MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Mr. Ypsi]

Augie's win tonight was number 400 at Augie for Coach G. Quite an accomplishment in a conference as competitive as the CCIW. Lots of sports coats tossed in reaching that plateau. Congrats Coach!

Congratulations to Coach G!   (Despite the snark in the remainder of the post, I DO mean that sincerely.)

You're 60% of the way to catching Dennie Bridges!  (Only 267 wins to go.)

But you are infinitely ahead in thrown sports coats!

[Gregory Sager]

Augie's win tonight was number 400 at Augie for Coach G. Quite an accomplishment in a conference as competitive as the CCIW. Lots of sports coats tossed in reaching that plateau. Congrats Coach!

Congratulations to Coach G!   (Despite the snark in the remainder of the post, I DO mean that sincerely.)

You're 60% of the way to catching Dennie Bridges!  (Only 267 wins to go.)

He's closer than that, Chuck. Giovanine won a  bunch of games as the head coach of Lamar prior to moving on to Rock Island.

[GoPerry]

Wheaton falls to Illinois Tech down on the South Side, 75-72. It was quite a battle between superstar guards Aston Francis and Anthony Mosley, Jr.; Francis nearly had a triple-double, ending with a 34-10-8 line, while Mosley had a fine game of his own for the Scarlet Hawks with 21-5-9. Wheaton also got 10 points from Anajuwon Spencer, while Luke Peters had eight boards and four assists. Wheaton's been a great FT shooting team this year (77% as a team), but the boys from DuPage County only shot 14-23 (61%) tonight. Two especially tough misses were a blown front end of a one-and-one by Peters with a minute to go and a miss by Francis in the waning seconds with WC down three.

It was actually Eichelberger who missed that front end but the point is the same.  We really needed to convert that one with the clock stopped - at least get the front end to pull within 2.

In any case, not a great loss for Wheaton in that it exposed, again, how susceptible the team is if Francis doesn't quite have it going and others neglect to step up.  After a phenomenal 21 first half points (7-12, 3/5 three) and hitting his first trey of the 2nd, Francis went noticeably cold for the next 12 or so mins and his teammates didn't pick up the scoring slack.  He finished 11-24, 6/14 3FG.  Both he and Peters had some costly turnovers at inopportune times down the stretch also.  Having Spencer Petersen and his size getting starters minutes is a welcome change if he can A. learn how to play low post D without fouling and B. understand there's a reason why opponents are leaving him wide open for 3 pt shots.

Wheaton needs to put together a win streak after two straight losses.

[augiefan]

80 additional wins at Lamar for Coach G.

[Gregory Sager]

Illinois Wesleyan was run over tonight by a Dodge -- Nate Dodge, that is, who scored 31 for UWSP as the Pointers beat the Titans, 76-70. Brady Rose didn't have a great shooting game, but he managed to scratch out 23 points; Alex O'Neill had a solid 13 and 9 game, and Jason Gregoire added 11. Charlie Bair had seven boards for IWU, but his last one was fatal -- he had it ripped out of his hands by UWSP's Brett Tauber with IWU down three and about a half-minute left.

[Gregory Sager]

Wheaton falls to Illinois Tech down on the South Side, 75-72. It was quite a battle between superstar guards Aston Francis and Anthony Mosley, Jr.; Francis nearly had a triple-double, ending with a 34-10-8 line, while Mosley had a fine game of his own for the Scarlet Hawks with 21-5-9. Wheaton also got 10 points from Anajuwon Spencer, while Luke Peters had eight boards and four assists. Wheaton's been a great FT shooting team this year (77% as a team), but the boys from DuPage County only shot 14-23 (61%) tonight. Two especially tough misses were a blown front end of a one-and-one by Peters with a minute to go and a miss by Francis in the waning seconds with WC down three.

It was actually Eichelberger who missed that front end but the point is the same.  We really needed to convert that one with the clock stopped - at least get the front end to pull within 2.

What is going on with Eichelberger, anyway? He is not the same player that he was as recently as three weeks ago. He had been averaging 9 ppg, which made him the team's second-best option after Francis, but over Wheaton's last three games he's scored a combined total of six points on 1-8 shooting. Is he injured? Suffering from a lingering illness? I don't see Wheaton going far without Kobe Eichelberger contributing the kinds of things he's capable of contributing to Wheaton.

