MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[AndOne]

Counting Wednesday's game at Millikin, NPU will have played six games in fourteen days.  That seems a little high.  I hope there isn't a letdown in Decatur after traveling to Manchester today!

If NPU had a deeper bench...I see that Jarvis Cannon's name has been scrubbed from NPU's website.  He was a senior transfer who lasted one semester.  Ray Rubio (Brother Rice) transferred from Loras and is not on the team as a junior.  Matt McNamara (Willowbrook) hustled for three years, but never improved.  Armahn Mooring transferred from CCC, failed to impress, and is now playing at some USCAA school called Laurel-Highlands.  All four would have been upperclassmen this year.

Congrats, Mr. Henry!

Many teams lose personnel for a variety of reasons, and many either don't have a lot of quality depth to begin with, or lose it due to the personnel defections.

NPU is lucky that none of their top three or four, and especially their top two, either left the team or sustained a season ending injury. Because in basketball one excellent player can more easily contribute a higher proportionate value than is possible in most, if not all, other team sports, I sense NPU wouldn't be much better if the guys markericksen mentioned were still on the team. As long as you have stars like Robinson & Henry, you are most often going to be pretty good even without much extra help. And in NPU's recent game at NCC, Colin Lake was the best Viking player on the court.

I think that when NP loses, rather than due to limited quality depth, the reason is most often going to be that either Robinson or Lake was held down pretty well or the other team had a skilled big man that took advantage of the rather large hole the Parkers have in the middle on both ends of the floor.

[Gregory Sager]

Counting Wednesday's game at Millikin, NPU will have played six games in fourteen days.  That seems a little high.  I hope there isn't a letdown in Decatur after traveling to Manchester today!

Six games in fifteen days, not fourteen, and the real number that's in play here is four games in eight days ... but forget about all that. We're not talking about Xenophon and the Ten Thousand marching to the sea, after all. MIAC teams do this Monday/Wednesday/Saturday thing three times a year. It's a slog, but it's hardly a back-breaker. And it's absolutely necessary in order for North Park to get in all 25 games.

If NPU had a deeper bench...I see that Jarvis Cannon's name has been scrubbed from NPU's website.  He was a senior transfer who lasted one semester.  Ray Rubio (Brother Rice) transferred from Loras and is not on the team as a junior.  Matt McNamara (Willowbrook) hustled for three years, but never improved.  Armahn Mooring transferred from CCC, failed to impress, and is now playing at some USCAA school called Laurel-Highlands.  All four would have been upperclassmen this year.

Holy cow, Mark. Really? These guys are what's on your mind?

First of all, Cannon was a junior transfer, not a senior. He was a decent eighth man, but hardly irreplaceable. He simply decided to walk away from basketball after finals were done this past semester. So it goes. Rubio made the same decision, only he made it last summer and he thus didn't disrupt the team in doing so. McNamara, for all his playing time, didn't contribute one iota to the team last season, and I guarantee that he wouldn't have contributed anything to this season's team, either. You seem to recognize that by noting that he never improved as a player, so why even bother bringing him up in the first place? Mooring, like Cannon, was a useful player for a small handful of minutes per game, but off the court he was more trouble than he was worth. To give you an example of just where he stood in the pecking order, he didn't arrive on time to board the team bus for the game at Alma last season. He was running up the Kedzie Avenue sidewalk with his gear as the bus drove past, and when the bus driver asked Tom Slyder if he should stop to pick him up, Tom told the driver to just keep on going. So, no Armahn at Alma. That tells you everything you need to know about him.

North Park has plenty of depth, Mark. Trevor Pye's minutes have been cut back this season, but he has gained an awful lot of varsity game experience under his belt over the past two and a half years. Cam Burnett has had a lot of playing time over the past three seasons as well. Jack Gurvey's useful in short stretches, and even though they play sparingly I'd rather have either Dyron Woods or Jason Hines than Matt McNamara anyday, and NPU's got them both. So, please, Mark ... stop looking under the couch cushions for lost players. NPU doesn't need them.

I understand the desire to panic after this kind of a loss, but let's keep a sense of proportion about it.

2. Shooting only 22% (4/18) from behind the line. Colin Lake was the only starter to sink a 3, and he was 2/6.

Just a few days ago NPU was the second-best trey shooting team in all of D3, trailing only UW-Whitewater. Two bad games in three days can be written off as a natural regression to the mean, I suppose. The problem is that the Vikings are not getting their shots in rhythm. The ball movement of the Vikings has been terrible over the past two games, which is odd when you consider that it was never better than it was against Wheaton just five days ago. This team just makes me scratch my head in confusion sometimes.

