MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[voxelmhurst]

So far this year we've seen Francis go off for 45 against Elmhurst, Sorenson score 54 against Robert Morris, and now Colin Lake go off for 46 against Illinois Wesleyan, and we're just entering the prime of the season. Sure seems like it's a great year for single game, individual scoring records to be challenged and toppled.

[Gregory Sager]

No, thank you. Colin Lake's had two monster scoring games thus far this season, a 37-point performance at Coe in December and last night's 46-pointer against Illinois Wesleyan. North Park lost both games, in large part because the Vikings whose last names aren't "Lake" or "Kirby" scored a collective total of 22 points against the Kohawks and 14 points against the Titans. As much as I like Colin (he's been my cameraman over the past couple of years for a lot of baseball and softball games and volleyball and men's and women's soccer matches) and want to see him succeed, if he breaks Jack Ecker's NPU single-game scoring record of 54, I can almost guarantee that the Vikes will lose.

He's averaging 23.2 ppg, but in NPU's four wins he's averaged only 20 ppg and hasn't scored more than the 22 he recorded at Lake Forest. I would much rather see him score 20 and have the Vikings walk off the floor with the win than see him light up the gym again in a losing effort like last night.

[voxelmhurst]

No, thank you. Colin Lake's had two monster scoring games thus far this season, a 37-point performance at Coe in December and last night's 46-pointer against Illinois Wesleyan. North Park lost both games, in large part because the Vikings whose last names aren't "Lake" or "Kirby" scored a collective total of 22 points against the Kohawks and 14 points against the Titans. As much as I like Colin (he's been my cameraman over the past couple of years for a lot of baseball and softball games and volleyball and men's and women's soccer matches) and want to see him succeed, if he breaks Jack Ecker's NPU single-game scoring record of 54, I can almost guarantee that the Vikes will lose.

He's averaging 23.2 ppg, but in NPU's four wins he's averaged only 20 ppg and hasn't scored more than the 22 he recorded at Lake Forest. I would much rather see him score 20 and have the Vikings walk off the floor with the win than see him light up the gym again in a losing effort like last night.

Point taken, and for clarity, I wasn't meaning to suggest that winning requires that players attempt to set new individual records each game. Simply pointing out that fans have already seen multiple instances of 40+ point totals from stars across different CCIW teams in the last few weeks.

[AppletonRocks]

Ron Rose on Colin Lake's performance - "holy cramoly (sp?)."

http://www.wjbc.com/2018/01/13/illinois-wesleyan-edges-past-north-park-in-cciw-battle/
(WJBC postgame)

Is that the same as "Dilly Dilly" ?

[Gregory Sager]

For all the attention that Colin Lake is getting, Billy Kirby's emergence has been overlooked. Last season he mostly came off of the bench, and his role offensively was basically as a three-point shooter. He took 51% of his shots from behind the arc, and, as you'd thus expect, barely averaged one free-throw attempt per game. This season he's been asked to be a primary scorer, which means more than just shooting treys (fewer than a third of his shots this season have been trey attempts), and he has responded well. He's averaging a shot attempt every 2.1 minutes he's in the game, whereas last season, playing alongside Juwan Henry, Jordan Robinson, and T.J. Cobbs as well as Colin Lake, he averaged a shot attempt every 3.5 minutes that he played. He's really emerged as someone who can get points from driving to the basket or making buckets via the cut-catch-and-shoot route, as is evidenced by his averaging three free-throw attempts per game, triple his rate of last season even though he's only playing roughly half again as many minutes per game as he did last season. He's upped his scoring 230% in spite of only having had his playing time increased by 50%. Also, after having started the season with a nightmarish 0-11 beginning from three-point range and a 3-22 performance from downtown over NPU's first eight games, he's now brought up his trey percentage for the season to .370, which, even though it pales next to his .448 from last season, is nevertheless still respectable.

He's developed into a really solid CCIW player.

[iwu70]

Francis and Lake are just scary.  Incredible shooting talent.

But, you gotta have a team, gotta have those role players doing their thing -- and Colin Bonnett is doing his part.  He and Rose make a good one-two punch. 

More good games upcoming.  Maybe IWU can help Sorenson again to score 60 this time.   

Greg, again, very much appreciated your broadcast.  Anyone who can get the name "Jason Gregoire" correctly, must be a true broadcasting pro.  Truly. 

10 games to go . . . it's going to be fun, down the stretch of the CCIW race.

