MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[blue_jays]

Congrats to Bosco on his Cheeseheadland Hall of Fame honor. 

We've been over this before, Mark.

This is Bosco:



This is Bosko:

And this is Bosco On Bosko

[WUPHF]

Everything about the last few posts, awesome, though I would have used Bosco Sticks to illustrate the point.

[Gregory Sager]

Congrats to Bosco on his Cheeseheadland Hall of Fame honor. 

We've been over this before, Mark.

This is Bosco:



This is Bosko:

And this is Bosco On Bosko

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

No Seinfeld clip here?

[Gregory Sager]

I think that we exhausted the whole George Costanza angle the last time that Mark misspelled Bosko's name.

Or was it the time before that? 

[Stertorous Thunder]

The CCIW has kept track of steals as a statistic since 1995-96. In that time, only twice has a player reached the 40-steals mark in conference play ... and both times it was the same player. Elmhurst's Chris Martin, now the head coach of Loras, had 45 steals in CCIW play in 2004-05, and 44 in 2005-06. Nobody else before this season had ever had more than 38.

Thus far this season, with one conference game remaining, NPU's Shamar Pumphrey has 42 steals in CCIW play, and his teammate Marquise Jackson has 41.

In third place in CCIW steals this season is NPU's Jordan Boyd, whose 27 steals would've led the league in roughly half of the seasons played since 1995-96. In fourth place with 26 is NPU's Kolden Vanlandingham; same notation.

North Park's 198 steals in CCIW games (13.2 per game) is almost as many as the next two teams combined.

Seven of the nine teams in the CCIW have negative turnover margins in league play -- and one of them is Wheaton, which, as I posted a few minutes ago, ranks 17th in all of D3 in fewest turnovers per game, averaging a measly 10.8 giveaways on the season. And yet Wheaton has a -0.80 turnover rate in CCIW play! How can that be?

Well, let's look at the two teams in the CCIW that have positive turnover margins in league play. One of them is Carthage, whose CCIW turnover margin is a modest +0.53. The other is North Park, whose CCIW turnover margin is -- get this -- +8.73.

Don't tell me that Sean Smith isn't turning this league upside-down with his style of play, and the players he's brought in this season to play it, because the numbers don't lie.

Don't stop there with the steals stats.  Jackson has 64 and Pumphrey has 60, when you look at all games for the season.  On the overall stat board for steals, five of the top seven and six of the top ten are Vikings: Jackson #1, Pumphrey #2, Vanlandingham #5, Jordan Boyd #6, Jalen Boyd #7, Dixon #10.  That's impressive when your bench guys are on a top ten leaderboard.  I am too lazy to do the math, but it wouldn't surprise me if Dixon was the leader in steals on a per minute basis.

Assuming they earn a bid, North Park in the NCAA tournament could be especially entertaining.  At this point in the season, CCIW coaches and players have spent many hours studying the NPU system and tendencies, so you would assume that they have been at least partially successful in finding ways to reduce the number of steals that NPU can accrue in a league game.  But with the right matchup against a slower and underprepared opponent, North Park could set a single game steals record.  My analogy is Wheaton's Final Four run behind Aston Francis.  Francis torched the league for 32 points per game but then scored 45 points per game in the tournament (and the immortal 62-point explosion against Marietta).  Coaches probably watched film and assumed that the game plans they applied against the best opposing shooting guard they had faced earlier in the season would be sufficient, only to learn that Francis was at a level beyond anyone else they had ever seen.  I can envision a similar scenario where an opposing coach tells his team to look out for North Park's traps and busy hands in the passing lanes, but isn't truly prepared for the swarm of energy and precision defensive wizardry headed their way.

[iwu70]

Good laughs with Bosko on Bosco!   LOL 

You'all knew who I meant!!   

'70

[kiko]

North Central 77, Marian 54

It's deeply weird to remember 'oh, there's a game tonight!' on a Friday, but the Cardinals made the trek to Wisconsin this evening and were largely unbothered by Marian as they put the Sabres to the sword in Fond du Lac.

There was little at stake for either team, so both coaches seemed to have an eye cast toward their respective conference tournaments next week.  Twelve Sabres saw playing time in the first half, while on the other end, Matt Helwig played just 21 minutes and sat for good with 12 minutes to go.  Both benches emptied around the four minute mark.

Marian's shooting fell off in the second half (44% first half; 34% second half), and the Sabres were outrebounded 35-21 as the Sons of Warden stretched a nine point halftime edge to as many as 25 down the stretch.

