MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[iwu70]

Agree with Q's assessment.

Rose with another great game.  Gregoire as well. 
Titans have rim protection and blocking with Bair that we have not seen much of recently. Huge upside for him.  Solid back up with Baker. 
Grant Wolfe continues to impress. 

Nice to be 3-0, heading to Wash U on Tuesday. 

My view, which others can disagree with if they wish, is that IWU's defense on the perimeter, against the pick and roll, is not that strong.  Want to see the box and see how many threes Alma made.

Pretty close game and Alma just never went away, never gave up.  Yes, grinding.  Seniors on the floor at the end helps, as Coach Rose has commented.  Rose's FT shooting always such a comfort at crunch time. 

Wash U always runs a very crisp offensive set.  Will be interesting to see how the TITANS handle it.   

IWU'70 

[Titan Q]

Here is the IWU/Alma box...

https://www.iwusports.com/boxscore.aspx?id=6747&path=mbball

Charlie Bair with a double/double in his third collegiate start.

[iwu70]

As I suspected, Alma made 13 treys.  Could be they are just great shooters or it could be that some defense of the arc might need some improvement. 

Good start for the TITANS, a work in progress, at 3-0.

Upside for Charlie Bair there for all to see.  Great to see the rebounding, the blocking and the energy.  He and Alex O'Neil make a very good pair in the paint.

Wash U likely a stronger test.

IWU'70

[voxelmhurst]

Elmhurst 83, Illinois Benedictine 76

Jake Rhode 28 pts, 10 rebs
Derek Dotlich 14 pts, 8 rebs
Lavon Thomas 10 pts, 7 rebs
Jeremy Ireland 7 pts, 9 rebs
Pavlos Marakis 6 pts, 6 rebs, 2 blocks


Eric Grygo 17 pts, 10 rebs
Jaquan Phipps 15 pts
Troy Burrows 12 pts


Elmhurst trailed early 16-9 then went on a 26-4 first-half run, largely led by Rhode and Dotlich. Elmhurst led for much of the rest of this game, with some crawl-back from Benedictine at the end of each half. Outstanding performance by Rhode who led the Jays in both scoring and rebounding. Several other Jays throwing in solid performances as well. Elmhurst outrebounded Benedictine 53-29. Elmhurst played intense throughout the game and got the deserved win. Benedictine looked solid at times but was plagued by stretches of poor shooting, in part due to Elmhurst's intensity on defense.

Elmhurst at home to Blackburn on Tuesday night.

[sac]

As I suspected, Alma made 13 treys.  Could be they are just great shooters or it could be that some defense of the arc might need some improvement. 

Good start for the TITANS, a work in progress, at 3-0.

Upside for Charlie Bair there for all to see.  Great to see the rebounding, the blocking and the energy.  He and Alex O'Neil make a very good pair in the paint.

Wash U likely a stronger test.

IWU'70

Alma typically shoots a lot of 3's.  Accentuated by the fact their bigs usually have the green light to shoot 3's, such as Kevin Gamble with 9 attempts, that's a 6-7 kid.  Kyle Woodruff the young man who went 7-13 today was one of the best 3-point shooters in the state of Michigan a couple years ago out of high school.

They always run a lot of good stuff to get open 3's.

[BobbyO]

Augie beats Calvin 86-67. Ebel again leads the team
in scoring.

Martin stayed out of foul trouble as did the team. A much more aggressive on D and boards. Orange played very smooth. Perhaps the off season is gone and so are the cob webs. Ebel played good a good game. Benning took a lot of the defense of Calvin players. Most likely scouting from Alma game made Calvin pay attention to him and let the other players have room. Overall a great weekend for the team. Balance of team play is the answer.

[Titan Q]

Wheaton 86
#2-UW-Oshkosh 74

Aston Francis with 45 points.

[BobbyO]

Wheaton 86
#2-UW-Oshkosh 74

Aston Francis with 45 points.

So the question is iif Oshkosh is that bad or is Wheaton that good?