IWU'70

[Gregory Sager]

Greg, again, very much appreciated your broadcast.  Anyone who can get the name "Jason Gregoire" correctly, must be a true broadcasting pro.  Truly.

Thanks, but when you've had to verbally negotiate four seasons' worth of NPU Samoan football names (football pundits call American Samoa's main island, Tutuila, "Football Island", but they ought to call it "Multiple Vowel Island"), not to mention the likes of former NPU women's basketball PG Nikki Przybyslawski, former NPU men's soccer defender Przemyslaw Zabielski, and current NPU men's soccer midfielder Arkadiusz Szlachta, a name like Jason Gregoire is child's play.

[Titan Q]

But, you gotta have a team, gotta have those role players doing their thing -- and Colin Bonnett is doing his part.  He and Rose make a good one-two punch. 

I think IWU's starting backcourt of Brady Rose and Colin Bonnett is one of the really great ones in Division III.

[iwu70]

I hear you Greg.  Those are some really challenging ones.  I'm sure I couldn't get them.  Chinese would be easier for me!   

Q, Rose and Bonnett really playing well together -- and when you add all the others who can come in off the bench -- Wolfe now, Coleman with his experience, and Knobloch, who I expect to go off again one of these nights, it's a pretty nice set of perimeter options Ron Rose has.  Gregoire is playing pretty well, not flashy, but making some key plays, taking a charge, hitting a good trey now and then.  Beasley needs to pick it up down the stretch.  He and Danny Baker are going to be key in getting the big rebounds.  Wish both had a bit more scoring contribution.  I thought O'Neill had a pretty nice game vs. NPU. 

Have to say the schedule is working out pretty well for the Titans this year.  Those early wins on the road will set you up nicely for later home games against the contenders.   

IWU'70

[AndOne]

Ron Rose on Colin Lake's performance - "holy cramoly (sp?)."

http://www.wjbc.com/2018/01/13/illinois-wesleyan-edges-past-north-park-in-cciw-battle/
(WJBC postgame)

Is that the same as "Dilly Dilly" ?

No.
It might be "Dilly Dilly" for NPU.
But, for opponents its more like "The Pit of Misery."  ☠️

[Gregory Sager]

Nobody's mentioned this yet, but Kienen Baltimore saw his first action of the season this past week. He started and played 25 minutes in his debut on Wednesday against Carroll, scoring 10 points and grabbing four rebounds. On Saturday night he led the Red Men in scoring against Elmhurst with 15, again hauling in four rebounds, as his minutes were upped by Bosko to 29. He's clearly not all there yet -- he was only 5-17 from the field against the Bluejays -- but his presence is going to really change things for Carthage. Last season as a freshman he was one of the best newcomers in the league, averaging 11.7 ppg while only seeing 19.2 mpg of floor time. Although he had a tendency to play out of control (he fouled out seven times) and wasn't really a great rebounder, he clearly brought the kind of size, athleticism, and aggressiveness to the floor that marked him as a potential CCIW star.

He's been out until this past week with a hand injury (broken thumb is what I heard, but that's second- or thirdhand), but with Baltimore healthy and productive in the lineup the Red Men look a lot more imposing. Another part of that comes from having freshman Sean Johnson around. He is still awkward and unpolished at center, but he's further along in his game already than his dad was -- and his dad, Dan Mulkerin, was one of the best centers in the CCIW in the mid-'80s and has a national championship ring from North Park to show for it. Johnson is already the best rim-protector in the region. He's 16th in the nation in blocked shots per game, and he only plays an average of 15 minutes per game; he's 24th in the nation in total blocks, two spots behind teammate Brad Perry. Along with Perry and Brad Kruse, Johnson has made Carthage the national leader in blocked shots (the Red Men are third nationally in blocks per game). By having 6'10 Johnson and 6'11 Perry in tandem at center, Bosko can deploy a super-big for forty minutes without worrying about endurance. That really frees up the rest of the Red Men to gamble on defense, and while Perry is the only one of the two centers who is an offensive threat at the moment, with Baltimore now joining Kruse and Jordan Thomas in the lineup it's not as though Carthage needs a lot of offensive production from the low post, anyway.

I think that Baltimore's return makes Carthage, which has underperformed to this point but is still 4-2 in CCIW play and only a game out of first, a very dangerous team.