[duckfan41]

Wheaton falls to Illinois Tech down on the South Side, 75-72. It was quite a battle between superstar guards Aston Francis and Anthony Mosley, Jr.; Francis nearly had a triple-double, ending with a 34-10-8 line, while Mosley had a fine game of his own for the Scarlet Hawks with 21-5-9. Wheaton also got 10 points from Anajuwon Spencer, while Luke Peters had eight boards and four assists. Wheaton's been a great FT shooting team this year (77% as a team), but the boys from DuPage County only shot 14-23 (61%) tonight. Two especially tough misses were a blown front end of a one-and-one by Peters with a minute to go and a miss by Francis in the waning seconds with WC down three.

It was actually Eichelberger who missed that front end but the point is the same.  We really needed to convert that one with the clock stopped - at least get the front end to pull within 2.

What is going on with Eichelberger, anyway? He is not the same player that he was as recently as three weeks ago. He had been averaging 9 ppg, which made him the team's second-best option after Francis, but over Wheaton's last three games he's scored a combined total of six points on 1-8 shooting. Is he injured? Suffering from a lingering illness? I don't see Wheaton going far without Kobe Eichelberger contributing the kinds of things he's capable of contributing to Wheaton.

He's been nursing an ankle injury (not sure how serious it was when he first suffered it) that he tweaked again down the stretch in the IWU game. Not entirely sure if that's still the reason for his struggles of late, but that's all I can think of.

[iwu70]

Greg has captured well the TITAN frustrations in this loss to Point -- a poor stretch with 6-8 minutes to go, not able to overcome the lead Point built, (after having a first half lead), then key missed FTs, several key lost possessions due to TOs, and, the nemesis of this year so far -- poor perimeter D, unable to stop dribble penetration, defend well the three . . .and, hence, unable to finish games when still very close.  Seems that's the MO of this year's TITANS so far.  Now 8-5 with the two close losses out West to top teams.  Dodge was superb, scoring 31, making 7 treys I think.  Rose made 5.  Gotta suck it up and get back together now for the long CCIW race.  Plenty of basketball to be played, but lots of issues to be resolved with this team, still.  Gotta somehow learn to get and maintain leads . . . finish games. 

'70

[Gregory Sager]

Wheaton falls to Illinois Tech down on the South Side, 75-72. It was quite a battle between superstar guards Aston Francis and Anthony Mosley, Jr.; Francis nearly had a triple-double, ending with a 34-10-8 line, while Mosley had a fine game of his own for the Scarlet Hawks with 21-5-9.

After a phenomenal 21 first half points (7-12, 3/5 three) and hitting his first trey of the 2nd, Francis went noticeably cold for the next 12 or so mins and his teammates didn't pick up the scoring slack.  He finished 11-24, 6/14 3FG.  Both he and Peters had some costly turnovers at inopportune times down the stretch also.

This is a good point, because it brings up something that bothers me about Presto live stats: It doesn't show individual turnovers. I had to wait until the box score was released to find that stat. It turns out that, as fantastic a game as Francis had, he ended up with six turnovers, which erases a lot of the gloss of his eight assists. By stark contrast, Mosley didn't turn the ball over once; a 9:0 floor game is phenomenal in and of itself, but when you combine it with 21 points, 5 rebounds, and 4 steals, you're really talking about something special.

I don't know Mosley, although I've spent the last three years talking him up on d3boards.com, but I'll bet that if you asked him he'd tell you that he was pretty geeked up to play against Aston Francis. Great players typically want to challenge themselves by taking on other great players.

[Gregory Sager]

Wheaton falls to Illinois Tech down on the South Side, 75-72. It was quite a battle between superstar guards Aston Francis and Anthony Mosley, Jr.; Francis nearly had a triple-double, ending with a 34-10-8 line, while Mosley had a fine game of his own for the Scarlet Hawks with 21-5-9. Wheaton also got 10 points from Anajuwon Spencer, while Luke Peters had eight boards and four assists. Wheaton's been a great FT shooting team this year (77% as a team), but the boys from DuPage County only shot 14-23 (61%) tonight. Two especially tough misses were a blown front end of a one-and-one by Peters with a minute to go and a miss by Francis in the waning seconds with WC down three.