3. Very quiet nights from Lake (8 points), and Juwan Henry (11 points).

The Vikings got so few rebounds and so few steals this evening that their transition opportunities were minimal, and transition scoring is a big part of Juwan's game. He was at his best tonight in the first half when he was posting up Erik Bell in the low post -- yes, ladies and gentlemen, 5'10 Juwan Henry can post up a player if he's of comparable size (Bell is a skinny 5'9), and he's actually pretty outstanding with his back to the basket. Unfortunately, the Spartans effectively hid Bell in the second half, and Juwan never got any of the other aspects of his game going. Colin just had an off-night for him from behind the arc, as 33% is well below his par ... although, let's face it, there's a lot of other guys who would gladly take hitting one out of every three trey attempts.

[Gregory Sager]

  But EC got points from an unlikely source: Brian Kern, a freshman from Hinsdale South who was a mainstay of the Elmhurst JV lineup in Thursday night's junior varsity contest between the 'jays and Vikings in the crackerbox, and who had scored only six points in three previous varsity appearances. He led the 'jays with 21 points, garnered not only from behind the arc but also from driving hard to the basket against half-hearted defensive effort and from getting out in transition. He's a real energy guy, too -- I could see on Thursday night that his teammates fed off of him, and it was true in last night's varsity game as well. He could be a player with whom to be reckoned over the next three years in the CCIW.

I saw Brian Kern play several times at Hinsdale South over the last 2 years.  He was always an impressive shooter and better than average scorer but somewhat overshadowed by 6'10" Barrett Benson (Freshman/Northwestern ).  He's a little undersized but wouldn't surprise me if he became a regular player for the 'Jays.

As did I, GoPerry, and I agree completely. An impressive shooter. Not big, and not the fastest guy either, but makes up for it with a high level of court awareness.
I was somewhat surprised that it took John Baines this long to give Kern extended PT.

Either you two are thinking of the wrong guy or else Brian Kern has grown substantially since last year, because he's listed at 6'1, 195, and those are pretty honest measurements. And 6'1, 195 is a decent size for a D3 guard.

I wouldn't characterize him as slow, either. His quickness is at least average, although he's the kind of pedal-to-the-metal guy when he's on the floor whose all-out effort can make him look quicker than he really is.

[AndOne]

1. Let's see. It certainly appears that I said "Not big, and not the fastest guy either................"
I did not say "small, and not................"

And, unless I'm mistaken, you said "..........is a decent size for a D3 guard."

* Isn't "decent size" pretty much the same as "not big"? It's certainly a lot closer than ".......is big for a D3 guard."

2. It also looks like I said "not the fastest guy either."

And, I'm quite sure you said "I wouldn't characterize him as slow, either. His quickness is is at least average........."

* By not characterizing him as slow, does that mean you think he's fast? I think not. And, if not, then it appears you agree he's not the fastest.

* And, if his quickness is at least average, it seems that, by definition, that means he's not the fastest. 

Did being up late make someone a little crabby? Maybe it's just a Chicago rule that a city guy has to take some degree of dissension with anything a suburban guy says.     

[Gregory Sager]

1. Let's see. It certainly appears that I said "Not big, and not the fastest guy either................"
I did not say "small, and not................"

And, unless I'm mistaken, you said "..........is a decent size for a D3 guard."

* Isn't "decent size" pretty much the same as "not big"? It's certainly a lot closer than ".......is big for a D3 guard."

GoPerry called him "a little undersized". He was the target of that comment much more than you were.

2. It also looks like I said "not the fastest guy either."

And, I'm quite sure you said "I wouldn't characterize him as slow, either. His quickness is is at least average........."

* By not characterizing him as slow, does that mean you think he's fast? I think not. And, if not, then it appears you agree he's not the fastest.

* And, if his quickness is at least average, it seems that, by definition, that means he's not the fastest. 

Did being up late make someone a little crabby? Maybe it's just a Chicago rule that a city guy has to take some degree of dissension with anything a suburban guy says.     

"Not the ___est guy" or "not the most ____ person in the world" is a pretty standard rhetorical device that indicates a condition through ironic understatement -- in this case Kern's lack of footspeed. My reply was completely in keeping with that particular expression.

I'm hardly crabby, Mark. In fact, I'm grateful. Sometimes I worry that I'm by far the most picayune person on d3boards.com ... and then you put out a post like this. So, in all honesty, thanks for the pick-me-up.

[GoPerry]

  But EC got points from an unlikely source: Brian Kern, a freshman from Hinsdale South who was a mainstay of the Elmhurst JV lineup in Thursday night's junior varsity contest between the 'jays and Vikings in the crackerbox, and who had scored only six points in three previous varsity appearances. He led the 'jays with 21 points, garnered not only from behind the arc but also from driving hard to the basket against half-hearted defensive effort and from getting out in transition. He's a real energy guy, too -- I could see on Thursday night that his teammates fed off of him, and it was true in last night's varsity game as well. He could be a player with whom to be reckoned over the next three years in the CCIW.