[Titan Q]

Wheaton 86
#2-UW-Oshkosh 74

Aston Francis with 45 points.

So the question is iif Oshkosh is that bad or is Wheaton that good?

These are two very even teams.  Both are good.  Wheaton played better tonight -- hard to beat Wheaton when Francis is in crazy mode.

I think IWU, Wheaton, and UW-Oshkosh are pretty even.  Augustana is probably a small notch ahead of this group.

[Gregory Sager]

Greenville 153
North Park 113

Veggie Tangen: 16 pts
Izaiah Sanders: 15 pts, 6 rebs
Toby Marek: 15 pts
Jeremy Greenlee: 7 rebs

This was the first home game in ten years that I didn't broadcast. North Park's SID asked me to keep the book, since it's Greenville and he wanted as experienced a crew at the table as he could find, so I scored the game and NPU senior baseball player Nolan Lux was behind the mic. Thus, instead of giving me laryngitis, Greenville gave me writer's cramp.

I also scored the Hope vs. Simpson game that was played afterwards. That game, which was only 36-18 at the half, felt like it was being played underwater by comparison.

[duckfan41]

Wheaton 86
#2-UW-Oshkosh 74

Aston Francis with 45 points.

Kobe Eichelberger also with a solid game scoring 14 to go along with 11 rebounds. Oshkosh won the rebounding battle overall 50-45, but Wheaton won the battle of the free throws making 24 to Oshkosh's 13.

Wheaton was essentially in the driver's seat from wire to wire tonight, with Francis closing the door at the free throw line down the stretch. Boots for Oshkosh had a very rough game. Luke Peters locked him down all night and towards the end it was obvious Boots was frustrated as he started chucking up ill-advised shots.

This was a huge win for the Thunder, and I hope they can carry this momentum rather than have a letdown at home against Calvin on Tuesday going into the very brief Thanksgiving break.

[GoPerry]

It's only the 3rd game of the season and a home game.   And who knows if Oshkosh is the 2nd best team in their league much less the country.  But this is a significant early season non-con win for the Thunder that could pay dividends in late Feb.

I wouldn't say that Wheaton was in control the whole way.  It was a very close first half and UWO took a 1 point lead early in the 2nd Half about the 6 minute mark.  But Wheaton played a really solid game defensively led once again by Luke Peters who really made it difficult for Ben Boots to get any decent looks.  Even after the team getting into foul trouble, the Thunder were still able to contest lots of shots and give very little up easily.  Gavin Hawkins is a really nice player who plays decent defense, has a better than average shot and is willing to bang inside for rebounds.  He gives Mike Schauer another good weapon when playing a team of size like Oshkosh.

Francis didn't shoot particularly well again.  But he adjusted and instead of the fade way trey(which there will always be plenty of), he started to drive and draw fouls to get the line(16/19)  45 pts, 12/29, 10 rebounds, 5 assists.

[Titan Q]

45 pts, 12/29, 10 rebounds, 5 assists.

This is pretty good.

[Titan Q]

The CCIW is off to a 17-5 (.773) start in men's basketball.  The WIAC is 16-6 (.727).  The team picked 3rd in the CCIW (Wheaton) beat the team picked to win the WIAC (UW-Oshkosh). 

Still early but fun to keep an eye on how these two great leagues stack up. 

As we all knew coming into 2018-19 based on returning talent, the CCIW is really loaded this year.

[Greek Tragedy]

The CCIW is off to a 17-5 (.773) start in men's basketball.  The WIAC is 16-6 (.727).  The team picked 3rd in the CCIW (Wheaton) beat the team picked to win the WIAC (UW-Oshkosh). 

Still early but fun to keep an eye on how these two great leagues stack up. 

As we all knew coming into 2018-19 based on returning talent, the CCIW is really loaded this year.

The WIAC was 8-0 going into the weekend too. Besides last night's Wheaton win, were there any other CCIW/WIAC matchups? There aren't a lot, usually, with Stout, Eau Claire, River Falls and La Crosse playing a lot of UMAC and MIAC games for geographical reasons.