MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[duckfan41]

That's actually one and a half on five. One CCIW team will have to field only one full player, plus another player who has to hop around on one foot.

So Aston Francis on one foot plus a post guy (Alex Sorenson? Micah Martin? Alex O'Neill? Brad Perry/Brad Kruse/Sean Johnson? Take your pick)? One-footed Francis can probably still drain 28 footers at a ridiculous clip.

Go back and watch the fadeaway he hit at the halftime buzzer against IWU, and you'd get your one-footed version of Francis 

[iwu70]

Nice piece in today's Pgraph about Brady Rose and his rise to the top echelon in the CCIW.  Check it out:  pantagraph.com 

'70

[Titan Q]

#23-Illinois Wesleyan (17-5, 10-3) at Millikin (11-12, 4-10), 7pm...

#23-Illinois Wesleyan (17-5, 10-3)
G - Brady Rose, 6-3/185 Jr.  22.4 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 3.3 apg
G - Colin Bonnett, 6-4/190 Jr.  12.4 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 2.6 apg
G - Jason Gregoire, 6-4/195 Jr.  8.2 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 1.7 apg
F - Jaylen Beasley, 6-6/185 Sr.  6.0 ppg, 7.0 rpg
C - Alex O'Neill, 6-9/245 So.  8.4 ppg, 5.0 rpg

Millikin (11-12, 4-10)
G- Levi Laws, 6-0/202 Jr.  5.3 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 3.6 apg
G - Zach Fisher, 6-4/167 So.  14.0 ppg, 1.9 ppg, 1.2 rpg
F - DeVante Harrell, 6-6/200 Jr.  10.9 ppg, 5.6 rpg, 2.1 apg
F - Elijah Henry, 6-7/220 Jr. 16.9 ppg, 8.3 rpg
F - Jordan Cunningham, 6-6/295 So.  6.1 ppg, 5.4 rpg


Pantagraph: http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/college/basketball/men/brady-rose-evolves-into-elite-player-for-iwu/article_3f577b88-2565-578e-bda8-bb7660b140be.html

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

Video: https://portal.stretchinternet.com/millikin/

Live stats: http://www.sidearmstats.com/millikin/mbball/

[lmitzel]

As far as I can tell for today, there's one big clinching scenario tonight: a Wheaton win over Carthage locks the top four into place in some order: Illinois Wesleyan, Augustana, North Central, and Wheaton. Independent of that, Illinois Wesleyan and North Central can both clinch CCIW Tournament berths with wins over Millikin and Carroll, respectively, if Wheaton can't beat Carthage.

I think seedings are all still up in the air at this point; anyone can still theoretically claim the top spot except Carthage should they somehow sneak in.

[lmitzel]

From the Pool C thread:

These things are here:
http://www.d3hoops.com/notables/2018/02/men-regional-rankings-second

Augie stands pat at 3, Illinois Wesleyan falls from 5 to 6, Wheaton enters the rankings at 7, NCC falls out.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Week 2 Regional Rankings are out: http://www.d3hoops.com/notables/2018/02/men-regional-rankings-second

[lmitzel]

With the data sheet out, here's the RRO records:

• Wash U: 7-1
• UW-Platteville: 3-2
• Augie: 5-2
• UW-Oshkosh: 4-2
• UWSP: 4-5
• IWU: 2-3
• Wheaton: 4-3
• UWRF: 2-5

NCC has an 0-4 mark, which I'm sure is a huge reason why they're out this week.

[thunder38]

Have to think if Wheaton can win out in the regular season and win one game in the CCIW Tournament, that should be enough to get Wheaton on the right side of the bubble. That would put them at 20-7 and 5-4 against RRO including three of the better road wins in the country.

[GoPerry]

Have to think if Wheaton can win out in the regular season and win one game in the CCIW Tournament, that should be enough to get Wheaton on the right side of the bubble. That would put them at 20-7 and 5-4 against RRO including three of the better road wins in the country.

Really important for Wheaton to not just get into the rankings but to also get over UW River Falls.  Still, as you say, they are susceptible to any further regular season losses.  Vs Carthage tonight, Sat vs NCC, and @ Carroll next week will not be easy at all.  They were in a similar position last year to get into the CCIW tournament and, well, . . .

[duckfan41]

Got to looking at the regional rankings this year, and seeing the teams ahead of Wheaton more or less make sense. Something I feel isn't getting acknowledged fully though is Wheaton's road wins, especially the one that came @Whitworth. Whitworth has lost 3 times this season, twice to National #1 Whitman, and once to the Thunder. Now I know the loss to Millikin is a very bad loss, along with Calvin and Alma, but the road win résumé owned by Wheaton seems second to none, and I'll be honest and say I haven't researched the quality of road wins for every D3 team. I just think it's interesting that these wins, especially the one over a very good Whitworth team, seem to be going ignored in both the regional and national polls.   