Marian was regionally ranked this week, but I expect someone else will rotate into that slot when the next rankings are released.  The win closed out a nice week for the Cardinals; this one didn't tell us a whole lot so we'll find out next Tuesday whether they have fully righted the ship.

North Central
Mitch Lewis 16 and 5 in 16 minutes
Shea Cupples 14 on 6-of-8 shooting
Ethan Helwig 11
Matt Helwig 11
Erikas Gurskas 8 and 7 while matching a season high 23 minutes of game time

Freshman Johnny Riva saw his first action of the season in the final minutes

Marian
David Britton 15
Lucus La Mue 11

[Gregory Sager]

Marian was regionally ranked this week, but I expect someone else will rotate into that slot when the next rankings are released.

I could live with it if the team that replaced the Sabres was North Central. NPU would lose one regionally-ranked win, but gain two in exchange.

[monsoon]

Not CCIW, or even D3, but NAIA Trinity International Univ. in Deerfield IL is shutting down their entire on-campus undergraduate program after this semester, moving all undergrad classes to on-line only. I imagine this will end intercollegiate athletics for them.

[kiko]

Marian was regionally ranked this week, but I expect someone else will rotate into that slot when the next rankings are released.

I could live with it if the team that replaced the Sabres was North Central. NPU would lose one regionally-ranked win, but gain two in exchange.

There aren't a ton of great candidates, but, this week's results aside, my money would be on someone like St. Norbert.  I think it will be challenging for the CCIW to occupy five of the seven spots in R8, even though (as we saw tonight and in a few other non-conference matchups) it would probably be deserved.

Unrelated:  The Cardinals pressed a lot tonight, and it bothered the Sabres.  But having seen NPU's quickness and defensive intensity this year, watching it unfold was the visual equivalent of playing a 45 RPM record at 33-1/3 speed.

[lmitzel]

Marian was regionally ranked this week, but I expect someone else will rotate into that slot when the next rankings are released.

I could live with it if the team that replaced the Sabres was North Central. NPU would lose one regionally-ranked win, but gain two in exchange.

There aren't a ton of great candidates, but, this week's results aside, my money would be on someone like St. Norbert.  I think it will be challenging for the CCIW to occupy five of the seven spots in R8, even though (as we saw tonight and in a few other non-conference matchups) it would probably be deserved.

I guess it depends on if the .560 win percentage isn't a dealbreaker with a 70 point advantage in SOS (as of right now; I don't think that's been updated on Matt Snyder's site yet) over a 16-7 St. Norbert or Wisconsin Lutheran. Though 4-5 looks a lot better than 2-3 or 1-1, respectively, too.

[Gregory Sager]

Not CCIW, or even D3, but NAIA Trinity International Univ. in Deerfield IL is shutting down their entire on-campus undergraduate program after this semester, moving all undergrad classes to on-line only. I imagine this will end intercollegiate athletics for them.

That's a shame, although it's always seemed to me that TEDS (the affiliated seminary) was the main cog up there in Deerfield and that Trinity College (TIU's undergrad school) was perennially treated as an afterthought.

North Park head coach Sean Smith is a TIU grad. He was a three-year captain for the Trojans.

Unrelated:  The Cardinals pressed a lot tonight, and it bothered the Sabres.  But having seen NPU's quickness and defensive intensity this year, watching it unfold was the visual equivalent of playing a 45 RPM record at 33-1/3 speed.

When North Park beat Marian up in Fondue Lack during Thanksgiving week, Marquise Jackson scored 40 points on 18-25 shooting, making the only two treys he shot and two of the three FTs he attempted. I'm sure that all, or nearly all, of the other 16 shots he made were layups. Watching 'quise play against Marian was like watching a Roadrunner cartoon.

[monsoon]

Not CCIW, or even D3, but NAIA Trinity International Univ. in Deerfield IL is shutting down their entire on-campus undergraduate program after this semester, moving all undergrad classes to on-line only. I imagine this will end intercollegiate athletics for them.

That's a shame, although it's always seemed to me that TEDS (the affiliated seminary) was the main cog up there in Deerfield and that Trinity College (TIU's undergrad school) was perennially treated as an afterthought.

Absolutely.

[Greek Tragedy]

When North Park beat Marian up in Fondue Lack during Thanksgiving week, Marquise Jackson scored 40 points on 18-25 shooting, making the only two treys he shot and two of the three FTs he attempted. I'm sure that all, or nearly all, of the other 16 shots he made were layups. Watching 'quise play against Marian was like watching a Roadrunner cartoon.

Trying to figure out if you purposely did that or the predictive text did that. Either way, hilarious.