MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

Also I'm glad to see EC's Dominic Genco get the nod.  I've always thought he played at a pretty high level albeit somewhat overshadowed by Rhode.

Congratulations to all these young men for what they accomplished and overcame this season.

Agreed on both counts. And it's worth noting that Genco had a tremendous burden placed upon him this season, because he was not only called upon to fill Rhode's considerable shoes, he had to do so without the help of Nick Perry as well. If you look at Elmhurst's stats, the three leaders in assists aside from Genco are all forwards. Who knows where Elmhurst would've been this season without Genco.

I regret that I never had the chance to use on the air what I thought would be the perfect nickname for him: "The Consigliere."

[USee]

No Coach of the Year? And no mention of why? Presume its the disparate number of games and opponents teams played?

I'll proclaim Mike Schauer Coach of The Year pre-emptively then!

[iwu70]

Congrats to all the All-CCIW honorees.  Nothing terribly surprising there . . . 

Greg, I'm with you on Alioth.  I thought he was outstanding.

Especially happy to see the Titans honored -- Leritz, Bair and Wallen.  All very deserving.  I love that Bair made First Team.  The Titans are so deep that even a player who was all-CCIW last year, didn't make it this year (Lambesis).  I just looked through the final conference stats and saw how many TITANS were at or near the top of the all-conference categories -- Lambesis, Schumacher, Yoder, a great season by Noe. etc.  The category that was also very telling, one that contributed to the IWU success in this strange season, is "minutes played."  No Titan appeared on that list at all, or played more than about 27-28 minutes a game.   Let's hope that continues next season and the Titans take full advantage of all they have coming back, all that depth. 

Time for March Madness -- I have Gonzaga, Illinois, Alabama and Ohio State in my bracket Final Four, with Gonzaga going all the way.  Can anyone beat Gonzaga this year?  Of course, would love to see Illinois win it all.  I'm planning on winning the pool and funding my entire East Coast road trip in May.  Wish me luck. 

It's on to baseball, softball . . . and much much golf this year.  Q, let me know if you are up this way.  We could play a round together at ISU DA Weibring Championship course.  I have a coupon for you . . .

IWU'70

[Gregory Sager]

No Coach of the Year? And no mention of why? Presume its the disparate number of games and opponents teams played?

I'll proclaim Mike Schauer Coach of The Year pre-emptively then!

Women's basketball didn't have one, either. My guess is that your presumption is correct.

[GoPerry]

No Coach of the Year? And no mention of why? Presume its the disparate number of games and opponents teams played?

I'll proclaim Mike Schauer Coach of The Year pre-emptively then!

Women's basketball didn't have one, either. My guess is that your presumption is correct.

I was wondering about this myself when the Women's team was announced.  But the more I thought about it, coaching this season was much more than just X's and O's on the court.  Having to deal with Covid restrictions, guidelines, testing protocols, players missing games/practices, game cancellations.  Every coach had to deal with these extra challenges but not all of them were challenged equally.  In this context, I could see why the coaches might choose to forego the honor this year.  And I doubt Ron Rose or Mike Schauer (the only logical candidates) really minded.

[USee]

Congrats to all the All-CCIW honorees.  Nothing terribly surprising there . . . 

Greg, I'm with you on Alioth.  I thought he was outstanding.

Especially happy to see the Titans honored -- Leritz, Bair and Wallen.  All very deserving.  I love that Bair made First Team.  The Titans are so deep that even a player who was all-CCIW last year, didn't make it this year (Lambesis).  I just looked through the final conference stats and saw how many TITANS were at or near the top of the all-conference categories -- Lambesis, Schumacher, Yoder, a great season by Noe. etc.  The category that was also very telling, one that contributed to the IWU success in this strange season, is "minutes played."  No Titan appeared on that list at all, or played more than about 27-28 minutes a game.   Let's hope that continues next season and the Titans take full advantage of all they have coming back, all that depth. 

Time for March Madness -- I have Gonzaga, Illinois, Alabama and Ohio State in my bracket Final Four, with Gonzaga going all the way.  Can anyone beat Gonzaga this year?  Of course, would love to see Illinois win it all.  I'm planning on winning the pool and funding my entire East Coast road trip in May.  Wish me luck. 

It's on to baseball, softball . . . and much much golf this year.  Q, let me know if you are up this way.  We could play a round together at ISU DA Weibring Championship course.  I have a coupon for you . . .

IWU'70

I have Baylor going deep. They have 8 people who can guard 5 spots on the floor. So hard to score against.

[Titan Q]

Thank you to Wheaton's Mike Schauer for joining me on episode #2 of the Q-cast!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_XlWlch4pk

0:00​ Playing Through a Pandemic
6:30​ National Committee Role
12:05​ Why the 2021 D3 MBB/WBB Tournaments Were Cancelled
22:55​ Selection/Seed Criteria
33:20​ Wheaton Thunder 2021
38:54​ Wheaton vs Illinois Wesleyan 2021 Title Game
43:00​ Wheaton and CCIW 2021-22
46:12​ The CCIW
48:45​ IWU/Wheaton Rivalry; Perspective
54:23​ Final Thoughts

[iwu70]

Good interview, Q.  I enjoyed it.

'70

[GoPerry]

Thank you to Wheaton's Mike Schauer for joining me on episode #2 of the Q-cast!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_XlWlch4pk

0:00​ Playing Through a Pandemic
6:30​ National Committee Role
12:05​ Why the 2021 D3 MBB/WBB Tournaments Were Cancelled
22:55​ Selection/Seed Criteria
33:20​ Wheaton Thunder 2021
38:54​ Wheaton vs Illinois Wesleyan 2021 Title Game
43:00​ Wheaton and CCIW 2021-22
46:12​ The CCIW
48:45​ IWU/Wheaton Rivalry; Perspective
54:23​ Final Thoughts

Good one Mike.  Being a Thunder and Schauer fan I liked it all. But I found the first 30 mins the most fascinating especially the rationale for canceling the Tournament.

