MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[petemcb]

At any rate, we now have an interesting topic of discussion opened up: Six teams going to the CCIW tournament instead of four, starting next season. Thoughts?

Thoughts for now:

1) The CCIW tournament just got more important. If and when a #5/#6 seed gets hot and wins the tournament and automatic national tournament bid, this scenario won't be kind to the #2 or #3 (or even #1) seeds who play a good but not great regular season and then come up short in the CCIW tournament.

2) Depending on how a given regular season unfolds, there could be up to 3 separate finishing races at the end of the season. The race for #1, the race for a first-round CCIW bye, and the race to get in at #6. In effect, the chances are now much greater that more CCIW regular season games will mean something.

I agree with point #2 completely.  In thinking about point #1, I'm not really sure it changes anything for the 1 and 2 seeds.  Given that they get a bye through the first round, they will still be playing one or two games just like they do under the current setup.  I'm a fan of more relevant games though.  And, come October, I'll be happy to have to wait one less week to to start feeding at the trough of CCIW games.

[Greek Tragedy]

The other thing I decided to look at too out of curiosity was compare the new format to what other conferences run. When the CCIW was an eight team league only inviting the top four made sense. Now with nine, expansion parallels many other conferences.

I looked at the 43 conferences with auto bids, and not factoring in realignments or changes to other conference tournaments other than the CCIW from last year's tournaments, roughly 62.56 percent of teams in D3 make their conference tournament. Under the new format, the CCIW would send 6 of 9, or 66.7 percent. This is a little above the average as well as the median of 60 percent, but I don't think significantly above that number (someone who understands statistics better than I do can probably help confirm this).

So to USee's earlier point, it may be something of a bubble buster, but so are many other conference tournaments. 10 of them invite at least 80 percent of their teams, with two of these tournaments inviting all conference teams but one, and three bringing everybody. On the other hand, these tournaments would add additional games against regionally ranked opponents (your #3-6 seeds could potentially add another RRO game to their resumes), as well as boost SOS.

Roughly? 62.56%? Wondering if you could get that a little more accurate. Can you go to the 10,000th place? 

[iwumichigander]

At any rate, we now have an interesting topic of discussion opened up: Six teams going to the CCIW tournament instead of four, starting next season. Thoughts?

Let us just give everybody a trophy like they got in Little League.  I see no point in this.

[lmitzel]

The other thing I decided to look at too out of curiosity was compare the new format to what other conferences run. When the CCIW was an eight team league only inviting the top four made sense. Now with nine, expansion parallels many other conferences.

I looked at the 43 conferences with auto bids, and not factoring in realignments or changes to other conference tournaments other than the CCIW from last year's tournaments, roughly 62.56 percent of teams in D3 make their conference tournament. Under the new format, the CCIW would send 6 of 9, or 66.7 percent. This is a little above the average as well as the median of 60 percent, but I don't think significantly above that number (someone who understands statistics better than I do can probably help confirm this).

So to USee's earlier point, it may be something of a bubble buster, but so are many other conference tournaments. 10 of them invite at least 80 percent of their teams, with two of these tournaments inviting all conference teams but one, and three bringing everybody. On the other hand, these tournaments would add additional games against regionally ranked opponents (your #3-6 seeds could potentially add another RRO game to their resumes), as well as boost SOS.

Roughly? 62.56%? Wondering if you could get that a little more accurate. Can you go to the 10,000th place? 

My nose started bleeding and I took it as a sign to stop counting.

[lmitzel]

Final from Naperville: NCC over Millikin 75-49.

The Cardinals literally led for the entire 40 minutes, as Millikin coach Mark Scherer failed to get his starting five to the table in the allotted time. Mike Pollack hit the administrative technical free throw prior to tip-off, and thus began the snowball effect.

North Central assisted on 24 of 26 field goals and hit 17 of 40 threes (11-20 in the first half). Matt Cappelletti led the Cardinals with 19, Mike Pollack had 13, Erwin Henry dropped 11, and Blaise Meredith chipped in 10. Alex Sorenson had an off night with just 8 points on 3-8 shooting, but had a game high 9 rebounds. DaVante Harrell and Korbin Farmer each scored 10 for the Big Blue.

[Gregory Sager]

Carroll 84
North Park 66

Matt Szuba: 19 pts, 7 rebs
Colin Lake: 17 pts, 3 stls, 3:1 a:to
Jack Gurvey: 4:1 a:to

Joel Heesch: 18 pts, 11 rebs, 8:6 a:to, 3 stls
Tyler Ingebrigtsen: 14 pts, 7 rebs, 4:1 a:to
Nick Penny: 14 pts
Kale Maupin: 11 pts
Anthony Marlowe: 4:0 a:to

[iwu70]

Augie wins at WC 86-84.  Orange with the key steal.

Great game.

'70

[Yogao]

Augie 86 Wheaton 84. Back and forth with no team leading by more than 6 points at any time. Huge road win tonight. Nice way to end a 3 game road trip with 2 double digit wins and a nail biter tonight.

Benning had 8 offensive rebounds while Wheaton had 10 in the game.
Francis 8-12 3pts and a total of 37 points

[iwu70]

Big road win for IWU, 93-76 over EC.  Very important win.