[Gregory Sager]

Ron Rose on Colin Lake's performance - "holy cramoly (sp?)."

http://www.wjbc.com/2018/01/13/illinois-wesleyan-edges-past-north-park-in-cciw-battle/
(WJBC postgame)

Is that the same as "Dilly Dilly" ?

No.
It might be "Dilly Dilly" for NPU.
But, for opponents its more like "The Pit of Misery."  ☠️

[Gregory Sager]

The CCIW and the OAC are the only two leagues that can claim three of the top thirty leading scorers in the country:

4. Aston Francis, WC	27.9 ppg
20. Colin Lake, NPU	23.2 ppg
28. Brady Rose, IWU	22.2 ppg

Jordan Thomas of Carthage (20.1 ppg) is also in the top hundred, in 66th place.

So far this year we've seen Francis go off for 45 against Elmhurst, Sorenson score 54 against Robert Morris, and now Colin Lake go off for 46 against Illinois Wesleyan, and we're just entering the prime of the season.

Alex Sorenson's 54 against RMU-Chicago is the second-best scoring performance by a D3 player this season; Marcus Dempsey of Muskingum, who is the third-leading scorer in the nation at 29.3 ppg, scored 57 in a losing effort against Oberlin the same night that Sorenson went off against RMUC (December 30). Dempsey had scored 48 the night before against Medaille. Naming Dempsey the Oberlin tourney's MVP was probably the easiest decision anybody running a tournament has ever made.

Colin Lake's 46-point performance two days ago ranks 11th in the nation thus far this year; however, three of the top ten were logged by Grinnell players against Bible colleges, so they really shouldn't be taken seriously. Aston Francis's 45-pointer against Elmhurst (which was accumulated in a double-overtime game; Francis had 29 points at the end of regulation in that December 9 game at Faganel) is tied for 12th.

[AndOne]

Marcus Dempsey played the entire game vs. Oberlin.
Todd Raridon removed Alex Sorenson immediately after he broke Bill Warden's almost 63 year old record.
Little doubt Sorenson could have gotten 4 more points as 8:33 remained when he subbed out.

[AndOne]

Nobody's mentioned this yet, but Kienen Baltimore saw his first action of the season this past week. He started and played 25 minutes in his debut on Wednesday against Carroll, scoring 10 points and grabbing four rebounds. On Saturday night he led the Red Men in scoring against Elmhurst with 15, again hauling in four rebounds, as his minutes were upped by Bosko to 29. He's clearly not all there yet -- he was only 5-17 from the field against the Bluejays -- but his presence is going to really change things for Carthage. Last season as a freshman he was one of the best newcomers in the league, averaging 11.7 ppg while only seeing 19.2 mpg of floor time. Although he had a tendency to play out of control (he fouled out seven times) and wasn't really a great rebounder, he clearly brought the kind of size, athleticism, and aggressiveness to the floor that marked him as a potential CCIW star.

He's been out until this past week with a hand injury (broken thumb is what I heard, but that's second- or thirdhand), but with Baltimore healthy and productive in the lineup the Red Men look a lot more imposing. Another part of that comes from having freshman Sean Johnson around. He is still awkward and unpolished at center, but he's further along in his game already than his dad was -- and his dad, Dan Mulkerin, was one of the best centers in the CCIW in the mid-'80s and has a national championship ring from North Park to show for it. Johnson is already the best rim-protector in the region. He's 16th in the nation in blocked shots per game, and he only plays an average of 15 minutes per game; he's 24th in the nation in total blocks, two spots behind teammate Brad Perry. Along with Perry and Brad Kruse, Johnson has made Carthage the national leader in blocked shots (the Red Men are third nationally in blocks per game). By having 6'10 Johnson and 6'11 Perry in tandem at center, Bosko can deploy a super-big for forty minutes without worrying about endurance. That really frees up the rest of the Red Men to gamble on defense, and while Perry is the only one of the two centers who is an offensive threat at the moment, with Baltimore now joining Kruse and Jordan Thomas in the lineup it's not as though Carthage needs a lot of offensive production from the low post, anyway.

I think that Baltimore's return makes Carthage, which has underperformed to this point but is still 4-2 in CCIW play and only a game out of first, a very dangerous team.

I think NC was glad not to have to contend with Baltimore when they beat Carthage recently.
Last year when the Cardinals played in Kenosha, Baltimore had 31 in a 4 point OT victory.
Whether they'll admit it or not, I think other teams that haven't previously had to face him were also relieved.