[Yogao]

Congratulations to Toby Marek, whose being named to the All-CCIW team for a second straight season is a nice capstone on a fine career as a Viking.

Carter Duwa was a bit of a surprise for FOY, because I thought that he had played at least a little bit last year. Turns out that he hadn't, so he was eligible for the award. No complaints here about his beating out Mike Osborne (and Justin Steinike, as well) for the award.

I'm not the least bit surprised that Nyameye Adom won MOP. I knew it wouldn't be Fillip Bulatovic, even though he's the league's best player, because, as I said the other day, the coaches don't like to give that award to sophomores as long as there's an upperclassman who is at least vaguely in the vicinity of being the top player in the CCIW (which Adom certainly is). Again, no complaints.

I think that the only player who really got ripped off is Cade Alioth, who most certainly deserved to be on first team. But I get why the coaches did not want to put three Wheaton players on first team, especially when Wesleyan didn't have three, either. The fact that it's well-known that Alioth is coming back for a fifth year might've been a factor in how that vote went as well.

Carter played some early in the year but got injured in December and redshirted.  Can he win Freshman of the year again next year since this year doesn't count towards eligibility?  As a 3rd year freshman standing he has quite a bit of returning experience.

[Titan Q]

Augie commits I've seen on Twitter...

@LukeSeiffert, 5-10 G
@BlakeBenn11, 5-11 G
@matt_hawk5, 6-0 G
@MarioEverett24, 6-0 G
@34Colton12, 6-0 G
@Brandonmerritt0, 6-1 G
@ZacharyMBenn,6-1 G
@anthony3cooper, 6-2 G
@natewilliamz25, 6-4 G
@NicolasGiliber2, 6-4 G/F
@MikeyHam_12, 6-6 F
@kid_cocoa, 6-7 F

[Gregory Sager]

Carter played some early in the year but got injured in December and redshirted.

That's technically not a redshirt, as redshirting is not allowed in D3. A player who is injured before playing a third of the season can retain that year of eligibility upon applying for and receiving a medical hardship waiver, which is sometimes colloquially called a medical redshirt (which may be what you originally meant, in which case I'm just being pedantic here. )

But at least I didn't imagine things without bothering to look them up. Carter Duwa did play in 2019-2020. I'm not losing my long-term memory ... yet. His playing time must've been in JV games, though, since he's not in the 2019-20 season box score on the Augustana website. I seem to remember him getting mentioned in at least one of those "we'll add the result of the JV game in the last line" instances of wrapping up a game story on qconline.com.

Can he win Freshman of the year again next year since this year doesn't count towards eligibility?  As a 3rd year freshman standing he has quite a bit of returning experience.

No. Well, technically he could if he applied for his medical hardship waiver and got it before next season starts, giving him four potential years of eligibility going into the 2021-22 season. But the fact of the matter is that the optics would be terrible if the league's coaches voted for a player to win Freshman of the Year for two consecutive seasons, so I can't imagine that they'd ever do it. In fact, Dave Wrath's already got Duwa listed as a sophomore on the current Augustana roster.

[iwu70]

Sure looks like Augie is going to the five-guard offense and format . . .    

'70

[Titan Q]

IWU commit Nathan Valentine was named Captain of the 2021 Daily Herald Fox Valley All-Area Team.

https://basketball.dailyherald.com/sports/20210320/wait-worth-it-for-genevas-valentine?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

[voxelmhurst]

That's not an indictment of Mark Scherer, who has certainly had a noteworthy career as head coach. Indeed, in the 68 years that Elmhurst has played men's basketball in this league, the only coach who has ever led the Bluejays to a CCIW title is Mark Scherer. And, while it could be argued that his protégé John Baines has outstripped Scherer as Elmhurst's most successful men's basketball coach, having posted a better record at EC/EU both in CCIW play and overall as well as leading the 'jays to more D3 tourney appearances than Scherer did, you can't argue the fact that Scherer is also the person who originally brought Baines to Faganel Hall as his full-time assistant coach, prior to Baines's short stint as the head coach at St. Francis (IL).

This is an interesting discussion which made me look at the numbers.

In 17 seasons as head coach, Scherer had 4 seasons with 10+ CCIW wins, 3 seasons with 20+ overall wins, 1 CCIW title, 2-5 CCIW Tournament record (4 appearances), and 1-2 NCAA record (2 appearances)
In 8 seasons, Baines has 2 seasons with 10+ CCIW wins, 3 seasons with 20+ overall wins, 0 CCIW titles, 5-3 CCIW Tournament record (5 appearances, 1 CCIW Tournament title, 4-2 NCAA record (3 appearances)

Even though Baines is the direct successor to Scherer, they really coached in different eras. Scherer coached 9 seasons before the CCIW tournament was installed, and he only coached in the era of the top 4 teams making the tournament. Baines' greatest team thus far (one of the best in school history) finished 3rd in the CCIW, but few will remember that since they won the CCIW tournament (with 3 wins required of them), and won 2 NCAA games with a Sweet 16 game at home scheduled before the shutdown. Scherer coached before the streaming era, in some cases only one or two games were televised (on delay and on local cable only), Baines has had a weekly Youtube show and is on Twitter.

In the end, I'm not sure a comparison is fair, or even necessary, as much as it is a fan's nature to do so.