Rose 20
Knobloch 19
Gregoire (another great game) 17
Beasley 13 -- hitting key 3s
O'Neill --10

Titans scoring 57 second half points, shooting 48% from three.

For EC:
Dotlich 18
Ireland 16
Fox 12

Keep it rolling TITANS.  Solid games tonight from Knobloch and Gregoire.

IWU'70

[GoPerry]

Augustana 86
Wheaton 84

Aston Francis      37 pts on 11-18, 8-12 3pt
Kobe Eichelberger   14 pts, 5 rebs
Ricky Samuelson   14 pts, 3 rebs
Luke Peters      8 pts, 7rebs, 8 assts

Micah Martin      19 pts, 3 rebs
Nolan Ebel      17 pts
Dylan Sortillo      16 pts
Brett Benning      11 pts, 11 rebs, 6 assts


What can you say?  Great game in front of a big crowd between 2 very good teams.  But it comes down to 2 very costly turnovers by Luke Peters (his only 2 of the game vs 8 assts) who is typically very solid with the ball.  Tough way to lose it, especially since he had such a solid game overall.  Did Wheaton not have any more time outs left on the inbounds play?  Must not have.  Ebel layup to put Augie ahead was just too easy.  Great game by Benning.  Wheaton loses rebounding by 10 – tough to beat national #5 home or away losing the board battle that badly.

Congrats to Augie for getting the win.  Well deserved.  These teams might see each other again down the road.

[Titan Q]

IWU 93
Elmhurst 76

* Brady Rose: 20 pts, 7 reb
* Zach Knobloch: 19 pts (6-8 3-point)
* Jason Gregoire: 17 pts, 5 reb
* Jaylen Beasley: 13 pts, 10 reb
* Alex O'Neill: 10 pts, 4 reb, 3 assists

* D. Dotlich: 18 pts, 2 reb, 3 assists
* J. Ireland: 16 pts, 11 reb, 4 assists
* J. Fox: 12 pts
* J. Rhode: 9 pts, 10 assists

Huge road win for the Titans against a very talented Elmhurst team.  IWU got a nice team effort tonight - Zach Knobloch and Jason Gregoire made huge plays to get IWU back in the game, and then take control.

IWU is now 5-0 on the road in CCIW play.

[CCIWchamps]

Fun game to see the telecast of Wheaton - Augie. Looked like Wheaton was going to pull it out at the right time, but Augie got a key steal, then forced a bad inbounds pass to get another steal and layup. Their guys made the right plays at the right time. I thought Francis was going to get the call for 3 shots at the end, which would have been the equivalent of the Vikings - Saints finish for the craziest end to a back and forth contest.

[lmitzel]

Big road win for IWU, 93-76 over EC.  Very important win.

Rose 20
Knobloch 19
Gregoire (another great game) 17
Beasley 13 -- hitting key 3s
O'Neill --10

Titans scoring 57 second half points, shooting 48% from three.

For EC:
Dotlich 18
Ireland 16
Fox 12

Keep it rolling TITANS.  Solid games tonight from Knobloch and Gregoire.

IWU'70

Key from this game 70/Q didn't mention that I only caught based on peeking at the live stats during timeouts: the Titans went on at least a 16-0 run in the second half to flip an eight point deficit into an eight point lead. I don't know how extended it was, but kudos to the Titans for a nice road win.

[USee]

Augustana 86
Wheaton 84

Aston Francis      37 pts on 11-18, 8-12 3pt
Kobe Eichelberger   14 pts, 5 rebs
Ricky Samuelson   14 pts, 3 rebs
Luke Peters      8 pts, 7rebs, 8 assts

Micah Martin      19 pts, 3 rebs
Nolan Ebel      17 pts
Dylan Sortillo      16 pts
Brett Benning      11 pts, 11 rebs, 6 assts


What can you say?  Great game in front of a big crowd between 2 very good teams.  But it comes down to 2 very costly turnovers by Luke Peters (his only 2 of the game vs 8 assts) who is typically very solid with the ball.  Tough way to lose it, especially since he had such a solid game overall.  Did Wheaton not have any more time outs left on the inbounds play? Must not have.  Ebel layup to put Augie ahead was just too easy.  Great game by Benning.  Wheaton loses rebounding by 10 – tough to beat national #5 home or away losing the board battle that badly.

Congrats to Augie for getting the win.  Well deserved.  These teams might see each other again down the road.

Wheaton called a timeout after that play to set up the Francis miss at the line with 2.5 to go.

[iwumichigander]

Big road win for IWU, 93-76 over EC.  Very important win.

Rose 20
Knobloch 19
Gregoire (another great game) 17
Beasley 13 -- hitting key 3s
O'Neill --10

Titans scoring 57 second half points, shooting 48% from three.

For EC:
Dotlich 18
Ireland 16
Fox 12

Keep it rolling TITANS.  Solid games tonight from Knobloch and Gregoire.

IWU'70

Key from this game 70/Q didn't mention that I only caught based on peeking at the live stats during timeouts: the Titans went on at least a 16-0 run in the second half to flip an eight point deficit into an eight point lead. I don't know how extended it was, but kudos to the Titans for a nice road win.

Titans led by 19 with about 7 minutes remaining but Elhirst did rally to make a contest.  IWU played great defense in the second half.