It was actually Eichelberger who missed that front end but the point is the same.  We really needed to convert that one with the clock stopped - at least get the front end to pull within 2.

What is going on with Eichelberger, anyway? He is not the same player that he was as recently as three weeks ago. He had been averaging 9 ppg, which made him the team's second-best option after Francis, but over Wheaton's last three games he's scored a combined total of six points on 1-8 shooting. Is he injured? Suffering from a lingering illness? I don't see Wheaton going far without Kobe Eichelberger contributing the kinds of things he's capable of contributing to Wheaton.

He's been nursing an ankle injury (not sure how serious it was when he first suffered it) that he tweaked again down the stretch in the IWU game. Not entirely sure if that's still the reason for his struggles of late, but that's all I can think of.

He looked perfectly healthy -- and played very well, unlike a lot of his teammates -- in Wheaton's loss to North Park, and that NPU game was the game immediately before the IWU game.

[kiko]

Augie's win tonight was number 400 at Augie for Coach G. Quite an accomplishment in a conference as competitive as the CCIW. Lots of sports coats tossed in reaching that plateau. Congrats Coach!

Congratulations to Coach G!   (Despite the snark in the remainder of the post, I DO mean that sincerely.)

You're 60% of the way to catching Dennie Bridges!  (Only 267 wins to go.)

But you are infinitely ahead in thrown sports coats!

Coach G wins number 400!

[Gregory Sager]

Perfect, kiko.

[augie77]

Coach G is 59 years old and trails Bridges by 267 victories (CCIW play).  It's plausible that by coaching until he's 70, Giovanine could surpass Bridges' CCIW win total.  I have no idea how long Coach G will remain in this business, but the possibility is intriguing. 

[GoPerry]

Wheaton falls to Illinois Tech down on the South Side, 75-72. It was quite a battle between superstar guards Aston Francis and Anthony Mosley, Jr.; Francis nearly had a triple-double, ending with a 34-10-8 line, while Mosley had a fine game of his own for the Scarlet Hawks with 21-5-9. Wheaton also got 10 points from Anajuwon Spencer, while Luke Peters had eight boards and four assists. Wheaton's been a great FT shooting team this year (77% as a team), but the boys from DuPage County only shot 14-23 (61%) tonight. Two especially tough misses were a blown front end of a one-and-one by Peters with a minute to go and a miss by Francis in the waning seconds with WC down three.

It was actually Eichelberger who missed that front end but the point is the same.  We really needed to convert that one with the clock stopped - at least get the front end to pull within 2.

What is going on with Eichelberger, anyway? He is not the same player that he was as recently as three weeks ago. He had been averaging 9 ppg, which made him the team's second-best option after Francis, but over Wheaton's last three games he's scored a combined total of six points on 1-8 shooting. Is he injured? Suffering from a lingering illness? I don't see Wheaton going far without Kobe Eichelberger contributing the kinds of things he's capable of contributing to Wheaton.

He's been nursing an ankle injury (not sure how serious it was when he first suffered it) that he tweaked again down the stretch in the IWU game. Not entirely sure if that's still the reason for his struggles of late, but that's all I can think of.

I'm not sure if the injury is still bothering him or not. He looked perfectly fine to me tonight.  But you bring up the right general point Sager.  All of them, especially Adom, Spencer, Eichelberger, I think are capable of doing more.  The difficulty is getting used to deferring to Francis most every possession and then switching to aggressive offense mode when he's either not on the floor or after waiting a bit til he snaps out of it.  It was real obvious in the 2nd H when Francis took a breather and the Thunder promptly committed a 30 sec violation waiting for somebody to shoot or drive.

[Titan Q]

Unfortunately more of the same last night for the Titans.  IWU has really had trouble closing out games during this bad stretch.

Still a long way to go.  Despite losing 5 of 6 now, the Titans are not out of the Pool C picture yet.  IWU can still build a competitive resume (anchored by an elite SOS) if they can now put it together in CCIW play and go, say, 10-2 the rest of the regular season.

To go on a big run, the Titans will have to find a way to get more stops in big moments.  Offense certainly isn't the problem - 82 ppg, .492 FG, .436 3-point.  But opponents shooting .454 just won't cut it.

The strength of IWU's schedule should help the Titans the rest of the way.  Experience against the likes of Augustana, Whitman, and UW-Stevens Point should pay dividends in tough CCIW games.