I saw Brian Kern play several times at Hinsdale South over the last 2 years.  He was always an impressive shooter and better than average scorer but somewhat overshadowed by 6'10" Barrett Benson (Freshman/Northwestern ).  He's a little undersized but wouldn't surprise me if he became a regular player for the 'Jays.

As did I, GoPerry, and I agree completely. An impressive shooter. Not big, and not the fastest guy either, but makes up for it with a high level of court awareness.
I was somewhat surprised that it took John Baines this long to give Kern extended PT.

Either you two are thinking of the wrong guy or else Brian Kern has grown substantially since last year, because he's listed at 6'1, 195, and those are pretty honest measurements. And 6'1, 195 is a decent size for a D3 guard.

I wouldn't characterize him as slow, either. His quickness is at least average, although he's the kind of pedal-to-the-metal guy when he's on the floor whose all-out effort can make him look quicker than he really is.

1. Let's see. It certainly appears that I said "Not big, and not the fastest guy either................"
I did not say "small, and not................"

And, unless I'm mistaken, you said "..........is a decent size for a D3 guard."

* Isn't "decent size" pretty much the same as "not big"? It's certainly a lot closer than ".......is big for a D3 guard."

GoPerry called him "a little undersized". He was the target of that comment much more than you were.

A clarification on my own post only (and to avoid the taffy pull happening over the other comments)

I guess I should have been more precise in my language so to re-phrase:  "My impression, from watching Brian Kern prior, is that he is a little undersized compared to the other guards that I've observed in the league over the years."  My own personal reference is that 6'2' -6'3" seems to be about the average.  However, I did not check the veracity of that nor did I check Kern's listed roster size prior to posting the comment.  So if 6'1" means that my impression was incorrect, then my impression was incorrect. 

I liked Kern as a player in high school.  I was glad to see him do well Saturday. I hope he gets more opportunity.

[Gregory Sager]

I'd say that Kern is about average size for a CCIW off guard.

[AndOne]

I'd say that Kern is about average size for a CCIW off guard.

Me too.
And it may just be me, but I don't think "about average" means BIG. 😏 😉 😁

[gordonmann]

This is a really good story and the IIAC room is quiet, so I'm posting here too.

http://www.d3hoops.com/columns/around-the-region/west/2016-17/loras-ruggles-heart

Read it and you won't be sorry you did.

[AndOne]

Gordon,

Right you are. Great stuff. Top shelf. 👍

[Gregory Sager]

Great story, Gordo. Weird coincidence: My niece is a student at Grace College, and I'm wearing my Grace hoodie today.

[joehakes]

My daughter, Samantha, (who Greg will remember as a two year old living in Burgh Hall) had the same condition.  It was misdiagnosed in high school, but while playing college basketball she had the surgery mid-season at UVA. She had to sit out two weeks while the cuts made to get the catheters inserted healed. She had the procedure in early December and was playing again at the beginning of January.  It's great to see this young man (and his coach) be able to get what they want out of life due to the science of medicine.  I know that she will be rooting for him to have a great college basketball career.

[Gregory Sager]

Current Massey:

    5. Augustana
  19. Illinois Wesleyan
  23. Carthage
  29. North Park
  69. North Central
103. Wheaton
179. Elmhurst
287. Millikin

Massey sez:

North Park 79 @ Millikin 68 (NPU 85%, MU 15%)
@ Wheaton 74, North Central 72 (WC 55%, NCC 45%)
@ Carthage 76, Carroll 67 (CC 79%, CU 21%)
Augustana 82, @ Elmhurst 71 (AC 85%, EC 15%)

[Gregory Sager]

I know that Mark's going to sit on whatever inside info he has, but, since I know that some source internal to Elmhurst has the Bluejays already expecting to see Connor Raridon suit up against them in Faganel Hall on Saturday, the question is whether or not Wheaton needs to concern itself with a possible uni-clad Connor Raridon sighting in King Arena tonight.

[AndOne]

I know that Mark's going to sit on whatever inside info he has, but, since I know that some source internal to Elmhurst has the Bluejays already expecting to see Connor Raridon suit up against them in Faganel Hall on Saturday, the question is whether or not Wheaton needs to concern itself with a possible uni-clad Connor Raridon sighting in King Arena tonight.

And have it I do. But you're right. That tidbit of information will remain a lump in the man cave recliner. We'll just be content to let the gentlemen from Wheaton and Elmhurst exercise their free rights to think whatever they want. It's like playing poker. Sometimes you start out with a real crappy looking hand, but then you draw an ace that changes the outlook considerably. Of course sometimes what looks bad initially stays that way. 🤔 😎