and seems to be a huge factor on that team.

Yes, Lake was outstanding tonight ... and not just with his scoring, either. He was the one guy who shined on defense in a game in which very little of it was played. Funny thing is, he was the one Viking who worried me before the game with regard to defense, because he's 5'7 and about 140 pounds soaking wet, and was therefore a prime target to be posted up. I had nightmares of Luke Peters doing an imitation of his older brother and just feasting on Lake down in the low post, but that didn't happen. (Aston Francis did post him up a few times, but not terribly effectively, and when Lake was assigned to guard Ricky Samuelson he wasn't posted up at all.) Lake was also a phenomenal floor general tonight, as his seven assists with no turnovers tells you just how good his floor game was. He leads the league in a:to in overall play by a huge margin over second-place Kevin Kozil (3.73 to 2.61), and he's closing in on Kozil's teammate Brad Kruse in that category in CCIW-only play. As Mark said, Lake was also the best player NPU had in Saturday's win in the airplane hangar. After a disastrous outing against Carthage, Lake has played like an All-CCIW first-teamer over the past week.

Greg: Thanks again for repeating the score as often as you do.  If only the basket didn't block that far scoreboard . . .

Alas, we're kind of at the mercy of the crackerbox's layout with regard to that particular camera angle.

While missing such an important cog, every game is going to be a struggle for North Central.
However, when you throw the ball around with such inaccuracy that the action closely resembles a grade school dodgeball game, fail to so often catch passes which are on target that you could be mistaken for the Chicago Bears receiving corps, and otherwise frequently present the ball to the opposition through a series of unforced errors, you don't stand much chance of even beating the team from the Motherhouse of the Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters.

21 Turnovers. Ouch. More than the output of the Busy Bee Bakery over the same period of time!

Very surprising, and I'm sure frustrating to fans, staff, and players alike. Something the Cardinals will hopefully clean up in short order.

Yeah, 21 turnovers but only three of them steals is an eye-opening stat. Incidentally, kudos to Carroll for leading wire-to-wire in a game in which the Pios only had a double-digit lead (which was never bigger than a dozen points) for only about five out of the forty minutes. That's not easy to accomplish. Tanner Zaeske sparked the 72-65 Pios win with a 24 and 8 night, while Ben Widdes added 14 and had a nice 5:2 floor game. Erwin Henry and Nick Chambers had 15 apiece for NCC, while Alex Sorenson had 12 and 8 and added five blocks as well (but went only 4-11 from the field).

[Greek Tragedy]

Seibring greatly missed tonight at Augie, Titans outrebounded.  Poor defensive effort by the Titans in the second half.  Both good teams for sure, but Augie surely the better team tonight -- at least with the personnel available. 

IWU'70

Was he sick or injured or something else?