[GoPerry]

Got to looking at the regional rankings this year, and seeing the teams ahead of Wheaton more or less make sense. Something I feel isn't getting acknowledged fully though is Wheaton's road wins, especially the one that came @Whitworth. Whitworth has lost 3 times this season, twice to National #1 Whitman, and once to the Thunder. Now I know the loss to Millikin is a very bad loss, along with Calvin and Alma, but the road win résumé owned by Wheaton seems second to none, and I'll be honest and say I haven't researched the quality of road wins for every D3 team. I just think it's interesting that these wins, especially the one over a very good Whitworth team, seem to be going ignored in both the regional and national polls.   

Win quality, road or home, is not a specific criteria in the RRs besides the simple wins/losses vs RROs.  So the win at Whitworth is being accounted for but has the same status as home win vs Baldwin Wallace.

Loss quality is also not a criteria - and it's a good thing for Wheaton.  Still, that very bad Alma loss, the sting of which seemed minimized coming so early in the year, might really end up costing them ( as well as the Millikin one).

[Gregory Sager]

Got to looking at the regional rankings this year, and seeing the teams ahead of Wheaton more or less make sense. Something I feel isn't getting acknowledged fully though is Wheaton's road wins, especially the one that came @Whitworth. Whitworth has lost 3 times this season, twice to National #1 Whitman, and once to the Thunder. Now I know the loss to Millikin is a very bad loss, along with Calvin and Alma, but the road win résumé owned by Wheaton seems second to none, and I'll be honest and say I haven't researched the quality of road wins for every D3 team. I just think it's interesting that these wins, especially the one over a very good Whitworth team, seem to be going ignored in both the regional and national polls.   

You're confusing two different animals, duckfan. The first is not a poll; it's a weekly ranking put together by D3's national men's basketball committee, and it's the only thing that matters at this point. It ranks the teams in each of the eight regions using five primary criteria, as outlined on page 18 of the Manual. Among those criteria is record versus ranked (i.e., the last and next-to-last regional rankings) teams. Each week the previous week's rankings are used as the ongoing placeholder for that Selection Monday criterion. Since Whitworth is regionally ranked in the West Region (#2 last week, #5 this week), I can assure you that that win not only counts for Wheaton in terms of winning percentage and strength of schedule (which are two of the other four primary criteria), it counts in terms of that record-versus-ranked-teams criterion as well. Far from being ignored, the Wheaton win over Whitworth is, in point of fact, thus counted within three of the five primary criteria!

By contrast, the "national poll" to which you refer, the d3hoops.com Top 25, serves no official purpose as far as the NCAA D3 selection process is concerned. It's simply a poll constructed by a private service (this website) to facilitate discussion and visibility for D3 men's basketball. If you want to argue that Wheaton is being undervalued in the d3hoops.com Top 25 poll, that's fine. You just need to be assured that it won't ultimately matter, because the d3hoops.com poll won't affect whether or not Wheaton gets into the field of 64 on Selection Monday.

[duckfan41]

Got to looking at the regional rankings this year, and seeing the teams ahead of Wheaton more or less make sense. Something I feel isn't getting acknowledged fully though is Wheaton's road wins, especially the one that came @Whitworth. Whitworth has lost 3 times this season, twice to National #1 Whitman, and once to the Thunder. Now I know the loss to Millikin is a very bad loss, along with Calvin and Alma, but the road win résumé owned by Wheaton seems second to none, and I'll be honest and say I haven't researched the quality of road wins for every D3 team. I just think it's interesting that these wins, especially the one over a very good Whitworth team, seem to be going ignored in both the regional and national polls.   

You're confusing two different animals, duckfan. The first is not a poll; it's a weekly ranking put together by D3's national men's basketball committee, and it's the only thing that matters at this point. It ranks the teams in each of the eight regions using five primary criteria, as outlined on page 18 of the Manual. Among those criteria is record versus ranked (i.e., the last and next-to-last regional rankings) teams. Each week the previous week's rankings are used as the ongoing placeholder for that Selection Monday criterion. Since Whitworth is regionally ranked in the West Region (#2 last week, #5 this week), I can assure you that that win not only counts for Wheaton in terms of winning percentage and strength of schedule (which are two of the other four primary criteria), it counts in terms of that record-versus-ranked-teams criterion as well. Far from being ignored, the Wheaton win over Whitworth is, in point of fact, thus counted within three of the five primary criteria!

By contrast, the "national poll" to which you refer, the d3hoops.com Top 25, serves no official purpose as far as the NCAA D3 selection process is concerned. It's simply a poll constructed by a private service (this website) to facilitate discussion and visibility for D3 men's basketball. If you want to argue that Wheaton is being undervalued in the d3hoops.com Top 25 poll, that's fine. You just need to be assured that it won't ultimately matter, because the d3hoops.com poll won't affect whether or not Wheaton gets into the field of 64 on Selection Monday.

Got it! Thank you! I don't pretend to know how that whole process works, so it's always helpful to be informed.

[Gregory Sager]

No problemo!

[fantastic50]

Have to think if Wheaton can win out in the regular season and win one game in the CCIW Tournament, that should be enough to get Wheaton on the right side of the bubble. That would put them at 20-7 and 5-4 against RRO including three of the better road wins in the country.

At 20-7 (.741) / .561 SOS / 5-3 vRRO, Wheaton would be a near-lock for a Pool C berth if they can do that.